Do you believe the FBI and NSA when they say more than 50 plots were foiled by NSA surveillance?

[Savannahmann]

66. I have seen the video, and I've seen similar and heard of similar through history.

Does that mean only the ones who are in the area are worthy to judge?

Consider your answer carefully. Because this argument has been held in history, and authoritarians are always liked, until they are on the dustbin of history.

Hitler was popular, I have several videos at the house of him and there is one especially disturbing documentary where people admit to liking life under the Nazi's. They had nothing to fear, so they were unafraid.

Mussolini was also popular. To this day, the Italians complain that the trains haven't run on time since he was deposed. He was popular, and they had nothing to fear from him, so why worry?

There is an embarrassment here. I agree. It is that the arguments being made are historically and factually wrong. Military equipped police is an embarrassment to everyone. My father saw it coming back in the early 1980s. When additional funding was set aside for more SWAT teams. They were so successful after all. Now, every cop has full assault gear, the kind that our actual military dreamed of having in the early stages of the Iraq war. The kind of equipment that was a national disgrace for months while they struggled to armor the Hummers, and get every soldier in battle a vest.

Yes, there is an embarrassment, and I feel it. I feel embarrassed that any Democrat would applaud the authoritarian police state. I feel embarrassed that the party of Civil Rights back in the 1960's, and 1970's. The party that objected to the Military Industrial Complex of the 1980's, and fought to cut the military funding of the 1990's, would today cheer the Police having the same authority we once protested against with the School Of the Americas. That any democrat would applaud such things is embarrassing to me, when I stood in the heat and protested the School of the Americas where foreigners were taught at Fort Benning to drag people out of their homes at gunpoint. Use overwhelming force to intimidate and overwhelm your opponents. Then tell lies to get public support.

A long time ago, I worked as a security guard. We were taught, by State Sponsored Schools, to lie if we had to beat someone up. We were told to tell the crowd that the guy we just beat was a child molester. That way they would report favorably on our actions, because everyone hates a child molester. I never did, but I expect many others did lie about that.

So while I am embarrassed, I am so because of your actions. Because I am also a Democrat, and it's embarrassing to admit that I am when so many of our party members have become cheerleaders of the authoritarian police state.