I Power
Scientific Research & Self-Development Activism
What Happened to the "Land of the Free"?
This post evolved from a response that I started to write to another member's recent video upload in which they questioned the Supreme Court's recent ruling about strip searches.
And this is what I ended up writing in response:
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I definitely vote WTF? on this one - but the court's decision was also no big surprise to me since I haven't really believed that America is "the land of the free" for quite some time now. I'm probably going to sound a little bit like a conspiracy nut here, but it's difficult to dispute that ever since WW2 this country has increasingly become more & more of a militaristic police-state than a true Republic; and I think that the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963 sent a pretty clear message to anybody who was paying attention that you "do not fuck with" the Military-Industrial Complex in this country. Realistically, The U.S. has become the very thing that we were supposedly fighting against in WW2 - i.e., a Socialistic and Militaristic Empire. And when over 1/2 of the Federal budget is spent {in one way or another} on "Defense", {that's a lot of fucking money and jobs btw,} there is not going to be any easy way to change that without causing an economic meltdown.
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This latest Supreme Court decision is just another layer of icing on the cake, imo. Crime & Punishment is big business in this country, consisting of over $70 billion in spending; and we have the highest rate of incarceration of any other country in the world! We spend 6 times more money locking people up than we do educating them! True story, bro! And what that all comes down to is that, basically, everybody in the U.S. has somebody in their family who either is, or who has been incarcerated at some time or another. And while I can completely understand the necessity of strip searching prisoners, and even people who have been charged with felonies and who are incarcerated while awaiting their trials, this recent decision is entirely too vague and expansive and will only open the door to a plethora of police abuse incidents. The majority of people in this country like to think that their police and corrections officers are like noble knights who are very pure and virtuous characters - but I have been on both sides of the bars and I can tell you that this is not the way things are at all. {Yes - I worked for the Ohio Department of Corrections in the past; and I have also been arrested a few times and have spent some time in different jails on occasion.} There are plenty of kinky and sadistic bastards out there who are on a power trip who wear a badge and a uniform. So, political protesters beware - you won't just be getting maced anymore for "Occupying" your town square... you'll be getting strip-searched, too. And all of you attractive women... oh hell, I better not even go there. lol
Has everybody forgotten the TSA and how commonly they abuse their authority in conducting searches?
If you add in the routine monitoring of phone conversations and internet communications by our national "security" agencies, along with the prevalence of security cameras everywhere these days, and the complete legality of private wire-tapping, and the "new & improved" National Defense Authorization Act which allows military agencies in this country to detain you indefinitely and without trial,.. and the Fourth Amendment basically doesn't really mean anything anymore. It might as well not exist.
We have essentially become the Nazis, in many ways -- minus the genocide.
But that could change, too... and probably will.
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Links for Reference:
Legal Dictionary - The Fourth Amendment
The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Supreme Court Upholds Blanket Strip-Search Policy
Incarceration in the United States - Wikipedia
America Spends More on Jails than on Education
U.S. Spends 6 Times More on Prisons than Education
National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012
Additional Charts on Military Spending in the U.S.
Wire-Tapping and Electronic Surveillance
The Information Awareness Office and Narus-Insight
Military-Industrial Complex - Wikipedia
President Dwight D. Eisenhower warns of the Military-Industrial Com...
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/discuss
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12-08-2012 .. Note that the member who made the video I was responding to when I originally wrote this post closed his account recently and deleted all of his content in the process. His comments are now missing as a result, so you will see a few gaps in the thread below.
Tags: America, Arrest, Complex, Corruption, Defense, Detain, Due-Process, Fourth Amendment, Government, Industrial, More…
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by The Shiznit on -
NIN -- not my kind of music... but I get the point. :-)
Personally, since last Fall, I always hear this song in my head now when I see somebody waving the flag or talking about how we all need to "support our troops".
The video is a montage of old footage about the Hitlerjugend ( Hitler youth) set to a song by Kent called The Sundance Kid. I found it last September when I was writing this blog post:
American Imperialism & Godonomics
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Related Topic: American Imperialism - Wikipedia
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Permalink Reply by The Berns on -
It's not just America, sadly. It's the whole damn world turning to crap.
In Europe everyone is declared a terrorist until proven otherwise. Every phone call, e-mail, internet connection, etc. gets logged for over half a year, so that courts, police and government agencies may look into it as they wish. I know, you over there have had such a system for a long time already, but for "us" this is new... and another step into a very, very wrong direction. Also we have a new law in Austria, that makes it possible to shut down different opinions, because it's gotten very very easy to declare something as hate-speech.The American strip searches for minor offences are just another brick in the wall that will bury our freedom. If America does it, it's very likely that the EU will do it too - in a few years, as they seem to copy quite a lot.
