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If achieving the goals which so many had sought for so long meant giving up a little in terms of civil liberties, well what was the harm?

Seduced By Hitler. The Choices of a Nation and the Ethics of Survival, by Adam Lebor, Roger Boyes

There's already been talk of GPS devices in cars to reduce our carbon footprint, for example, and a surprising number of people do not see it as a bad thing.

I still want to know. WHEN CAN I EXPECT TO GET GASSED???

I need to make a will if its going to happen soon. Oh wait, they'll just steal all of my assets and store them in swiss banks. My bad.

JakeTheTall wrote:

This transcends awesome.

QFT

resedit wrote:

He hasn't.
Who said he did?

Clearly your knowledge of nazi germany is unparalleled! 

The same ones the patriotic took from us.

No response, then.  Got it.

Another example - there is a surprising push to require privately owned radio stations with a right wing cast of clowns to give air time to left...

Link?

...while at the same time, Obama is using ABC as his mouth piece for national health care without alternative viewpoints and perspectives being brought in.

Link?

resedit wrote:

There's already been talk of GPS devices in cars to reduce our carbon footprint, for example, and a surprising number of people do not see it as a bad thing.

"Reduce carbon footprint?" 

The commission pegged 2020 as the year for the federal fuel tax, currently 18.5 cents a gallon, to be phased out and replaced by a road tax. One estimate of a road tax that would cover the current federal and state fuel taxes is 1 to 2 cents per mile for cars and light trucks.

The commission said work needed to start soon to prepare for a road tax. But more work has already been done than most people probably realize.

Oregon did a field test in 2007, concluding it was possible to collect a road tax. The University of Iowa’s Public Policy Center — with support from the Federal Highway Administration and 15 states, including Kansas and Missouri — began work a decade ago on how a road tax could be deployed.

Now the University of Iowa, with the help of a $16 million federal grant, is beginning the field test that will eventually include 2,700 vehicles in six states. The vehicles equipped with computers and GPS devices will keep track of the miles traveled and send the data through wireless technology to a billing center that will compute “simulated” tax bills.

This isn't a new concept, it didn't come from the Obama administration, and it's intended to more accurately generate funding for highway projects.

Link.

Here's an actual example of the executive stripping a citizen of rights without due process of law.  Note the complete lack of concern:

resedit wrote:

bratboy wrote:

resedit wrote:

32 days after his arrest he was designated as an enemy combatant. Last time I checked - that's treason if you are a US citizen, is it not?

I thought treason was helping the enemy of your country. Sounds like treason to me.
He was convicted of conspiring with the enemy - which sounds like treason to me.

Huh?

First of all, even if he were charged at 32 days--that's 32 smurfing days!  You can't hold a citizen for 32 days without charge!

Secondly...he was designated an "enemy combatant" so that he could be held without charge.  He had not been formally charged with a crime at that point.

Are you suggesting that an american citizen can rightfully be held without charge as long as the government designates them an "enemy combatant?"  That's bullsmurf.

Is not specifying him as an enemy combatant defining precisely why you are holding him - because he is an active member of a militia that we are at war with (IE treason)?

Link.

My response at the time:

bratboy wrote:

So you're saying that you're fine with holding American citizens on American soil without charge, as long as the government strips them of their rights by classifying them as an "enemy combatant."

Right?

The thread was predictably abandoned at that point.

So let's be clear:  It's defensible for the executive to hold an American citizen without charge, before stripping them of their rights guaranteed under the Constitution by simply designating them an "enemy combatant."

But the duly elected legislative body expanding SCHIP?  That's a rush towards a dictatorship the likes of Nazi Germany.

So you're saying that you're fine with holding American citizens on American soil without charge, as long as the government strips them of their rights by classifying them as an "enemy combatant."

No, and I never was fine with that.
What gave you that insane idea?

Seriously, this is the fourth or fifth time in the last week or so you've taken something I've said and made an absolutely absurd conclusion as a question out of it.

Why are you doing that?

resedit wrote:

The refusal for ABC to present alternate viewpoints though is in the news everywhere.

So it should be really easy for you to demonstrate.

bratboy wrote:

resedit wrote:

He hasn't.
Who said he did?

Clearly your knowledge of nazi germany is unparalleled!

What are getting at?

Let me make something very clear.
I do not believe Obama has intentions anywhere like those of Hitler.
I think he's a good guy. Makes some mistakes, but his intentions I believe are mostly pure.

It's the climate of wanting your government to provide and control everything that is at issue here, and that is exactly where things are headed. Medicine costs to much? Government should control the market. Oil use to high? Government should control the usage, and tax/fine people who drive too much. Etc.

No - government should stay out of most things. Once government has control of something, it never lets go.

The problem is that even if the current government really does have our best interest in mind, a future administration won't.

Last edited by resedit (2009-07-09 7:34 pm)

resedit wrote:

Another example - there is a surprising push to require privately owned radio stations with a right wing cast of clowns to give air time to left, while at the same time, Obama is using ABC as his mouth piece for national health care without alternative viewpoints and perspectives being brought in.

The "surprising" push you refer to was a short lived, minority effort to get the Fairness Doctrine reconsidered. It died from lack of support. Lack of democratic support. Obama was opposed to the Fairness Doctrine being resurrected.
Bush had FOX, Obama has ABC even if that were true in a broad way whats the problem? ABC cannot dictate public opinion particularly, not in this age of incredible information availability.

....and how the hell can we be dangerously close to "nazi germany," without the impending dictatorship?  How is that possible?

Why in the smurf would you use NAZI GERMANY as a comparison, if you're not referring to any of the characteristics that immediately come to mind when NAZI GERMANY is mentioned? 

Why not say, "Oh my god, we're turning into Canada?"  It's clear why.  This is pandering to the nutty base who chanted that Obama is a muslim terrorist who is going to implement marxism or fascism or whatever.  You don't make a comparison to Nazi Germany and then protest that you "didn't mean it in a bad way," unless you're a wholly dishonest individual.

Last edited by bratboy (2009-07-09 7:47 pm)

::summons Cyberpawz's forceps::