The second amendment falsifies this statement. The only reason our opinions are irrelevant, is because of complacency and the inevitable slide towards tyranny that every world power faces as it ages. The government feels no threat from the people and therefore feels comfortable in selling our freedoms to the highest bidder. If the populous where not so complacent or indoctrinated then our leaders would think twice before leveraging our rights against us. This is a simple concept that the founding fathers understood all to well. They knew the constitution was a piece of paper and that individuals in the government would always look at it as such.
complacency and the inevitable slide towards tyranny
Look, I just don't agree with you that we are inevitably sliding towards tyranny.
If you struggled like I do to consider that the Man could organise His way out of a paper bag, let alone subjugate us all with tyranny, you might chill out on some of these issues.
Not every battle is worth fighting to the steps of Capitol Hill for, and well, in my opinion this Copyright stuff will get sorted out okay. There are big players on both sides of the argument. I cannot imagine Google being too happy about this Treaty.
>Look, I just don't agree with you that we are inevitably sliding towards tyranny.
You may not, but history repeats itself and human history is filled with a lot more tyranny than gilded ages. Hell we are only 200 years out of it now. Rome who we modeled ourselves after slid into it and imploded. So all historical relevance leads one to logically consider that it is a slightly higher than average possibility that we will repeat the cycle of history. Did we do so much better this time?
>If you struggled like I do to consider that the Man could organize His way out of a paper bag, let alone subjugate us all with tyranny.
It's happening all around the globe as we speak. It does not take much effort to find tyranny everywhere you look. Just because the 1st world has grown comfortable and detached does not mean that the 3rd world does not still experience it. Many times from 1st world people that are propping up the tyrants.
>Not every battle is worth fighting to the steps of Capitol Hill
Yes it is this is how tyranny works, the slow erosion of rights. One of the greatest quotes ever penned was by Friedrich Gustav Emil Martin Niemöller in which he said:
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.
This was in response to the Nazi's tyrannical rule of Germany.
The point being, slow erosion of rights and targeting of other groups is the modus operandi of oppression. It has to be checked at every advance or it becomes that much more difficult to resist.
Have you ever noticed that not one President has ever repealed any powers gained by the executive branch and many times oversteps the allotted powers they are given. Make no mistake about it absolute power corrupts absolutely.
It is human nature, the founding fathers new it and tried to set up a system that would leave it in check. Unfortunately, with the erosion of the state governments and militias as a counterweight and the devastation that Europe felt in 1 and 2 it left the US executive branch with the legislative branch as it's only opposition and much like the senate of Rome we can see how well that counterweight worked.
So you can not agree, but you are disagreeing with a lot of historical evidence to the contrary and are pinning your hopes on the fact that this time above all the rest we got it right.
Me I will remain a paranoid whack job like the founding fathers where and the Jews of Germany where and like the Taiwanese are today.
This is an excellent comment, and you are correct that we forget too quickly the abuses of the past. Like Socrates' Apology.
I am reminded of the post a while ago regarding a man whose family was hounded out of their home at gunpoint by the Feds, and their lives systematically destroyed until he was forced to move out of the country, because one of the companies buying hosting from the host he had founded was found doing fraudulent business.
If we're lucky, we'll die before the countries we love turn to tyranny. Will our children? Will our grandchildren?
>If we're lucky, we'll die before the countries we love turn to tyranny. Will our children? Will our grandchildren?
I understand the sentiment, but when I look into the face of my son. I hope every day that if it should ever come to armed resistance that it comes to pass in my time and not his. I am a pacifist above all else, but I would rather have the moral obligation and the wages of war payed by my hand rather than that of my namesake.
He did not create this mess and it weighs on my mind that this is the legacy that I will leave him. We should all be ashamed of the legacy we are leaving to our children and if our legacy to them is tyranny, oppression and struggle then may we all be damned.
