If you are left-leaning and you surround yourself with only lefties and you talk with only lefties then you are operating in a dangerous vacuum where you don’t get dissenting opinions to check your rationale against.

Well sure, but when I visit Michele Maulkin or Little Green Footballs or Instapundit I feel pretty secure about the general correctness of my political opinions. “Reality has a Leftwing Bias” ya know. And when it comes to the Right on questions of scientific facts… well… humor has it’s place in the world I suppose.

America is not a fascist state, it is a surveillance society. There are general signs and they sure are frightening but who knows what tomorrow will bring? I don’t.

It’s pretty hard to have a rational debate in the comments on a blog “CantStopTheSignal”. I’d look for that in a well moderated forum somewhere. Good luck with that.

I’m a rightwinger (who doesn’t read political blogs) who very often frequents BoingBoing. I have absolutely no problem with Boing’s leftwing bias as (a): I like to see what the other side says about things and (b): the non-political stuff is always fascinating. The thing I find the funniest is how open minded the left is, provided of course that you agree with them.

But hey, it all works out.

2. Create a gulag:

3. Develop a thug caste: Come on! The Clintons are the goddamn Sopranos. They even made an ad about it!

4. Set up an internal surveillance system: See NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, NYTimes, WaPo, and on & on & on…

5. Harass citizens’ groups: Hey, a white christian…KILL KIM!

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release: Sensitivity Training.

7. Target key individuals: Screw that, target anyone who doesn’t believe in WTC 7…and Ron Paul.

8. Control the press: LMFAO!

9. Dissent equals treason: It sure does. Just ask Joe Lieberman.

10. Suspend the rule of law: God bless the ACLU. Wait, did I say “God?” I didn’t mean that…please don’t sue.

Judging from the way that Bush’s Republican party has systematically installed their political allies into many preferably non-political areas (eg, the Judiciary and the Governmental scientific bodies) it is certainly doing its best to be dictatorial. Also, did Bush even win his first election? A leader who is elected through corruption counts as a dictator in my book.

Even if we say Bush did win, both Mussolini and Hitler also won ‘democratic’ elections. You can be elected and still be a fascist – the difference is that once in power a fascist will do everything they can to overcome the limits placed upon them by the democratic system. I think Bush has certainly done his best to do this.

Look at it this way; if Bush and his buddies had lost the second election, but had found a sneaky way of staying in power that didn’t cause complete chaos… would they have bowed down to the wished of the electorate? I doubt it.

The problem with your “problem” is that it isn’t a problem. You state that President Bush is “stupid, paranoid and greedy.” And your evidence for all this is……..?

Really now, you need to reach back into your memory banks and recall what you presumably learned in Philosophy 101: “All opinions are valid, but not all arguments are valid.” Show us your evidence or–how shall I put this delicately?–oh yeah, shut up.

2.) Create a Gulag: Insert (any) American university here.

Other acceptable answers for #7: Target anyone who doesn’t reek of patchouli & body odor or refuses to pepper his sentences with the word “man.”

While I’m not certain that her worst fears will come true it is true that no one has gone wrong assuming the worst from this administration. Indeed it’s hard to keep up.

Only if the next guy (or gal) isn’t a authoritarian twit too. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

If Bush wants to leave office in January 2008, hey, he should go for it. He doesn’t look like he’s having much fun, and most of his old Texas buddies already bailed. Pretty soon it’ll be him, Cheney, and a bunch of sycophantic staffers way in over their heads.

Couldn’t you just exile her to one of the post-revolutionary gulags?

You’d think it would be impossible to violate Godwin’s Law for an entire book, but evidently Naomi Wolf proved us wrong.

Guns /= Free.

Now Naomi Wolf may well be a wingnut but some of this stuff is not *speculative* it is actually in place.

For example you already have a legal mechanism whereby travel is prevented for opaque reasons. You are told that this is for your own good and will only be used on terrorists. But there are already examples of it being used for other classes of people (anti war protesters) and in those cases it has also been shown that there is no legal recourse.

So all you ‘can’t happen here’ people – do you genuinely trust your government so much that not only do you not mind them having these powers but you don’t even want to hear that they have them?

Naomi Wolf is an intelligent woman. She has been ill-served by her education. But if you read Lacan, this is the result. Your brain turns to pudding! She has a case to make. She cannot make it. She’s full of paranoid fantasies about the world.
- Camille Paglia

I dont know why everyone is so eager to pan this out of hand without argument other than invective.

i dont know if Wolfe is correct, but at least it sounds plausible. Her main point is, if this is the script being followed, we need to step in NOW to amend the ending before the final cut.

Risser: Bush may be many things but stupid isn’t one of them, he just plays one on TV. It’s all an act. He reads books and newspapers constantly even though publicly he says otherwise. Why? Because it’s what “The Prince” would do.

If you are going to be pedantic “Tim the Pedant” at least get it right.

fas·cism /[fash-iz-uhm]
–noun

a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.

or

A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.

or

A system of government that flourished in Europe from the 1920s to the end of World War II. Germany under Adolf Hitler, Italy under Mussolini, and Spain under Franco were all fascist states. As a rule, fascist governments are dominated by a dictator, who usually possesses a magnetic personality, wears a showy uniform, and rallies his followers by mass parades; appeals to strident nationalism; and promotes suspicion or hatred of both foreigners and “impure” people within his own nation, such as the Jews in Germany. Although both communism and fascism are forms of totalitarianism, fascism does not demand state ownership of the means of production, nor is fascism committed to the achievement of economic equality. In theory, communism opposes the identification of government with a single charismatic leader (the “cult of personality”), which is the cornerstone of fascism. Whereas communists are considered left-wing, fascists are usually described as right-wing.

Note: Today, the term fascist is used loosely to refer to military dictatorships, as well as governments or individuals that profess racism and that act in an arbitrary, high-handed manner.

Clearly there are fascistic elements at work today but whether or not we will become a full blown fascist state really doesn’t matter. Our rights and freedoms are being systematically taken away and we live in an increasingly authoritarian and repressive state.

Do you mean #’s 32 and 33?

For the record: Admittedly, my language was strong, but I was reacting to some (IMO) egregious misuses of the forum (some since deleted), and expressing my frustration with commenters who seem to not like the blog, but instead of simply not reading it, or disagreeing with it, opt to mock it and other commenters, hence my note about “complaining.”

I am usually quite an amiable fellow! :)