Governments EVERYWHERE are getting more and more powerful, gaining more and more influence on our private lives. Raising awareness seems rather senseless - most people don't even care. To me it often feels like trying to keep out the water of a submarine on the ground of the ocean. You can't stop fighting it, you are not allowed to, if you want to live - but still there's more and more water coming through, and drowning is just a matter of time.
I may sound very pessimistic here. But I DO believe that it can be stopped. I just don't know how, yet. ^^
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Permalink Reply by Nathan Davies on -
I'm with you on this. Governments have been long overdue to be set back in their place. Things that used to be simple freedoms and taken for granted have long since been taken away from us. It's really a shame. The saddest thing about the whole situation is that we as a people are responsible. We fell asleep, and now we are paying the consequences.
Now many are waking up to find how much harder it will be to restore our freedoms than it would have been to protect them to start with. The only thing we can do at this point is to educate ourselves and others so that awareness is raised. The more people know, the more power we have to stop it. In the end it breaks down to who we put in charge and what we let those people get away with.
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Permalink Reply by SparTom007 - Tom on -
What we should be doing is spreading this important information as far as we can throughout the world. Not only that, we should be coming up with solutions. Actually, solutions already exist, it seems we have forgotten about the advancements in technology over the past 20 years, or more probably, that the mainstream media, part of the same empire that controls the legal system in the US and the world doesn't want us to know about the solutions. It's why some people start to believe in the idea of a new world order. I don't see there being some sort of set up as those theorists believe, but I do see that the problem is part of a flawed system. All of this stems from the problems of basing the entire world's economic system on the ideas of competition and infinite growth on a finite planet. We don't have the technology to expand into space yet so the infinite growth model is doomed. When we expand into the universe, infinite growth might be possible and we could return to this model, but even then, would that be morally right?
Nerdy tl;dr
It's just like the zerg, except they worked together in taking over the universe and we work against ourselves to do it.
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Permalink Reply by SparTom007 - Tom on
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Excellent aricle shizDammit you don't post much but when you do, it's damn good stuff
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Permalink Reply by The Shiznit on
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hehehehe
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Permalink Reply by Marko Bilić on -
I don't even want to think about what kind of weapons the US military has hidden away.
the question is not will we see these weapons, but when...
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Permalink Reply by Lore on -
I'm glad you posted this Shiz, it is good to see someone on the same page as I am. I do think the issues you posted about should be of more concern to Americans. I think a lot of these valid points would be dismissed as conspiracy nut stuff. (this is why I abhor conspiracy theories, they make what is really going on seem like some laughable paranoid fantasy)
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Permalink Reply by Rob Myers on -
Didn't read every single post on this topic, and I was just about to write what you summed up pretty well. Somehow mainstream media and social conditioning has turned everything on this topic into laughable conspiracy theories. How do we even break through and maintain that these issues need to be dealt with?
I've been reading up a lil' on biology recently, and come to the conclusion that we're already at a point where we can synthesise someone's DNA and place it on a crimescene, because what is DNA? It's just a code, and that code can now be reproduced, used to create tissue or fluids that appear to come from a specific person.
Thus, in a not too far off future, using fingerprints and blood as evidence in a crimescene investigation - WILL NOT WORK. You can always say - well my neighbour's got some equipment in his garage, he probably set the whole thing up - I'm innocent. And seeing as anyone really could have done so, these indicators will turn up useless.
How will society then work? IF we assume that it is our nature to do evil or commit crimes? What will the next step be? Nanochips implanted in our bodies, registering our every move? <-- I see no other option to be honest. Bear in mind this might take up to 20-40 years, but how else is the government going to control us? Uphold the law?
These are very fundamental questions that need be discussed.
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Permalink Reply by Tom Sawyer on -
Intersting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYgnVJvMCsE
Suddenly, Canadian politicians are now doing business with american weapons producers.
Maybe I'm crossing the line with this one, but as far as spending more money on incarceration than education goes: which blonde haired, blue-eyed pop star has been promoting the use of substances deemed "illegal" by the authorities of the "free" world?-oh, come on. I'm sure someone can make an easy guess out of it.
Thanks for letting me vent, dudes.
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Permalink Reply by The Shiznit on
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Nice LoTR analogy with the government abuse of power:
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