The Glade 4.0

So we should be happy that big brother raised the chocolate ration and go back to sleep? Got it.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

It was a significantly colder then than it is now. In the late 18th century, we were coming off the end of a mini ice age. Case in point, Washington crossing the Delaware. It practically never freezes today. Not like that, anyway. But at the time, it was a fairly routine occurrence.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

I meant that unlike the soldiers who had to build their own structures to keep warm Washington was housed in a preexisting structure with a fireplace in every room.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

I guarantee if you had to stay out in it all winter, you'd be freezing your *** off. I froze my *** off in winter in the field in the middle of Texas quite a few times, and I had modern equipment to help keep warm. More importantly, Washington was a general who cared deeply about his men, and he was well aware of their suffering even if he had it rather easier himself, not to mention the fact that sure as **** all the officers were not housed in such structures.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Fair enough. There were plenty of other occasions where he surely would have been freezing his *** off, though. Not really relevant to the discussion; I guess all I'm saying is that Washington was a bad-ass.

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.

Oh YEAH he was! He was so bad *** that he had the war come to him - he conducted it from a Lazyboy sitting in front of a fireplace!

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In time, this too shall pass.

I'd really rather not argue over that. It's inconsequential to the heinousness of post 9/11 practices.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

I don't understand the response to stuff like this that we have it good in this country.

Ok, fine. I have it good. I have it great, in fact. But these people in the book? They're getting ****. Should I be ok with that because I have it good?

“In Germany they came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade
unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I
didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to
speak up.” --Pastor Martin Niemöller, 1945

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The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself. B. Franklin

"A mind needs books like a sword needs a whetstone." -- Tyrion Lannister, A Game of Thrones

Seventy years ago we had just finished interning hundreds of thousands of our own citizens because they happened to be of Japanese decent.

Sixty years ago, we were blacklisting and raiding the private residences of individuals because of their political leanings.

Fifty years ago, the president was having the FBI wiretap people he didn't like. (not just who were suspected of having various political leanings.)

Fifty years ago, the color of your skin determined what school you went to, if you could be lynched without provocation, and dogs & water hoses were routinely turned on peaceful demonstrations.

While I certainly am not a fan of the Patriot act and think it has gross violations of constitutional freedoms, lets not look at our past with rose colored glasses.

47 years ago, discrimination based on "race, color, religion, or national origin" was banned.

45 years ago, your "right to remain silent" became a big deal.

36 years ago a war ended that killed over 58,000 US service personnel, compared to recent ones that have killed just over 5,000. The war was punctuated by protest and civil disobedience which culminated in 67 shots being fired into a crowd of students 41 years ago, killing 4 and wounding 9 others.


People who think it's "the worst of times" or even a bad time these days have short memories. These are the best of days in my opinion, and that's pretty much the only opinion that matters to me.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Most of the people complaining didn't live through those events, so they are irrelevant to their thought process.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

That doesn't argue strongly for the end-of-freedom noise those same people are making. There is an ebb and flow of rights, freedoms just as there is with styles, morality, etc.

On the whole, the march is in the right direction. The sky is not falling. nothing to see here. move along.

It's not actually. It's proof that "it can't happen again" is false.

Yeah, I'm sure the president of the ACLU is full of **** Riov. Same for all the Muslims that are afraid to give to charity, less they be targeted and harassed by the FBI. I'm sure that the broad wording of the laws will never extend past what they're original intent was. That never happens. Ever. It's unthinkable.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

It's not that it can't happen again, it's just unlikely. Terrorism is not anywhere near as big a threat as Communism so the government will not be able to get away with stripping away as much liberty in the name of security as they managed to in response to Communism.

As for the government targeting Muslims, I'm sure they'd feel a lot safer if the "freedom-loving" conservatives that advocate nuking Afghanistan and burning down Mecca and Medina were running things instead.

10 years ago, "the right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects" was disregarded.
1 year ago, the right of a citizen not to be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” was disregarded.

Of course, we should all "just move along", because "there's nothing to see here". Glad that people were so willing to comply in the past, because I'm sure those lynchings were just part of the "ebb and flow of rights".





Which "freedom-loving conservatives" advocated that?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Don't forget eminent domain in the last decade, Vindi.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Government only respects the rights and wishes of the people when it is staring down the barrel of a gun.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

6,179 in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just ran across this the other day.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

You have it quite wrong here. None of those things were banned, but your right to free association was.
It was a big deal in 1776 and 1785; it's not so much a big deal anymore.
Huh, you mean we declared war on someone?'
I have a longer memory than you ... I have access to better math than you. You've not survived anything remotely comparable in economic terms.

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