How the fuck do you jump from that to a Stalinist regime which sent millions of people to the Gulag, and butchered a large slice of its population to reach modernisation goals?

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http://thefightweek.com/

Its exactly how it starts. It begins with the government thinking it is wiser than the people, make the people dependent on the state.

We look strange to Europe? Man that is the joke of the week.

The government is made of people; people that are elected from the people to represent those same people, and create laws to protect and benefit the people. It's getting weirder and weirder to hear this type of argument, where it's like government is an entity wholly separate from the citizens.

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Please try and defend your positions in the future better than the standard “I’m going to the gulag for speaking my mind” bit.

Good point Ad. Big business influence, corrupt politicians, etc are non-existent in our government.

I believe, it starts with the people's unwillingness to accept responsibility and look for a government which can give them a hand out.

While I don't agree with finnegan on the idea that we are headed towards becoming a second version of the Soviet Union, I do think the government is very much an entity separate from the citizens in many ways. That's why we have to limit its powers so much. Governments historically almost always abuse their powers and oppress the people unless adequate checks on its power are put into place, and even then, it still often seeks to. The higher up the level of government, the further from the people it will be. For example, the Senators are going to be a lot more removed from the people then the local town council.

The biggest problems occur with the career politicians in the higher levels of government who can see themselves as a form of ruling elite, and also with various government agencies that seek to expand their size so as to get more money each year. Altogether, while many (not all) of the individuals in the government are ordinary folk who got elected and mean well, the entity overall that they form, "the government," tends to become a behemoth that infringes on people's liberties if not constantly watched. Also, the government doesn't just create laws to protect and benefit the people. It often creates laws to increase its own power and control the populace (an infamous way of doing this is by making the population dependent on a large welfare state). We saw recently how the SCOTUS shot down the anti-free speech laws in the Citizens United case where political speech by certain entities during political campaigns had been outlawed. And so forth.

Why have you mentioned Citizen's United, wheels? you don't agree with that ruling?

Have to say, I agree with Ad. The US government is not some irredeemable vampire. It's imperfect and enormous but that's what you get when you acquire such a large amount of land and place a big population in it. In many ways it does a very decent job.

It is not a fascist entity and it is at the current time unlikely to become one. The greatest danger to it becoming a fascist entity is if the political wing of Christian dominionism becomes ascendant. Now, I know some of you are going to start whining that I'm discussing religon but I assure you that I am not. I have no interest in discussing the whys and wherefores of Christianity. However, the political strategy exhibited by the various dominionist factions across the country when taken in light of statements of intent to do things like establish a state church, repeal civil rights legislation, remove women from the workforce, deny citizenship to non Christians and so on, represent a clear and developing fascist threat far in advance of either portion control or indeed anything currently building on the left.

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I look in your eyes and c fear! Ill take your sole and give it the devil

finnegan you might find it funny, but I think it is like that.
At least if we ever run out of money, there won't be an obesity problem for much longer.

Faust

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roll with the punches

What group is this you are talking about? I've never heard of this.

There are lots of them. Many megachurches have dominionist political organizations attached to them. As a recent example of a dominionist in public life I'd argue that Rick Santorum fit the bill as does Michele Bachman and certain public statements by Sarah Palin.

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I look in your eyes and c fear! Ill take your sole and give it the devil