@VilageidiotxA police state is broadly defined as a government that on whim executes power and authority through the police. It usually has a secret police force that restricts and controls freedom of speech, political views, individual mobility, economics and social life, rather than using regular legal procedures and channels. This is paraphrased from a few separate definitions to emphasize that police checkpoints at
most fall under limiting individual mobility, because they would, as with any stop, delay a person. I do not see any other criteria being met, especially the bias towards spying on the populace with restrictions and control placed on speech, politics, economics and social habits. By contrast and for example, East Germany, which is considered to be a classical police state, had approximately one informant or secret policemen per six-and-one-half people.
This does not meet the duck test; it might
look like a duck, but it does not walk like a duck or quack like a duck.
Justice under the guise of social justice is a far cry from what it claims to be as actual justice. Social justice is arbitrary and ever changing. Someone decides that some group of people are some how disadvantaged, oppressed, weak, incapable or any number of other factors that is not considered "the norm". Actions brought on under that banner to, potentially, improve that group's circumstances vary and are inconsistent if not often the exact opposite of what they wish to be by creating an environment of "woe is me" rather than encouraging them to move beyond it. There's a distinct line between justice, enforcing a penalty as even extreme as death, and social justice which by another extreme is going under the belief that just because a woman does not receive free birth control she's somehow disadvantaged and marginalized. They're not even close or in the same spectrum. Social justice is not any form of actual justice.
You are correct my recommendation is "a cure for a disease we do not have", but it follows the same lines as preventative medicine. People do not do proactive even relatively invasive procedures because they like to, no, they do them because they need to. As for the argument of "desensitization", if people are that skeptical of the police, then I have to question the police more than I do the objective set out through random screening. If anything I would argue the inverse is true that the American public is conditioned to assume authority is automatically bad, especially through countless lacking encounters with it.
No, this is not advocating a license to purchase, it is supervising and monitoring potentially unlawful activity and giving it a name associated for record or review. Again, where I am, this is normal. Nothing you purchase here you can do without being identified first. There's not even a scanning or screening process to log it within a database. It is done to simply validate you
seem to be who you claim you are. In the case of electronic transactions, yes, I think identification needs to be dual authorized with it; if your card does not match at least in last name, something unusual is going on and should be logged that way.
"What about if you're borrowing someone else's card?" that's fine, but it goes under the transaction that way too and you need to explain to the cashier what is going on. From experience, I have to say you might be surprised how many criminals do not have a Plan B when you ask them something as simple as why their name doesn't match their registration for a vehicle and how rapidly their story falls apart. This is less complicated or intrusive than that, because it is only building a pattern of behavior to monitor for unusual trends, such as buying large quantities of chemicals and fertilizers at the same time or dynamite (which
can be legally purchased in some states without special permit).
Another note, my remark about communism was to build off my anti-socialism stance, as even Karl Marx saw socialism as a step toward communism. I find both to be ideals that do not work for or benefit the American system. They might work in other places, but the United States is not those places. The philosophy of America is notoriously strange to foreigners and vice versa, but thus far it has proven to be a relatively efficient one, even with its flaws.
There's no argument that people center and right tend to back firearms, but I specifically noted a stereotype unique to one side that has no real comparison to the other. I do not understand your argument however, as my point was that the "most dangerous group of people" by basic understanding alone, the actual Alt-Right fringe, still have the smallest numbers and fewest incidents of carrying out or acting on that right now. Most of them are historical and as the numbers have shown, even the Ku Klux Klan which is openly white supremacist is dying in numbers and political power, as it has been for years. No less, I am not saying politics the further you get from center are
always more extreme in violence, but that does indeed happen in the reflection and there is an apparent correlation. The Far Left has just become the most forward one with it currently and none of the left is making a dedicated enough effort to divorce themselves from it; they prefer to sympathize.
Privilege as people treat and act on is not the same as your example. There's a distinct push, to which I am referring to, that people think they are somehow disadvantaged by their skin, race, ethos, creed, orientation or whatever. I do not believe that or conscribe to that. Anyone could be the next Donald Trump as far as I am concerned; look at Mark Zuckerberg, an individual who had nothing and is politically left, owns and operates the massively successful Facebook and has a stake in political interests too. It would not be a surprise that one day he decides to run for office at some level and he began as a nobody. I believe with any amount of effort, luck and timing, people can succeed, regardless of their proposed disadvantage. It might not be to the levels of their desires, but that is their pursuit; they shouldn't be given it just because they started out with a hurdle they needed to leap.
