What's new
By:
USCHO Fan Forum

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • The USCHO Fan Forum has migrated to a new plaform, xenForo. Most of the function of the forum should work in familiar ways. Please note that you can switch between light and dark modes by clicking on the gear icon in the upper right of the main menu bar. We are hoping that this new platform will prove to be faster and more reliable. Please feel free to explore its features.

What would a US "Police State" look like?

Re: What would a US "Police State" look like?

The Sicatoka said:
Interesting theory, but I more believe the "7 out of 10" theory
Click to expand...

Yes, that is the traditional view that I'm deliberately opposing with 1.8.1. In my experience most people aren't stupid. They just aren't that smart either. The two major theories that people hold: The Wisdom of the Common Man and The Elite vs the Boobs, are both wrong. Most people are perfectly capable of negotiating a mortgage, driving a stick, or raising children -- all difficult, un-natural and admirable skills. Those people aren't going to get differential equations or appreciate the beauty of Mozart -- they're not the first 1, but they're also not going to endlessly stare slackjawed at the TV like the characters in Idiocracy -- they're not the last 1. They are genuinely, gloriously mediocre. You can trust them to babysit your kids; just don't ask them to understand evolution.
 
Last edited:
Re: What would a US "Police State" look like?

Kepler said:
I hear what you're saying, but I'm not talking about the number line of freedom vs prohibition upon which the selection of any given point is "arbitrary." I'm talking about a much simpler distinction. Rule by law is where police behavior and more importantly the adjudication of that behavior afterwards by the state is defined by a formal legal system. Rule by men (police state) is where this is not so, and instead is up to the personal whim of someone along the way. It's defined process vs ad hoc process -- it has nothing to do with result.
Click to expand...
But isn't our country, by definition, rule by law, but rule by men in application?
 
Re: What would a US "Police State" look like?

SJHovey said:
But isn't our country, by definition, rule by law, but rule by men in application?
Click to expand...

Nope. At the end of the day, everything's supposed to track back to settled law. Even the appeal to precedent is an appeal to a chain of legal findings, not the whim of justices. The grounding of the whole thing comes from the axioms in the Constitution -- again, formal documentation. Individual flesh and blood men did all this (unless you believe it came from a burning bush), but that's like saying math is done by men in application. That's true -- no bird's ever written an equation -- but it has no bearing on whether math is "personal."

tl; dr: The authority of our system is vested in the law itself. In a tyranny it is vested in the lawmaker. In a police state it is vested in the law enforcer.
 
Re: What would a US "Police State" look like?

Kepler said:
Yes, that is the traditional view that I'm deliberately opposing with 1.8.1. In my experience most people aren't stupid. They just aren't that smart either. ... Most people are perfectly capable of negotiating a mortgage, driving a stick, or raising children -- all difficult, un-natural and admirable skills. Those people aren't going to get differential equations or appreciate the beauty of Mozart -- they're not the first 1, but they're also not going to endlessly stare slackjawed at the TV like the characters in Idiocracy -- they're not the last 1. They are genuinely, gloriously mediocre. You can trust them to babysit your kids; just don't ask them to understand evolution.
Click to expand...

Kep, I get what you're saying with "1.8.1" but to my observations it's more "1.5.4", and getting worse. There are more and more folks out there every day that can't figure out a mortgage, drive a stick, and I sure as heck wouldn't trust them to babysit kids. Heck, I wonder how a lot of them take care of themselves.
 
Re: What would a US "Police State" look like?

The Sicatoka said:
Kep, I get what you're saying with "1.8.1" but to my observations it's more "1.5.4", and getting worse. There are more and more folks out there every day that can't figure out a mortgage, drive a stick, and I sure as heck wouldn't trust them to babysit kids. Heck, I wonder how a lot of them take care of themselves.
Click to expand...

My answer is, but they do. I don't know about you, but I find it a challenge just getting my sorry azz to work most days.
...the Whips and Scorns of time,
The Oppressor's wrong, the proud man's Contumely,
The pangs of despised Love, the Law’s delay,
The insolence of Office, and the Spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes
Click to expand...

And yet most people function -- they navigate all that, they don't just make for the nearest tall building. That is something of a recurrent miracle, to me. People do the best they can with what they've got, and about 90% of them actually make it through the freaking day.

I don't want to share a long plane ride with them -- in lieu of "thought" they are going to emit noises I find extremely irritating. BUT they are minimally compliant with the requirement specs of a human being. That is something.
 
Last edited:
Re: What would a US "Police State" look like?

