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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!!

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To: Father Terrence who wrote (57240)10/5/1999 8:29:00 PM
From: jbe  Read Replies (2) of 108807
 
Terrence: in the first place, you are not my Dah.

In the second place, how can you say that "visiting" the USSR meant you "experienced" a police state?? Did you "do" the Hermitage,where they forced you to check your coat?

The tourist's view of a police state is not quite the same thing as that of the person who lives in it, day in and day out.

Finally, I would agree we must always be vigilant about encroachments on our freedoms. I too find the Supreme Court's stand on seizure of property disgraceful.

But that does not mean the US is turning into a police state. In some respects, the US is freer than it used to be; in others, less so. Progress here, regress there. The most obvious case of progress is in the area of civil rights for blacks. One of the most obvious cases of regress, IMO, is provided by the handling of "drug crimes." And so on.

It also seems to me that the causes of both progress and regress reside in public opinion as well as in the "machinery of state." Very frequently, the latter is really only responding to the former (Prohibition being perhaps the best example of all).
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