Yes, I do hold what could be viewed as "extreme centrist beliefs", as odd as that is to say in this day and age, an that they tend to be very strong on whatever they are, even aspects of neutrality and I myself am not an easily compromising person as you have witnessed. I am fond of the notion of letting the system sort itself out, as it did with the example of handicapped people and obeying that directive over me, but at the same rate I do not think it would be a question in the first place. Why would you
not assist those with legitimate disabilities? The line I draw is that people
should do so out of their own will and want to, not be forced to comply with it. My same mentality goes forward on the example of transgender rights; if you're a man who is a woman, that is fine by me - be the best woman you can be. However, please respect that at least half of the population are not going to recognize that until the entire ordeal is done, even if that. It is also not a mandate that they even do so, at all.
I would like to see evidence of Nazi and White Nationalist propaganda being flown and displayed at these protests where violence breaks out. At most I have seen the Kekistani flag flown, but that is also a distinct trolling effort with its design specifically meant to elicit a response and provoke an emotion, as is their want. Some
might fly it unironically as a secret symbol of their actual beliefs, taking to heart the notions of "Hitler did nothing wrong.", yet again I have not heard of that being the case and I believe that to be unlikely, or at least not a standard for all of the "Kekistanis" out there. To my awareness, even Pepe himself who has been regarded as a "hate symbol", has not become some standard and symbol of murder, oppression or abuse by data. On another and completely unrelated note since we are speaking about vexillology and symbology as a whole, Antifa's flags (as seen on their actual flag) are backward, which traditionally is symbolic of retreat; I am not sure if they realize that or it has some other meaning to them unbeknownst to me.
As for the Black Bloc themselves, they are one of the faces of the left that is receiving attention. If I were on the political left, I would be doing anything and everything to distance myself from them while condemning their acts of violence or destruction, not formulating excuses for why so many of these students, and professors too, are behaving so poorly that they appear to be little more than children in the throes of tantrum. This is too the same reason I condemn Dylan Roof, who held extreme right views, advocated violence, and acted on those violent motives, and why I too believe he should have been sentenced to death for his crimes. I admonish anyone who has similar goals, motives or desires on the right, in particular because I view that as my "home" so to speak given I lean politically that direction.
On another topic, I am aware democracy exists for that expressed reason of discussion, but when I view those questions I see them all as loaded and just as open to the same concern of slippery slope you posed. I will state again I believe a government with minimal but strong laws on the books is for the best. To use another example, I do not believe in hate crimes. Anyone willing to commit a crime against a black, a homosexual, a police officer or your run of the mill white person is just as despicable, no matter their motives; they are, no matter what, nothing but a criminal and enemy of the public. They should be universally held to one harsh standard. To bring this back around again to the example of "systematic disadvantage", I find the phrase even in and of itself to be purposefully executed. It, by language alone, infers there is something purposeful, meaningful and dedicated to preventing someone - in this case the disabled - from fulfilling a meaningful life of equal opportunity. That I do not agree with, as I do not think anyone should receive special incentives or protections by law; they should all be protected and held to the same standard.
If anything I think those outside the government should set the standard, as they in part do. If your priority is minorities, then act on that and lend them assistance through your want to help them and your belief they are lacking in whatever area you deem. It is not my task as someone unconvinced of it as priority to do so; you do not see me arguing that the United States should start a federally funded, monitored, protected social justice crusade about animal abuse, cruelty, ownership and maintenance that focuses on exotic animals, namely big cats who by numbers alone would be categorized as "marginalized" and at "systematic disadvantage". It is under my own volition and oath that I contribute to organizations dedicated to combatting it. An extreme and silly example, but I find that street to work both ways.
As for preventing voting fraud, it is not that difficult to scan and run a registry of active or inactive voters. It would need third party oversight and representatives from every running party to review and compare the results as a whole within the time limit; break your limit, lose your seat and your right to review. It is not that complicated or even expensive and it would mostly prevent
anyone, no matter their political stance, from effectively skewing the results. No less, as it might be implied, I believe there should only be one form of voting machine, with the mechanisms there of considered and treated as secret, with those supervising it being held to the highest standards possible both in conduct and ability. No less, I believe the instances of found fraud should be prosecuted to the fullest extent, striking the offender first with the worst punishment and working backward from there.
