I agree that other countries to varying degrees are doing the exact same things as the US but the fact remains that the US seems to be the one who is running rather than walking in that direction.
Given that the more contentious aspects of the Patriot Act and subsequent legislation have been defeated in court over and over again, how can you really say we're "running" towards fascism?
In what ways is the common person now more informed than in the days of nazi germany? Do you think that the idiot box has brought forth enlightenment and now we are not able to make mistakes?
Point in fact, to a degree it
has. The internet makes it vastly easier for the average joe to find out anything he needs to know, and to express his opinion on anything he wants to say. Television is not owned by the state; it presents a wide variety of opinions, typically the majority of which
oppose the sort of steps you say we're rushing down.
There could have been some preexisting antisemitism in Germany much like there was all over the world at the time but that does not change the fact that the Jews were further demonized as a scapegoat for the events that happened around that time. Surprise surprise much like the Muslims in this country who quickly turned into Islamofascists so we couldn't be accused of hating an entire religion... no then we would be too much like Hitler.
Really, we've got the government telling us that the Muslims are to blame for all our problems, and that we should take steps to remove them from positions of power, make sure that they're under control at all times, and oh, don't forget about those evil Communists, who also can't be trusted?
Really?
That's happening?
Or maybe the government has urged restraint, to not hate people just because they happen to share a religion with a bunch of nutjobs in the Middle East.
Also do you really believe that people today are not desperate... Our current economic situation has put the entire country in the hands of 3 people out of desperation
Three people and the entire Legislative Branch, you mean. Which, oddly enough, sounds an awful lot like
our government.
The stimulus packages aren't executive orders, they're bills, going through the same process as any other bill, which is arguably part of the
problem with them to many people, as the process by which they transit the Legislative branch makes them filled with about as much pork and wasteful spending as any other government bill. Which is to say, a lot. Then again, the real definition of pork barrel spending is simply a congressman looking out for his own electorate in the hopes of reelection, so I guess we can't complain
too much.
The Reichstag fire was the disaster that caused the fear for the legislation that was later possible for Hitler. It was not done as a deliberate coup but a strong leader taking control for safety of the common man. People tend to gravitate towards the person who claims to have the answers without necessarily checking if the answers are correct in the time of crisis.
The Reichstag Fire was
presented as Hitler taking control for the safety of the common man.
I think it can be safely assumed, looking back on history, that the Nazis almost undoubtedly engineered the fire themselves to give them an excuse to eliminate the communists from the Reichstag. Which it did, since the Nazis has been successfully prosecuting an anti-Communist campaign for some time up until that point (it was a part of their platform, after all) and by keeping the communists out of the vote, it allowed Hitler to attain a majority in the Reichstag.
What it didn't do was give Hitler the supermajority he required to pass the Enabling Act. So, completely dispensing with legality at this point, he simply sent his goon squads out again, and through a variety of means (intimidation, murder, etc) made sure that the opposition parties in the Reichstag simply weren't around when the time came to vote, or understood that their lives depended on them voting "the right way".
So consider that, for a moment. A long succession of crises, blatant manipulation of the system, possibly as ripe a field for that manipulation as one can expect to see, and the Nazis still
failed to achieve the powers they wanted legitimately.
Don't you find it odd at all that the only time that any really significant legislation gets passed is during a time of crisis because people are scared and willing to try anything.
Ummm... No, I don't find it odd at all. I find it
predictable. Given the current leanings of the average economist in the United States, I find the current
response to that crisis practically
inevitable, as a matter of fact.
We started 2 wars already specifically because we lost a few buildings... how is that a less extreme action?
Realistically, what have those two wars cost the average citizen? There are places, to be sure, where their presence has been felt most keenly, but most people... They might know someone who knows someone who's been killed in the war. They might have an abstract appreciation for the
cost involved.
There has been no general draft. There have been no biting financial measures to finance the wars. There has been no widespread mobilization of industry to meet the demands of the war. The average citizen has not had to become
involved in the war. Think about it.
The only difference that i know of is the fact that the enabling act gave Hitlers cabinet the express ability to ignore the Reichstag and write laws which the US can do already to a limited extent with executive orders, although that is frowned upon for the time being.
/twitch.
The Enabling Act allowed the Chancellor to write any laws he chose,
in defiance of the Constitution, and pass them without any interaction with the legislative branch of government.
And you can't see any difference between that and the Patriot Act?
REALLY?
A distinct difference regarding Executive Orders is that Congress can override them in a couple different ways. They can pass a law directly counter to the order, and it will take precedence, or they can simply refuse to fund the order. Alternately, they can challenge it in the courts and have it struck down that way.
Hitlers rise to power was legitimate. He changed the rules along the way as necessary to make sure that it appeared to be that way at least.
Changing the rules
makes it illegitimate. His rise to
prominence was certain done legally, taking control of the government was definitely
not.
Overall Raesvelg my question remains unanswered.
No, I answered it, you're simply disputing my answer.
What makes you today any different than the Germans of that time.
I have a computer with internet access, a wide variety of news sources from which to draw, a vast and contentious free press that supplies those news sources, and a government with considerably less reason to try anything as risky as sending out squads of brownshirted thugs to throw the opposition party in jail.
Do our journalists write without agenda.
Of course not. And most of that agenda is precisely counter to the sort of measures that would be necessary to complete this nightmare scenario you think is so likely.
Do we get all of the information from our government where as they were fed shit and kept in the dark?
Relatively speaking,
yes.
How do we know that we are not being lied to when history has shown us that governments have been capable of it so many other times?
Lied to
about what? Is there secretly legislation under way to abolish the Constitution and place supreme power in the hands of the President? Do you seriously think that that level of conspiracy is even
possible in this country?
That smacks of the idiots who continue to insist that the whole 9/11 incident was engineered by the government, and that two empty airliners flown by crack military pilots struck the World Trade Center, while a missile struck the Pentagon, and another airliner was shot down by military jets. Bear in mind that the first three jets were landed, and their passengers (and the planes themselves) "disappeared" somehow. But don't worry, the conspiracy which must by definition involve thousands of people remains perfectly airtight.
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." - George Santayana
Fixed this one for ya.