Kepler said:
I hear what you're saying, but I'm not talking about the number line of freedom vs prohibition upon which the selection of any given point is "arbitrary." I'm talking about a much simpler distinction. Rule by law is where police behavior and more importantly the adjudication of that behavior afterwards by the state is defined by a formal legal system. Rule by men (police state) is where this is not so, and instead is up to the personal whim of someone along the way. It's defined process vs ad hoc process -- it has nothing to do with result.
Click to expand...

Just because there is a formal legal system, does not mean you don't have a police state. See sharia law, for example.
 
Re: What would a US "Police State" look like?

Kepler said:
And yet most people function -- they navigate all that, they don't just make for the nearest tall building. That is something of a recurrent miracle, to me. People do the best they can with what they've got, and about 90% of them actually make it through the freaking day.
Click to expand...

But isn't that the worst "police state" of all: Slogging through the daily mundane without even the faintest notion that you're merely a grinding cog, a useful tool, in a machine that'll never miss you.

We give you Facebook, "the Twit", and social media*, so you believe you are something; but, in the end, you're just that cog.


*Today's "bread and circuses".
 
Last edited:
Re: What would a US "Police State" look like?

FreshFish said:
Just because there is a formal legal system, does not mean you don't have a police state. See sharia law, for example.
Click to expand...

Insofar as I understand Sharia Law (and I suspect neither of us does) it's grounded in revelation, not law. The idea with Islamic courts is to find an unbroken string of statements that goes all the way back to Big Mo. If you know Aquinas' division of revealed vs empirical truth, it's grounded in the former, while western legal codes are grounded in the latter. Basically, it's canon law, and canon law's whole basis is arbitrary.

But the main objection to Sharia Law is it's virulently oppressive, and I'm not sure that's part of the definition of a "police state." Like any "hard theocracy," that falls under totalitarianism. I would expect to find them linked up fairly often, but I think they're two different things.
 
Re: What would a US "Police State" look like?

The Sicatoka said:
But isn't that the worst "police state" of all: Slogging through the daily mundane without even the faintest notion that you're merely a grinding cog, a useful tool, in a machine that'll never miss you.

We give you Facebook, "the Twit", and social media*, so you believe you are something; but, in the end, you're just that cog.


*Today's "bread and circuses".
Click to expand...

I think that's a whole other problem, what 19th century sociologists called "alienation," where there's a big gap between what we do and what it means. We might call that the Bureaucratic State. It's depressing and dehumanizing, and that might be useful if your goal is to dominate people. For example, a really good way to dehumanize a population is to strip them of shared transcendent experience. Atomized people are easier to control. That's why as gods are consigned to myth we had better come up with something that serves the same social function. Maybe we can all dance naked* around our Earth Day maypole or something.

* talk about depressing
 
Re: What would a US "Police State" look like?

The Sicatoka said:
Kep, I get what you're saying with "1.8.1" but to my observations it's more "1.5.4", and getting worse. There are more and more folks out there every day that can't figure out a mortgage, drive a stick, and I sure as heck wouldn't trust them to babysit kids. Heck, I wonder how a lot of them take care of themselves.
Click to expand...
Sadly true. I'm sure we don't all see the same road in how these people got there, but there sure do seem to be a lot of them who struggle with basic functions of life, let alone being an informed voter, following world events, etc.
 
Re: What would a US "Police State" look like?

It's a weird, weird thread where I'm the champion of Homo Mediocris. :)
 
Re: What would a US "Police State" look like?

joecct said:
Case #2: http://www.nationalreview.com/artic...e-i-thought-it-was-home-invasion-david-french
Click to expand...

The irony that Movement Conservatism, who have done nothing but talk in a harsh, militaristic bluster, yammered on and on about law enforcement, and complained bitterly about the "technicalities" of civil rights and civil liberties rulings, now have the gall to claim they're being targeted by jackboot methods.

Who do you think created these thugs and the ideology they typically, personally extol? :rolleyes:

Here's a hint: it wasn't liberals.
 
Re: What would a US "Police State" look like?

In answer to the originally posed question of the thread, I give you this:

Rudy: Let's have a [police state] with chicks and guns and fire trucks and hookers and drugs and booze!
Gary: Yeah! Yeah yeah! All the things that make life worth living for!
 
Re: What would a US "Police State" look like?

Kepler said:
The irony that Movement Conservatism, who have done nothing but talk in a harsh, militaristic bluster, yammered on and on about law enforcement, and complained bitterly about the "technicalities" of civil rights and civil liberties rulings, now have the gall to claim they're being targeted by jackboot methods.

Who do you think created these thugs and the ideology they typically, personally extol? :rolleyes:

Here's a hint: it wasn't liberals.
Click to expand...

The Fox Snooze crowd is quite hilarious with their believing that cops can do no wrong and claiming that running over a guy on the street is justified.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top