News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA. Parent comment

Re:Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA by cmdkeen on Thursday July 18, 2013 @10:32AM (#6063854)
What's worrying is that it always strikes me as the Roman Empire in the last days of the Republic. Vast sums being spent to buy elections, a powerful few getting very rich off wars and the government grinding to a halt, unable to deal with the problems facing the nation.

Just before Caesar came along and get into a fight with the Senate. Congress' approval ratings are so low it really wouldn't take much for a powerful populist movement to challenge the constitutional makeup.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA by diydsp on Thursday July 18, 2013 @04:49PM (#6066363)
The other scary thing is how the Roman Empire ended... IIUC (and that's a capital I, btw), a group of Visigoths penetrated the capital, killed a bunch of powerful rulers and left... the rest of the country couldn't handle itself and it led to the Dark Ages for centuries... The scary thing is how close the events of 9/11/2001 are to those very circumstances...

...Although a part of me fantasizes about the freedom which existed in Dark Ages....

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Obama wins back the right to indefinitely detain under NDAA by protomyth on Thursday July 18, 2013 @11:12AM (#6064145)
"Congress' approval ratings are so low it really wouldn't take much for a powerful populist movement to challenge the constitutional makeup"

You might want to check folks approval ratings of their own congressperson. The overall rating is horrid, but the "mine" is generally quite good.

[ Parent | on HN ]