Features of Nondemocratic, Statist, Totalitarian Governments

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Features of Nondemocratic, Statist,
Totalitarian Governments
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"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking
What would things have been like if every
Security operative, when he went out at night to
make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he
would return alive and had to say good-bye to his
family? Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. The Gulag
Archipelago. 1973.
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• Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as
  for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a
  quarter of the entire city, people had not simply
  sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at
  every bang of the down-stairs door and at every
  step on the staircase, but had understood they
  had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in
  the downstairs hall an ambush of a half a dozen
  people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever
  else was at hand?

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• After all, you knew ahead of time that those
  bluecaps were out at night for no good purpose.
  And you could be sure ahead of time that you'd be
  cracking the skull of a cutthroat.

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• Or what about the Black Maria sitting out there
  on the street with one lonely chauffeur - what if
  it had been driven off or its tires spiked? The
  Organs would very quickly have suffered a
  shortage of officers and transport and,
  notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the
  cursed machine would have ground to a halt.

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• If .... if... We didn't love freedom enough. And
  even more - we had no awareness of the real
  situation... We purely and simply deserved
  everything that happened afterward.

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The Prisoner Solzhenitsyn. One of millions.
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In the Camps.Dont worry for a second, boys and
girls. It cant happen here.
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No longer persons. Just flesh. This is easy
when all values are subjective, when all
truth is a matter of opinion and consensus, when
you let other do your thinking for you
while you watch TV, and when nothing has any
intrinsic value. Do you see any warning signs
Pilgrim?
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Nazis had a head start on the Soviet Communists.
That Prussian work ethic! Remove all ethical
judgments. Its nothing but a technical problem.
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Work makes you free.
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Germany was the most culturally advanced
society in Europe. But constitutional
protections are worthless when laws are changed
because The People give their consent to a
charismatic leader who is filled with promises.
How do you like change now, Pilgrim?
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Sure, its HELL. But look at the order!All
figured out with science in the service of
politics and ideology. See any signs of that
nowadays, Pilgrim?
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Unthinkable? NOT! Just the last step. Remember
how it started, Pilgrim? You werent paying
attention. You denied reality until the
bulldozer shoved you into the pit and covered you
with quick lime. Kept nodding like stoned sheep
when they tell you that the Constitution has to
change with the times. Yeah, THEYLL change it
for you! Too bad if you dont like those changes
later on. You gave your consent.
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Nice, orderly rows!
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• In Nondemocratic Societies
• Governments enslave and murder their own people
  far more than does war.
• You might say that the people (demos) have most
  to fear from their own governments.

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You dont believe it?
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They always do it in the name of Progress,
Equality, Freedom, Social Justice, and The
People. Can you smell bull_at_!, Pilgrim?

• http//www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM

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Whose speech is this?

• And he who in this people sympathizes with the
  poorest of its citizens, who in this people sees
  in every individual a valuable member of the
  whole community, and who recognizes that this
  community can flourish only when it is formed not
  of rulers and oppressed but when all according to
  their capacities fulfill their duty to their
  country and the community of the people and are
  valued accordingly, he who seeks to preserve the
  native vigor, the strength, and the youthful
  energy of the millions of working men, and who
  above all is concerned that our precious
  possession, our youth, shouldnt before its time
  be used up in unhealthy harmful work - he isnt
  merely a Democrat, but he is also a leader in the
  highest sense of that word.

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• So we have come together on this day to prove
  symbolically that we are more than a collection
  of individuals striving one against another, that
  none of us is too proud, none of us too high,
  none is too rich, and none too poor, to stand
  together before the face of the Lord and of the
  world in this indissoluble, sworn community. And
  this united nation, we have need of it.

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• When was a leadership at any time faced with a
  heavier task than our nations leadership?...
  What have we? One thing only we have our
  people. On it alone can we count. On it alone
  can we build. Everything that we have created up
  to the present we owe solely to its goodness of
  heart, its capacity, its loyalty, its decency,
  its industry And with this people we must and
  shall succeed in achieving also the tasks that
  are still to come.

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• What we want lies clear before us not war and
  not strife. Just as we have established peace
  within our own people, so we want nothing else
  than peace with the world.

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Sounds good, huh?
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Its Uncle Adolph!
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• Totalitarian rulers weaken potential opposition
  through (1) gun control (an unarmed population
  wont cause trouble)
• (2) thought control (propaganda, public
  education---a sleeping and historically ignorant
  population wont cause trouble. In fact, theyll
  WANT what the ruler promises.) (3) demonizing
  adversaries (4) outlawing certain books,
  organizations, and the expression of certain
  ideas and then (4) murder, genocide, and
  imprisonment.

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Looovvve that community spirit!! Organized
madness. Let feelings rule!
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• The Russian Gulag system of forced labor camps
  became a symbol of tyranny and oppression.
  Millions were imprisoned and died. The barbwire
  walls of the Gulag affected a generation of
  Russian men, women, and children. Men were taken
  from the beds, arrested in the streets, and
  beaten in their homes, and were never told why.
  The silent force of the Soviet regime created,
  built, and populated a nation of persecution and
  despotism and hid it behind the walls of their
  camps.
• http//www.essortment.com/all/historyrussiag_r
  fpb.htm

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What this country needs is a civilian service
corps, to prepare our youth for.. Hmmmm. I
wonder. What could go wrong?
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Natural rights? Nothing is natural. Its
all a social construction, dont you know.

• If former rights---to self-defense, free speech,
  assembly, publication, free thought, to work, to
  live, to travel, to be left alone---become
  potentially dangerous to rulers and to groups
  that support the rulers, then it will be said
  that, after all, rights must have limits.
• Come on. You cant say just ANYthing.
• Look, being intolerant of certain peoples
  behavior is wrong. You cant be free to have
  wrong feelings.
• You dont NEED a gun. Besides, the state
  regulates driving cars. Why shouldnt it
  regulate guns?

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• Do you agree, Pilgrim?
• Do you need to be TOLD when your liberty is
  under attack?
• Have you lost the instinct of self-preservation
  to the hive mind?

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Do you get it yet, Pilgrim?

• Any government, or any social group with
  clout (connections to powerful persons, with
  money, with enough members to affect elections),
  that considers constitutional rights to be
  debatable, has made unalienable rights alienable.

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• We are the hollow menWe are the stuffed
  menLeaning togetherHeadpiece filled with straw.
  Alas!Our dried voices, whenWe whisper
  togetherAre quiet and meaninglessAs wind in dry
  grassOr rats feet over broken glassIn our dry
  cellar
• Shape without form, shade without
  colour,Paralysed force, gesture without motion

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• This is the way the world ends.
• This is the way the world ends.
• This is the way the world ends.
• Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

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This
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• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vnwcP3NOCeiEfeature
  related
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v-RUMpQqMuFc