Your Papers, Please!

Well, it's a good thing that the Republicans are in charge of the White House, and Republicans are big on keeping their noses out of our business.

Would somebody please remind me again when it will no longer be considered unhinged paranoid raving to sound the alarm that the US is rapidly degenerating into an authoritarian police state, and that we'd all better become very worried very fast or be prepared to sacrifice most of the freedoms we hold dear?

You remember when your parents waxed nostalgic about the good old days; their days of familiarity? Did you think they were off if not unhinged in dealing with your comfortable reality?

Do actions have a reaction? I think they do. Change is scary. Change that you don't have direct control over is even scarier. Technology changes things, so we shouldn't expect tomorrow to be like yesterday, or like the America of 1776.

Conversely, we could expend some effort in treating the world humanely, so we wouldn't cower and cringe in fear from foreigners.

Given the choice of being nicer, or getting a REAL ID card, I'd get the card. It's less hassle, and lets me be me.

Ted -- I fully don't understand what you're saying at all. I'm guessing from your last sentence that you're being sarcasting, but you could also be a troll....

Change is always scary. But some change is scarier than other change. We shouldn't resort to "change is scary" as a reason not to become alarmed when we go down a garden path to totalitarianism.

-Rob

I don't know what your definition of troll is.

All I'm saying is that people are constantly "alarmed" at one thing or another in their life because it departs from what their comfort level is. How is having a common ID card totalitarian; we are citizens of the US. My passport isn't issued by Texas or Alabama. Yet I use it readily enough.

We are getting the REAL ID as one of many responses to terror. It's one tool in our arsenal of anti-terror devices. Another weapon in our arsenal is looking at ways that people wouldn't hate us much, but that would require that I change the way I vote, the way I consume, the way I exploit resources.

I'd rather take the card, than change my lifestyle so that terrorists wouldn't want to kill me.

"You remember when your parents waxed nostalgic about the good old days; their days of familiarity? Did you think they were off if not unhinged in dealing with your comfortable reality?"

Um, "no." I suppose that's because my parents are honest and trustworthy people, so I generally took their opinions pretty seriously. They told me about how, when they were young, much of the US was racially segregated by law, and the smog in urban California was often so bad that you could only see about two blocks. How a surprising fraction of their cohort were paralyzed or worse by polio. That because good people worked hard and told the truth, that things like that were not true any more.

Guess I just lucked out in the parent lottery...

If one listens to some of the comments being uttered by the current Administration , they're reminicient of Goebles circa 1937 .

Well, it's a good thing that the Republicans are in charge of the White House, and Republicans are big on keeping their noses out of our business.

You can't be serious.

You can't be serious.

She's not :) She's being sarcastic.

Republican, Democrat, or other, I suspect that being good at keeping one's nose out of others' business would invalidate one from being able to be elected to public office....

Sieg Heil!

Just to let you know. My partner's relatives were from Germany. I found it interesting that my mother-in-law's passport dating from the 1950s, which she used for travel back and forth between the US and Germany, had an entry regarding her religion (she was nominally Lutheran). The Nazis obviously had a seminal registry as to who the Jews were. Secular Jews might not have been included in the original registry, but they could have easily been added.

I'll tell you, that the first time I heard the Bush malAdministration's phrase "Homeland security", I first thought of the Nazi phrase "Heimat Sicherheit." So did my partner--who had been born in Germany and speaks fluent German. It's fairly obvious that the Bushies have imported Naziism to the US. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

It's fairly obvious that the Bushies have imported Naziism to the US. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I am, and it makes me scratch my head why everything health-and-safety related now has to come under the aegis of HS, even at the state level. When I get on the elevators at school now, the safety plaque has a picture of the state bird (a cardinal) and the assurance that the elevator has been certified safe by the Indiana Dept. of Homeland Security.

Perhaps I should take the stairs?

Me? Sarcastic?

OK, I'll stop now ...

I'll tell you, that the first time I heard the Bush malAdministration's phrase "Homeland security"

Oh, yeah, from the very beginning I was mentally hearing "Fatherland" every time the word "Homeland" was uttered.

-Rob

I would send you a trackback ping, but Haloscan returns HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found from your trackback url.

So... I guess I'll send this manually:
Trackback: http://ideasinprogress.blogspot.com/2007/03/is-bush-pushover-boss.html

According to the UCMJ I am not allowed to say anything bad about the administration.

That doesn't leave me with much to say...