Habeas Corpus

You can be arrested by ASIO anytime anyplace.
This can be done without so much as suspicion of involvement in a criminal act, no justification is required and appeal is not possible.
You can then be held indefinately (well, technically a few months that can be extended indifinately), without infoming any third party, such as a laywer, next of kin, etc.
IIRC, you may be tortured by such means as starvation, sleep deprivation, etc.
If they get bored of you, they also have a habit of banishing people to countries they've never even heard of.
I'd say all that is pretty authoritation, except authority isn't nessecary if it cannot be questioned, so lets just call it Western pop-Facism.

Neo-Fascism is a common problem throughout the western world. Legislation is being enacted nearly every month now that limits our civil and political freedom. The longer we wait, the less able we will be to act. I will be in France for the next 6 months starting in January. So fortunately I will be safe for a while. However that is assuming it doesn't spread to France during that time. All it would take is one major catastrophe in France and it would be just the same as USA.

@Jeeves

Anytime anyplace? Wow....those guys are major assholes. Well, the torture, uneccasary and right violating.

As far as I know, France is just as bad, if not worse than the US.

You can be arrested by ASIO anytime anyplace.
This can be done without so much as suspicion of involvement in a criminal act, no justification is required and appeal is not possible.
You can then be held indefinately (well, technically a few months that can be extended indifinately), without infoming any third party, such as a laywer, next of kin, etc.
IIRC, you may be tortured by such means as starvation, sleep deprivation, etc.
If they get bored of you, they also have a habit of banishing people to countries they've never even heard of.
I'd say all that is pretty authoritation, except authority isn't nessecary if it cannot be questioned, so lets just call it Western pop-Facism.

You can be arrested by the FBI at any time in any place of the country. If you're not in the country and they issue a warrant, the US military will either pursue it or will coax foreign forces into shooting at you.
You will then be held indefinitely, forever, in Guantanamo Bay. You are not allowed legal counsel, and you are not allowed to petition for your own release (anymore). The United States Constitution, even if you are an American citizen, does not apply to you, and you are not allowed freedom of speech or petition, or what any of the criminal justice amendments guarantee you. They will then make you abhorrently fat with extremely high calorie foods, and let you bake under the hot Cuban sun in completely open air cells which can be considered no better than a dog pound.
Now, you can be tortured without being convicted. You can be tortured for no apparent reason to get any bit of information that they think you may have out of you. Then, considering you don't show up on the books anywhere, you will spend the rest of your life in a small 4x4 cell in Cuba, unless they deem you to be especially dangerous, whereby they will probably convene a trial hearing where the convening authority is judge, jury, and executioner, and you are not allowed counsel. Unreasonable punishment legislation and the UCMJ conveniently do not apply here either, as technically by just the fact that you were arrested by the FBI means that no international conventions apply to you. And if you do have a trial convened on your behalf, no amount of contradictory evidence will get you released, and if you're found guilty, you'll likely be executed.
I would consider the FBI significantly worse than Australia and France.

Reading all of this, I think I should appreciate the Swiss system a bit more... I'm sure there are some mean little laws around aswell, but none that make you lose your rights or allow that you are improsoned without trial or even without anyone else knowing it.

Edited by Dark Lord of the Sith, 18 October 2006 - 11:05 AM.

The American free republic is dead. The only way it can be revived is if people take their responsibilities and duties from the constitution and fight for it.

As for Britain we never had a constitution, we have forever been under control of capitalists and bankers since it started taking off in in the 1800s and the expansion of our Empire.

I'm quite sure Europe is just going to be an excuse for a centralised dictatorship in Europe if they get their way. A big catostraphy, maybe in the middle east sometime could give them the reason to "persuade" the people to being pro-european.

Citizens vs the US gov and military.

We would lose horribly if we did fight. This would cause the nation to split into factions (Like on Shattered Union) and fight over dominance.

Shattered Union is a video game. And one with a bad storyline at that. The US military is structured in such a way that fighting against the citizens is nearly impossible.

Well, the military is also made up of citizens...

Which has been my point from the beginning. Anyone who thinks the military would fight against the people is living in a fantasy universe.

