Some of the bad things government
in the US does are as bad as some
of what the Nazis did. E.g.,
grabbing a 10 year old child playing
harmlessly in their own back yard,
taking that child from its family
for 30 days, charging the parents
with a felony where they could go
to jail, wrecking the family
finances from the legal costs,
TSA stealing from luggage and
molesting women and girls,
suddenly in the middle of the
night
breaking down the door of a house
and shooting the family dog,
shooting an unarmed citizen in the
back fifty feet away running
away -- such things are quite comparable
with a lot, not all, of the stuff the
Nazi thugs did.
In simple terms,
what is in common is just thug
behavior, some people (they feel
safer in a group of several)
with power and getting their
jollies and feeling more
powerful and, thus, more secure,
from exercising that power over
others.
Many of our fathers, grand fathers,
great grand fathers, etc. fought
for our freedom. Let's don't
let power hungry thugs,
paid by taxes or otherwise,
take our freedom.
E.g., some years ago I was
a researcher working in artificial
intelligence at the IBM
Watson lab in Yorktown Heights,
NY. That's in the middle of
Westchester County, the first
county north of NYC. I lived
two counties farther north, in
Dutchess county.
I liked to work late so often
stayed at the office after dinner
and drove home at about 10 PM.
So, if look at a map, sure, I
drove north on the NY Taconic
State Parkway. I was driving
a Buick Regal Turbo T-Type,
right, a banker's hot rod
of the time, in very good condition.
For someone who has driven
over 500,000 miles, I have
relatively few convictions of
moving traffic violations. E.g,
my auto insurance bill here in NYS is
about $260 twice a year. Part
of the reason is that
I watch for cops.
One night driving home in
my rear view mirror I noticed
some headlights looking like
they were from a car
gaining rapidly on me.
Driving late at night like
that, I tend to drive in the
left lane because I can
avoid cars entering or leaving
the road I am on from
side roads or the shoulder.
So, when that car was about
50 yards behind me, I moved to
the right lane to
let them pass. Fine with
me if they want to go way too fast --
go ahead, pass me, and be gone.
Well, that car shifted to the right
lane also. So, I had changed lanes
and slowed down basically trying to force
them to pass me.
Well, it was a cop car with
two cops.
I'd done nothing wrong.
Instead, the cops had just
seen a nice car driving
at night on a nearly empty
road and decided to
stop the car for no good reason.
Likely that's illegal.
So, they stopped me.
There were two cops,
one really nasty and
angry. He was a
thug, out to harass a
citizen just for his own
jollies. He looked young,
like he was a rookie on the
force.
So, he had his jollies: He
had me standing on one leg,
walking a line, touching my nose,
etc. The other cop stood aside
and was not happy about the
obvious harassment.
The thug cop wrote out a ticket
charging me with something,
maybe changing a lane without
using a turn signal, e.g.,
when I was trying to shake
their car off my tail.
While they were writing out
the ticket, I was sitting
in my car reading a published
paper in applied math.
The thug asked me what I
was reading, and I said
he likely wouldn't like it.
He got angry and
asked in a loud, threatening
voice,
"Are you calling me
stupid?".
I answered, "No, but the
paper is quite technical
and advanced and assumes
graduate work in pure
mathematics."
He kept harassing me, looking
for me to say something
he would use to start
a fight.
Finally I just drove away
with him standing there.
They didn't pursue.
For the ticket, I went to
court. The cops didn't
show, and the judge dismissed
the case. I handed the judge
a letter describing the interaction.
That cop was a thug.
He was loose on the streets,
carrying a gun,
making illegal traffic
stops, harassing citizens,
trying to start fights,
basically a violent criminal,
paid by taxes.
He was using his
power to get his jollies.
Lesson: Such things happen.
They happened with the
Nazi Brown Shirts. They
happen with some US police.
Apparently they happen with
the TSA, DEA, DHS, FBI,
and CPS. We should not
give up our freedoms easily.
In our democracy,
we need to vote against such
stuff.