Jonathan Turley seems to have decided that the law-breaking behavior of the US government has become too extensive to maintain even the façade of being a free society. Here are the ten reasons that he gives for his conclusion and he elaborates on each one in his article.
- Assassination of U.S. citizens
- Indefinite detention
- Arbitrary justice
- Warrantless searches
- Secret evidence
- War crimes
- Secret court
- Immunity from judicial review
- Continual monitoring of citizens
- Extraordinary renditions
It should be noted that he wrote this back in April even before the latest revelations of government excesses. Turley, a professor of law at George Washington University, is hardly a radical. And yet I have observed him evolve over time to have an ever-darkening view of the state of the US. It should worry the government that even establishment people are sounding such dire alarms.
There is never a time when things suddenly and clearly shift from being free to being in a police state. This is why people rarely notice the world they actually exist in.
I got a chuckle when my daughter told me what the 2 parties (Republican and Democrat) are supposed to represent. The teachers are still providing the standard definitions that I learned as a kid which really haven’t been true for at least a couple of decades now.
Look at all of the regime changes that didn’t involve major revolts. If Hitler had come into office immediately hauling Jews into camps for extermination, the German people wouldn’t have tolerated it. But making a few changes every few months with reasons that people can rationalize led to some real horrors. I see the same thing happening in both of our political parties. Democrats have become very moderate with indications of being reasonably conservative now. Republicans have become so extreme that there is simply no doubt in my mind that their demi-god (Reagan) wouldn’t even be considered part of their party anymore. There simply isn’t any real liberals in the government anymore.
Like evolution, you don’t see the changes step by step. But at some point we need to realize that we are no longer looking at blue, and we’ve even passed purple…we are looking at something that is already pretty red. But we have to accept some bitter truths.
I have to admit to being a little confounded by people who think “no longer” when it comes to the US and freedom and democracy.
Iran was 1953. Nicaragua was 30 years later (and 40 years before). Was the US the land of the free before the 1900s? During the era of Manifest Destiny? Before then? How about slavery?
How noble is this “land of the free” myth that it’s perpetuated even now, even if only to refer to it during some mythical past?
Edmund Morgan’s “American Slavery, American Freedom” is a good read on the start of the rhetoric of freedom in America; Eric Foner’s “The Story of American Freedom” is also very good.
One could ask our Native Americans or Japanese Americans (circa WW II) how they feel about this “land of the free” BS.
Anthony K.
Yeah and ask the Japanese Americans that were around in the 2nd world war how the land of the free worked out for them.
Anthony K that’s a pretty good point, sad though it is :[
In that respect, Canada (my country) comes out no better. We interned Ukrainian Canadians during WWI, and German and Japanese Canadians in WWII. And Canada’s treatment of Aboriginal people has been and continues to be atrocious in all sorts of ways.
Luckily the USA has a veto in the UN, so the Government will never have to answer for its crimes.
A very strong case could be made that the US has never been the land of the free: those items you list have been with us since before Revolution.