From: Technotranscendence (neptune@mars.superlink.net)
Date: Mon Dec 30 2002 - 14:05:36 MST
On Monday, December 30, 2002 3:22 PM John K Clark jonkc@att.net wrote:
[Replying to an excerpt sent by Amara from
http://free-market.net/spotlight/policestate/]
>> America is now less like the constitutional republic
>> launched in 1776, and more like a third-world banana
>> republic. "
>
> I really don't think I need to read more because if true
> writing the above or even just reprinting it would mean
> the Thought Police would be pounding on your door
> right about now ready to drag you off to the Ministry
> Of Love. Amara, do you hear anybody knocking on
> your door? I thought not. Saying publicly "we live in a
> banana republic" is a little like saying "Are you
> illiterate? I can help, write to me for details."
First, not all "third-world banana republic[s]" drag people off for
every little offense. The record here is spotty and one of the big
difference between a banana republic and full fledged totalitarian state
is how uneven the authoritarianism is enforced.
The quote above also reads "more like" -- not "just like." This brings
me to the second point, wouldn't you agree that the US government now is
more a threat to freedom -- I mean the freedom of Americans NOT just
foreigners -- than in 1776 or 1789 or 1800 or 1900? This is more
important than whether the government is now just like some proverbial
"third-world banana republic." I don't want to wait until I'm in a
forced labor camp to decide, "Hey, things are bad."
The American Colonials went to war -- treasonous, rebellious, seditious
civil war -- over far less from the British Empire than Modern Americans
put up with from the current government -- or any administration and
Congress that's been in office during the lifetime of anyone on this
list now. We are, today, far more taxed, regulated, and monitored than
the British did to the Colonies circa 1776. So I don't think Amara's
hyperbole is all that hyperbolic. (Forgive the oxymoron.:)
Cheers!
Dan
Find more superficial profundities at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/
"Legislation appears today to be a quick, rational, and far-reaching
remedy against every kind of evil or inconvenience, as compared with,
say, judicial decisions, the settlement of disputes by private arbiters,
conventions, customs, and similar kinds of spontaneous adjustments on
the part of individuals. A fact that almost always goes unnoticed is
that a remedy by way of legislation may be too quick to be efficacious,
too unpredictably far-reaching to be wholly beneficial, and too directly
connected with the contingent views and interests of a handful of people
(the legislators), whoever they may be, to be, in fact, a remedy for all
concerned. Even when all this is noticed, the criticism is usually
directed against particular statutes rather than against legislation as
such, and a new remedy is always looked for in 'better' statutes instead
of in something altogether different from legislation." Bruno Leoni,
_Freedom and the Law_, p7
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