US is becoming a banana republic

[Rearden Metal]

The rulers of a banana republic are always eager to enact legislation which makes practically everyone a criminal, in order to render all of it's citizens vulnerable to selectively enforced prosecution at any time, at the whim of any gov't official with an axe to grind. Even the most harmless and benign of banana republic subjects are in constant danger of arrest and imprisonment at the hands of the black-bag squads.

Here's the sort of thing only a banana republic would do:
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http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6024695.html?tag=nl.e589

<b>Annoy someone online--two years in jail?</b>

Commentary--Annoying someone via the Internet is now a federal crime.
It's no joke. Last Thursday, President Bush signed into law a prohibition on posting annoying Web messages or sending annoying e-mail messages without disclosing your true identity.

In other words, it's OK to flame someone on a mailing list or in a blog as long as you do it under your real name. Thank Congress for small favors, I guess.

This ridiculous prohibition, which would likely imperil much of Usenet, is buried in the so-called Violence Against Women and Department of Justice Reauthorization Act. Criminal penalties include stiff fines and two years in prison.

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What if I had good connections with the right gov't official(s), along with a complete and utter disregard for the U.S. Constitution? I'd then be able to send trolls like LoZZZer up the river at will, to be pounded like a rented gerbil every night by real criminals. Free country?

 

[client#9]

Quote from traderNik:

Normally I would just assume that you meant underpaid, but for some reason I thought I'd ask.

If anyone thinks that the plummeting academic quality of high school graduates in the U.S. isn't a huge burden going forward, they haven't been to India/Japan/China lately. One need look no further than the quality of writing here at ET for incontrovertible evidence that U.S. high school graduates are unprepared to compete in a wide variety of fields in which higher literacy is required. There are plenty of people here who graduated high school but cannot deal with the English language.

Speaking of not being coherent, one Tradernik says he is going to ask a question and then goes onto one of his high and mighty rants. You know, the kind every community college wunderkind thinks he's entitled to.

If we Americans, not phony American wannabes like Nikkie, want a better educational system, better not even think of election the NEA wet dream known as Obama.

Elect Mccain and everything'll be alwhite.

 

[ShoeshineBoy]

Quote from zdreg:

it is tiresome to hear that the war in iraq is responsible for US economic ills. the reality is that the US is becoming more socialist while europe is either maintainting the staus quo or trying to become more capitalistic. The US is burdened with 50 states who think that they are sovereign nations who can burden their residents with taxes to pay off the state's civilian servants with inflated pension promises. then afterwards they expect the federal gov't . tp pay off their obligations. then there are the managers in the private sector who only care aboutmore their obs and negotiate everything away to the unions. the stockholders be damned.
a rotten system of education with overpaid teachers does not help either,

the war in iraq is a very small part of US GDP

Forget about it: it will incresingly go more and more socialistic as Europe has and there's nothing any of us can do to stop it. The great majority of people have no clue about economics or basic financial principles and the great majority of people is who votes in politicians...

 

[Rearden Metal]

Here's the sort of thing that happens in a banana republic:

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle_blog/2008/feb/04/a_cop_is_dead_because_an_informa

<b>Prohibition Enforcement Goon Gives His Life To Protect Society From Japanese Maple Trees</b>

This is one of those stories that is simultaneously so unbelievable and yet nauseatingly familiar that you just know our deeply flawed drug laws are behind it.

Ryan Frederick is an amateur gardener who grows tomatoes and Japanese maple trees, which look like marijuana. An informant told police there was pot growing at the residence and a warrant was issued. Frederick, who had been burglarized earlier in the week, mistook the police for thieves and sought to defend his home by firing on the unexpected intruders. Police officer Jarrod Shivers was killed.

Now, as we learned in the strikingly similar case of Cory Maye, law-enforcement does not take kindly to people defending their homes during mistaken drug raids. Ryan Frederick has been charged with first-degree murder on the theory that he knew the intruders were police and fired on them anyway.

Frederick had no criminal record and no marijuana plants. The informant was just wrong. Although a few joints were found in the home, it just doesn’t make much sense to contend that Frederick would provoke a shoot-out with police over a misdemeanor. Nonetheless, he's being prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law and can only hope the jury understands the horrible situation he's been placed in.

This is still a developing story, but at this point it seems pretty clear that the only reason this raid ever happened is that some idiot mistook Japanese Maple trees for marijuana. That's all it took. There are no safeguards built into the drug war to prevent this type of thing. If you call in a suspected marijuana grow, you are assumed to be a botanist capable of accurately identifying plants. Police will even risk their lives to investigate your idiotic claims.

Prosecuting Ryan Frederick for murder will do nothing to curb the inevitable result of continuing to raid homes based on informant testimony. This is all just one more injustice stacked atop a precarious edifice. Like Cory Maye, Ryan Frederick is lucky to even be alive, which begs the question of how many dead innocent people would have been unfairly charged with attempted cop-murder if they'd been fortunate enough to even survive the raid.

 

[FanOfFridays]

Quote from client#9:

Speaking of not being coherent, one Tradernik says he is going to ask a question and then goes onto one of his high and mighty rants. You know, the kind every community college wunderkind thinks he's entitled to.

At least I'm not a fucking gutless coward who feels the need to create a new username every time he wants to flame someone, instead of acting like he had a pair and posting under the name we all know him by.

Right, fuckwad?

Right. Now go back to your porn sites and your Accutane.

PS - if you weren't able to parse the meaning from the post and figure out on your own that the question I was asking was implied by the text I quoted, you're even more of a fucking retard than I thought....

...oops, wait a minute. I already thought you're as much of a retard as you could possibly be.

 

[zdreg]

zdreg


Registered: Oct 2003
Posts: 2945


04-16-08 07:42 AM

another characteristic of banana republics is keeping interest rates artificially low.

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please vote on the poll

 

[zdreg]

the end of excess?

 

[mokwit]

Quote from mokwit:

A Dictator and a ruling Elite made up of a small number of families. Dictator is completely out of touch with the hardships of the peope e.g says things like "I heard gas had got kinda expensive". Excessive spending on arms. Control of the media to push propaganda that is laugably untrue. Falsification of official statistics to suit Govt's purpose. Contracts awarded to favoured companies, govt funds used to suport favored companies etc etc

What passes for 'economic policy' is just redirection of resources to favoured companies and industries. i.e the economy and regulatory environment is run for the sole purpose of benefitting the elites companies and industries. If the Banana Republic has an arms industry then it will start wars to favour the arms companies.

 

[arealpissedgoy]

Quote from mokwit:

A Dictator and a ruling Elite made up of a small number of families.


Dictator is completely out of touch with the hardships of the peope e.g says things like "I heard gas had got kinda expensive".

you mean like McSame?

"I fundamentally believe the market is fundamentally strong".

Market plunges 300 points after he makes that statement.

Markets are pricing in the nightmare scenario of a Palin/McSame win.

Market went down 200 points the day Palin was selected.

 

[mokwit]

George Dufus Bush followed by McSenile. No thanks. Give me that other guy I can't stand, anything but more Republicanism.

The average overweight propaganda swallowing moron that now comprises 51% of the electorate probably won't get his house, widescreen, SUV, boat and Lazeeboy reposessed until after the election by which time it will be too late - he will almost certainly have voted for somebody.

Virtually all Americans used to be people you could genuinely respect. Fine values. Now look at them.