In fact it sounds more like they generally target specific individuals based on their politics or whatever red flag gets thrown on them from the system. That's certainly dangerous in a way, but in essence harmless to the vast majority of us.
The same could be said about the proportion of innocent people who would be jailed without the presumption of innocence. Yet I still support the presumption of innocence, even though I personally have never needed it. It makes me feel safer and allows me to trust and cooperate with the authorities.
Do you know how that one ended?
Not to make light of this issue, it's a serious matter, but don't be ridiculous.
The post I was replying to was basically a vague reference to creeping fascism/nazism, and then implying that the same is happening in the US and that we're on the brink of descending into nazism. It's stupid sophomoric comparison to make.
Yea we should fight back against this type of legal harassment. Sure it's similar to how nazis once operated. But what does that comparison really provide in this situation other than throwing FUD onto it. Do you really think the US is about to rise into the Fourth Reich? I mean seriously... even if you feel like Trump is the antichrist, this policy undoubtedly came into effect during the Bush/Obama years when laptops and cell phones became ubiquitous.
In the 1960s you could decide that you'd done enough and move to a new city across the country and get a fairly fresh start. Now any trivial interaction with "the system" would get you red flagged at every subsequent interaction.
The cops "randomly" stop an acquaintance of mine fairly regularly and give him much more crap ever since one of his kids got a misdemeanor speeding ticket (threshold is 20-over which is typical traffic speed in some places) in that vehicle with those plates.
>think the US is about to rise into the Fourth Reich?
Not literally but people have diverse sets of political beliefs. It's not a stretch to imagine individual groups that are for/against something being persecuted. Imagine how civil rights activists or the pro-socialist hippies would be treated today.
Obama prosecuted more journalists and whistle blowers than any president in history.
And we're not talking about turning into Nazi Germany. We're talking about why government crimes against their own people, especially for political speech, should never be allowed to happen because they can result in worse outcomes than you would expect.
And Germany didn't turn up Nazi overnight. It's always a slippery slope to prosecute people for political purposes. What happens in Canada with it misuse of human rights tribunal and what happens in many other western countries where the social climate currently is that everyone considers to be okay to suppress free speech because someones feelings are hurt. It is not a human right to be able to silence uncomfortable opinions, yet it is exactly what we see in these phenomenon of social justice warriors only there is no justice there to be made. This entitlement and the need to control of others is actually what scares me the most. You see it everywhere, people in uniforms and people in academia specially social sciences.
Read history outside of school, might learn a thing or two.