To: Srexley who wrote (208748 ) 12/11/2001 4:36:28 PM From: DuckTapeSunroof Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 769670 ...And Nixon lied about an entire war (Cambodia) to Congress and the American public... and kept an 'enemies list' to be targeted with IRS audits, and illegally froze wages and prices; and the FBI targeted domestic organizations to be attacked with 'disinformation' campaigns (King, etc., etc.); and the CIA & NSA intercepted / wiretapped domestic calls in the 'past', in violation of their marching orders; and FDR lied about his war preparations; and Reagan about his Contra funding and sale of weapons to Iran; and Clinton lied about his sexual escapades, and tried to put the 'clipper chip' in all digital devices, and restricted encryption sales, and commercial companies were co-opted to secretly enable government wiretapping (how many know that those IE and Netscape 'strong encryption' '128 bit' browsers are effectively only 40 bit encrypted [easily cracked] because they transmit a key for the remaining bits for the government?); and the first Bush stood up before the UN and promised the Kurds we would support them if they only rebelled against Saddam, and then stood by and watched them get slaughtered; etc.; and ALL the politicians we know lie about the non-existant 'Social Security Lockbox'.... So, yeah, it's just a "theoretical" problem I'm worried about. And if we only had good honest government at all times, than we poor citizens would never have anything to worry about.... But it's a slippery slope when one starts to give up freedoms... and they always seem to slide more and more down that hill, never to be regained. I think you are right, the average American won't suffer much... at least not right away. But in a generation or two... will our democracy still be strong (knowing that we are likely to have our normal run of lying, power-hungry politicians), or will the society be a little more 'Big Brotherish' than you would like it to be? Will we follow Rome's historical example of centralization of power and corruption, decline and fall?