Replying to a message of Gary Britt to Bob.Ackley:

 GB> From: "Gary Britt" 

 GB> If you can't tell the difference between the USA and Nazi Germany and
 GB> then and now, I'm afraid there is no basis to have any meaningful
 GB> discussions as your frame of reference and possibly your intellect
 GB> would be so impaired as to make communication impossible.

My, my.  All those big highfalutin words.  I did not equate the USA with
Nazi-ism, I was commenting on the reasons being used to start wars.

Before you fall off your high horse, note that the U.S.ofA. is rapidly
degenerating into an authoritarian state.  In the U.S.ofA. you can be held
incommunicado, indefinitely, and without being charged with any crime, on
the sayso of John Ashcroft - the specific guarantees of a right to counsel,
a right to have a speedy trial and the right to face one's accusers in the
Constitution don't seem to matter (the court ruling being to the effect 'we
know it's unconstitutional but we're going to let you do it anyway').  And
AAMOF, the government doesn't even have to admit that it's holding you in
custody (a couple of decades ago Argentina got a lot of bad press over
people who 'disappeared', never to return).  Also in the U.S.ofA. the
government can conduct secret searches of your home and business, it can
search material held by others and those others commit a federal crime by
informing you that such a search was conducted.  

There is a growing idea that Constitutional protections don't apply to
terrorists (witness Guantanamo Bay, where the Constitution doesn't apply -
even though it does on every other U.S. military installation on the
planet).  'Terrorists', of course, being a purely subjective term -
"One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" (I believe
that's R.A.Heinlein but I could be mistaken).  "Terrorist" in the
U.S.ofA. is analogous to 'untermensch' in Nazi Germany.

Anything government can do to one subset of the population it can - and IMO
eventually will - do to *all* subsets of that population.

The vast majority of the population has long forgotten that just about four
years ago a survey revealed that over 75% of the American people feared
*their* government.  A poll that got a little press for a couple of days
and then went away with no further comment.

---