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When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. It's pretty clear from the last couple of days that
by lemming 13y ago
When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.
It's pretty clear from the last couple of days that the balance in the US is pretty firmly tipped towards tyranny by that definition. Certainly I doubt anyone in the government is at all worried about the people being able to do anything about this scandal. There have been several comments on here and elsewhere from people who are thinking twice about publicly supporting Snowden, or are at least aware that that support is probably logged somewhere and might have repercussions in the future. This would have been ridiculous paranoia not that long ago.
- pekk 13y agoThat's not a definition of tyranny, it's a hypothesis about tyranny. But it's foolish. Pointing a shotgun at random government workers like the census taker or sending ricin to the President are not doing anything to improve our politics.
- ryanhuff 13y agoI think some politicians (supporters of this policy) are very worried about this, in that it could turn their base against them, and be vote out of office. We will have to wait and see how public sentiment turns.