Fear And Loathing In A Pupating Police State

I am making this post because I am frightened and angry, and if I do not speak in public because of my vulnerability, I will feel like a coward.

The defense budget currently in legislation is one with provisions that would make the US into a police state -- civil courts would remain in existence, sure, but at the discretion of the authorities, any individual could be placed into the military justice system, and civil rights would no longer apply.

Look this up. Do a web search. You will find it much, much easier to find this covered in the international press. I am frightened and angry -- is the American media failing us accidentally or intentionally?

Right now the US has the highest percentage of its population imprisoned of any culture in the history of the world. This is true. America has long since abandoned any right to describe itself as the land of the free. So they decide that the problem is that we need more ways to get people behind bars.

Warrentless wiretapping -- and now this.

They are justifying their position by describing our nation as a battlefield. We have not had any active conflict with the terrorists on our soil for quite some time -- but it seems as if there is a conflict brewing at home.

The conjunction of this with the occupy movement makes me feel paranoid. Nutty.

Terrified.

I will say this much. If this bill makes it all the way through, if President Obama signs it? I will no longer be able to take pride in having voted for him -- and I just might lose faith in the process entirely.

I am seeing America as a literal police state, run by corporate interests, with universal wiretapping taken for granted, and the right to imprison without cause. This is not fiction. This is actually happening.

Every person who supports this bill is actively and effectively militating against liberty and democracy, plain and simple. They have declared themselves the enemies of all that is decent in our national soul, and intend to turn this country into something far closer to Maoist China, the USSR of Stalin, or Nazi Germany than I had ever imagined. The monstrous arrogance on display here has robbed me of the capacity for hyperbole.

I do not say that lightly, and I would say it to any of their faces.

Fear and loathing have come full upon me.