I don't think its that far from reality... all they have to do is tell them that even though they look like americans they are 'unlawful enemy combatants' and are therefore just as high a threat as terrorists. If these soldiers will kill women and children willingly, they will surely kill a bunch of left winged college students.

In your fantasy world, do these soldiers also eat babies?

The citizens are the military. The military is comprised completely of voluntary citizens who are not really subject to propaganda and do not treat military service as a duty like the Kaiser's armies in 1918, but rather treat it as a job on the way to a profession.
Killing a civilian in another country is unfortunate and it happens. Killing ones own civilians at home when parts of the entire country rises up is impossible.

Why would this be impossible? There were many civil wars where the military of a regime fought against some rebel militia... Military vs people.

The military is comprised completely of voluntary citizens who are not really subject to propaganda and do not treat military service as a duty like the Kaiser's armies in 1918, but rather treat it as a job on the way to a profession.

Do you think the german soldiers in WW2 all thought that the army was a duty they needed to pull? Certainly not. And look what they did in the end... there are enough ways how you can force your soldiers into war, even against your own citicens.

Why would this be impossible? There were many civil wars where the military of a regime fought against some rebel militia... Military vs people.

The military is comprised completely of voluntary citizens who are not really subject to propaganda and do not treat military service as a duty like the Kaiser's armies in 1918, but rather treat it as a job on the way to a profession.

Do you think the german soldiers in WW2 all thought that the army was a duty they needed to pull? Certainly not. And look what they did in the end... there are enough ways how you can force your soldiers into war, even against your own citicens.

Wrong war.
And they were certainly forced to perform acts of genocide: if they disobeyed, the Feldgendarmerie would do it anyways... after shooting them.

The United States military is comprised completely of voluntary citizens. They have not been drafted, they are the normal human beings you see every day. American servicemen and women serve functions in the community, they have jobs, families, lives, including officers and generals. Every member of the American military is there on a voluntary basis, that makes them quite different from people pressed into service to fight the enemy. There has never been a civil war in a fully democratic country which has resulted in the military fighting the people unless attacked or coerced. Today, with the globalization and liberalization of today's society, it is inconceivable to think that the military of the United States would revert to something akin to the Spanish Army in 1936 and begin to take sides. It's very likely that any splintering effect on the country would also affect the military. Sure, you'd have some idiots who think they should go out and shoot everyone, but the vast majority of the military would disband or would be used to keep the peace.

OK, why was my post just deleted...

I said:

Spence, it's the other way round. A conscript army is comprised of builders, postmen, factory workers, and people who are still citizens, far more so than those of ordinary armies. When you have armies comprised of professional soldiers, they have a tendency to splinter from the people of the country and form their own sort of little faction.

Yeah, Kal's right.
Besides, forcing your soldiers to do things they don't want to do can be a very slow process. Of course you wouldn't tell them one day to go our and kill everyone you don't like. You can start giving orders with "justifications" or with lies. You can start making some sort of propaganda and no, they are certainly not unaffected by that. Start with things they think to be right. Of course there will always be people objecting to your orders, so you'd start to ridicule or punish them. The idea is just that they do not stand up and say "fuck you!" and disobey, and this can be done, no doubt. And once you reach a certain point, you can give them almost any order you want...

Edited by Dark Lord of the Sith, 19 October 2006 - 09:04 PM.

I'm lost. Who's trying to prove who wrong?

Yeah, Kal's right.
Besides, forcing your soldiers to do things they don't want to do can be a very slow process. Of course you wouldn't tell them one day to go our and kill everyone you don't like. You can start giving orders with "justifications" or with lies. You can start making some sort of propaganda and no, they are certainly not unaffected by that. Start with things they think to be right. Of course there will always be people objecting to your orders, so you'd start to ridicule or punish them. The idea is just that they do not stand up and say "fuck you!" and disobey, and this can be done, no doubt. And once you reach a certain point, you can give them almost any order you want...

That's exactly what I was saying. It's a known fact that the majority of the military has a common political beleif, otherwise they wouldnt have voluntarily joined the military. Because of that, they can use lies and deceive them into killing citizens. Spence, im sorry but you are wrong. You cannot say without a doubt that the military would not kill a single US citizen.

And silent kila, spare me your irrelevant remarks, I thought you had more dignity than that.