I find the following trends lately have been disturbing to me even in isolation from each other. Taken as a whole, there is an unmistakably frightening trend:
1) The crackdown on voting -- a flood of new voter ID laws, voter purges, many states enacting higher barriers of proof to proove eligibility, eliminating same-day registration, crackdowns on voter drives, etc. A concerted effort to make voting, or even registering, a much more involved and bureaucratic process, so fewer people do it. No word yet on how to pay for any of it. An inexplicably expensive 'solution' to a problem that has yet to be seen. Meanwhile, don't expect the same politicians to address the extremely poor security of easily-hackable voting machines which are the way elections could ACTUALLY be stolen.
2) The crackdown on marriage - constitutional amendments being rushed through states all over the union in an effort to permanently enshrine gay-hate discrimination into constitutions before the public becomes more tolerant of this demographic. Yet another explicitly anti-liberty trend.
3) The crackdown on birth control - to deny someone their freedoms by exercising your power over them while hiding behind your 'religious freedom' as an excuse is as weak as it gets. (Just as a practical matter -- if your religion forbids all forms of birth control, then it's incompatible with a finite world of 7 billion plus people.)
4) The crackdown on moving around - 'Show me your papers' laws in Arizona, touted by Romney as 'model for the nation'. When I was a kid this was the sort of thing that we were told went on in Communist countries and one of the reasons we were lucky to be 'free' here in America. How long before we all have to carry a full set of documents for inspection just to travel from state to state?
5) The disastrous Citizens United decision, dramatically increasing the power of non-democratic, authoritarian corporate legal power-structures at the expense of natural flesh-and-blood human citizens. Granting these authoritarian power structures anonymity in manipulating the political process, while individuals must show increasing documentation and proof of their worth in the electoral process.
Taken together, there is an unmistakable overarching trend -- increases in various types of authoritarian power by institutions, and aggressive crackdowns in various areas of personal liberty. What's nearly as disturbing as these trends themselves is everyone's passive willingness to just roll over for it. 20 years ago most of this stuff would have been unthinkable.
Amen. It made me think of when George H W Bush said, "We need a kinder, gentler nation." And then followed it up with, "Make my day."
ReplyDeleteI am dumbfounded by the obvious track this country has been on for over 35 years that most folk of which most folk are totally oblivious.
BBIdaho's comments on a return to feudalism seem most most appropriate as well.
Most of the folk I know seem like good people, so where's all the hate come from?
Strong disagreement on #5.
ReplyDeleteThe citizen had nothing to do with "the power of non-democratic, authoritarian corporate legal power-structures at the expense of natural flesh-and-blood human citizens."
...and everything to do with the Constitutionally-protected power of natural flesh-and-blood human citizens to speak out. Something which was criminalized until this decision.
The 'Move to Amend' is a pro-fascist movement, and explicitly seeks to outlaw and regulate speaking out on politicians and political issues as never before.
Also, strong disagreement on #1. Starting with the phrase "voter purges". The names of the fakes, illegals, and the dead who are being purged are not even voters. All in all these are not restrictions on voting, but on fraud. Only those interests who benefit from election fraud are opposed.
Gotta stop that rampant voter fraud ..meanwhile the GOP voting director for a Wisconsin county comes up with 11,000 votes
ReplyDeletethe day after to swing a judicial election. (Apparently the
SCOTUS was not needed to throw that one)