All the Infrastructure a Tyrant Would Need, Courtesy of Bush and Obama

[Pointedstick]

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... ma/276635/

To an increasing degree, we're counting on having angels in office and making ourselves vulnerable to devils. Bush and Obama have built infrastructure any devil would lust after. Behold the items on an aspiring tyrant's checklist that they've provided their successors:

    * A precedent that allows the president to kill citizens in secret without prior judicial or legislative review

    * The power to detain prisoners indefinitely without charges or trial

    * Ongoing warrantless surveillance on millions of Americans accused of no wrongdoing, converted into a permanent database so that data of innocents spied upon in 2007 can be accessed in 2027

    * Using ethnic profiling to choose the targets of secret spying, as the NYPD did with John Brennan's blessing

    * Normalizing situations in which the law itself is secret -- and whatever mischief is hiding in those secret interpretations

    * The permissibility of droning to death people whose identities are not even known to those doing the killing

    * The ability to collect DNA swabs of people who have been arrested even if they haven't been convicted of anything

    * A torture program that could be restarted with an executive order

Even if you think Bush and Obama exercised those extraordinary powers responsibly, what makes you think every president would? How can anyone fail to see the huge potential for abuses?

[Benko]

Even if you think Bush and Obama exercised those extraordinary powers responsibly,

Given, Fast and furious, the IRS, AP, Bengazi and (as Leno put it) "a president that really does listen to every american" scandals, I would hope that most would doubt that Obama has.

The tradeoff of privacy vs security is not an easy one, but given what is going on now, I'll take privacy at the expense of the alternative.

[RuralEngineer]

Seeing as how I consider what Bush and Obama did during their tenure abuse, I don't have to wrack my brain very hard to answer the question "what would it be like if a morally bankrupt, power mad individual were to take the Presidency?"  I think it can get worse, it can always get worse, but to I firmly believe that we've seem the machinery outlined in the OP abused by the last two presidents to violate the rights of the citizenry.

[doodle]

Well, americans are by and large getting what they ask for. Maybe now Americans can start to identify with the suspicion / disgust many feel towards our country in other areas of the world. Our  mechanisms of control have been used to influence populations in every corner of the earth for the last 50 years. Now finally Americans are getting a Better sense of just what that feels like. Like the saying goes, you reap what you sow.

[smurff]

Many (not all) Americans cheered when the laws and executive orders permitting this stuff were signed and carried out under Bush II, with scant protest from journalists and civilians when one offense after another was revealed.  I think that under Obama all this stuff is put together so we can see the whole picture of abuse, and people have become more brave about revealing the classified details. 

[RuralEngineer]

Most people in the off topic section are firmly against foreign intervention, Doodle, unless I'm mistaken.  We don't want it but we suffer the consequences along with the sheeple that support the lunacy.

It's also worth pointing out that in our two party system if you vote for the Republican they screw you (Bush) and if you try to correct your mistake and vote in a Dem (Obama) they make it much worse.

[RuralEngineer]

That's pretty much my point. You just can't win because on so many of these kinds of issues the Dems and the GOP are in cahoots. The few who are willing to take a stand have views outside the mainstream and get shouted down.

[Jan Van]

So when will people finally start voting for 3rd parties in bigger numbers?

[D1984]

So when will people finally start voting for 3rd parties in bigger numbers?

I take it you are from (IIRC...please excuse me if I am wrong and feel free to correct me) one of the Benelux countries and thus have a parliament with proportional representation and a national chief executive that is elected either by said proportionally represented parliament or by the voters directly?

Well, in the US we have neither. We have a purely national legislature (Congress) with a winner-take-all system for each district...and the districts themelves are purposefully highly gerrymandered districts to all but ensure one-party control each one; our system for choosing the chief executive (the Electoral College votes for the president; the people don't directly vote for him/her) would allow a third party to possibly win a majority of the popular vote (or at least a plurality of it) and still lose the Presidency. The bottom line of all this? The (for example) Libertarians or Greens could septuple or octuple their current vote percentages and it still wouldn't do them any good.

[Tortoise]

[Ron Paul] was not taken seriously as a candidate by any media (Republican media like Fox News and the Wall Street Journal included), primarily, I believe, because of his stances on foreign policy and executive power.

His position on money and banking also didn't help make him a friend of the media. Ron Paul said on many occasions that, if he were elected President, his first action would be to dismantle the Federal Reserve System. He even wrote a short book entitled End the Fed.

So when will people finally start voting for 3rd parties in bigger numbers?

When their televisions tell them to.

[Jan Van]

I take it you are from (IIRC...please excuse me if I am wrong and feel free to correct me) one of the Benelux countries

Yes, from the Netherlands (long live our new king!), but I live in NC. Moved from TX last year. The libertarian party actually was on the ballot here the last presidential election.

To give you a flavor, see this wiki for the current Dutch political parties. I probably voted for three or four of those at different times...

[rocketdog]

The tradeoff of privacy vs security is not an easy one, but given what is going on now, I'll take privacy at the expense of the alternative.

"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

- Benjamin Franklin (credited)

[rocketdog]

To an increasing degree, we're counting on having angels in office and making ourselves vulnerable to devils. Bush and Obama have built infrastructure any devil would lust after.

We were warned:

“Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.”?
-James Madison
Federalist No. 10 - Federalist Papers (1787-1788)

"In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
-Thomas Jefferson

[Pointedstick]

We were warned:

“Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.”?
-James Madison
Federalist No. 10 - Federalist Papers (1787-1788)

"In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
-Thomas Jefferson

Unfortunately, the constitution was made of paper, not metal, and it turns out that paper makes really bad chains.

[rocketdog]

We were warned:

“Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.”?
-James Madison
Federalist No. 10 - Federalist Papers (1787-1788)

"In questions of power, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
-Thomas Jefferson

Unfortunately, the constitution was made of paper, not metal, and it turns out that paper makes really bad chains.

Oh, you know darn well what he meant, Mr. Man! 

[Pointedstick]

I do. And I disagree with him. The constitution is just a piece of paper. It has no power in and of itself. Should people ever turn away from it, it will be no impediment to those it was meant to constrain. Its only real use is to remind people of the principles that were important to the founders. It's up to the people to believe that those principles are still worth believing in; when that stops, it's just a piece of paper again.

[RuralEngineer]

So when will people finally start voting for 3rd parties in bigger numbers?

I take it you are from (IIRC...please excuse me if I am wrong and feel free to correct me) one of the Benelux countries and thus have a parliament with proportional representation and a national chief executive that is elected either by said proportionally represented parliament or by the voters directly?

Well, in the US we have neither. We have a purely national legislature (Congress) with a winner-take-all system for each district...and the districts themelves are purposefully highly gerrymandered districts to all but ensure one-party control each one; our system for choosing the chief executive (the Electoral College votes for the president; the people don't directly vote for him/her) would allow a third party to possibly win a majority of the popular vote (or at least a plurality of it) and still lose the Presidency. The bottom line of all this? The (for example) Libertarians or Greens could septuple or octuple their current vote percentages and it still wouldn't do them any good.

This.  Our election system is the problem, not our political parties.  In, Ireland I believe, you get a 2nd choice.  If your first choice doesn't win then they take your 2nd choice.  However, there's a threshold on how many votes is needed in order to keep your vote from being disqualified.  It helps encourage 3rd party candidates and is a much better system.  Plus gerrymandering just has to go.  If there was ever a system that screamed "Corruption here!" it was that.  Seriously, letting the political parties, let alone the ones in power, draw the districts on the map?  WTF!