<story><title>Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?</title><url>http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/09/has-the-us-become-the-kind-of-nation-from-which-you-have-to-seek-asylum/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mtgx</author><text>So is the 4th amendment, and look how much that one is abused. In the end the Constitution really is &amp;quot;just a piece of paper&amp;quot;, if not the &lt;i&gt;government&lt;/i&gt;, not the &lt;i&gt;judges&lt;/i&gt;, not the &lt;i&gt;media&lt;/i&gt;, and ultimately not even the &lt;i&gt;people&lt;/i&gt; respect it, live by it, and try to protect it as soon as it&amp;#x27;s endangered by people trying to accumulate too much power. Where are all the street protests?!&lt;p&gt;I also fail to understand people who so viciously defend the 2nd amendment &amp;quot;because of potential tyranny&amp;quot;, but don&amp;#x27;t try to defend the 1st and 4th amendments with the same aggressiveness, when in fact those amendments are the &lt;i&gt;first line of defense&lt;/i&gt; against that encroaching tyranny, and if they fail, it&amp;#x27;s the first clue the country is slipping into tyranny. Would you rather wait until the very last moment, until people can&amp;#x27;t take it anymore but to rise up against the government with violence and starting a massacre, all just to remove the government? Or would you try to fix things while you still can do it peacefully, by protecting the 1st and 4th amendments, so it doesn&amp;#x27;t have to come to &amp;quot;using the 2nd amendment right to defend against the government with guns&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;Or maybe it all comes down to who has more money to raise the awareness about it. NRA is a powerful lobby. ACLU and EFF less so.</text></item><item><author>newbie12</author><text>The right to bear arms is also, explicitly, a protection against tyranny BY the government.  Thomas Jefferson: &amp;quot;&amp;quot;When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>_airh</author><text>It is strange that the same country which cherishes its &amp;#x27;right to bear arms&amp;#x27; on the grounds that it gives them a level of protection that the government is unable to provide is &amp;#x27;happy&amp;#x27; to build the infrastructure which allows the same government to peek into their lives.&lt;p&gt;On the one hand, we don&amp;#x27;t trust the government with the basics (physical security).  On the other, we trust them with information we don&amp;#x27;t want our parents to see (facebook profiles, etc).  ...strange.&lt;p&gt;Edit: When I say &amp;#x27;the country&amp;#x27; I mean the people in aggregate.  Obviously, some people are outraged about this issue, just as some people were outraged when a gunman killed 30 children.  Techies seem to be particularly concerned about this issue but, on the whole, most people are indifferent.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>munificent</author><text>&amp;gt; Where are all the street protests?!&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m going to interpret that question literally. A key thing you have to keep in mind is that in almost all of the US outside of a few very large cities, the &amp;quot;street&amp;quot; is not a useful public place. People don&amp;#x27;t gather and interact on streets in the US. They are merely channels for cars. Protesting on the streets would be as useful in most cities in the US as wandering around next to a shipping lane on the open ocean. The only people &amp;quot;there&amp;quot; are driving vehicles at full speed.&lt;p&gt;That of course raises the question of where Americans &lt;i&gt;do&lt;/i&gt; congregate together. Churches are the answer for many, although I believe those are dwindling. Some go to bars. Neither of those is a particularly good venue for dissent.&lt;p&gt;One unfortunate consequence of the US being so car-centric is that we&amp;#x27;ve destroyed public space, and consequently made public assembly much harder.</text></comment>
<story><title>Has the US become the type of nation from which you have to seek asylum?</title><url>http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/09/has-the-us-become-the-kind-of-nation-from-which-you-have-to-seek-asylum/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>mtgx</author><text>So is the 4th amendment, and look how much that one is abused. In the end the Constitution really is &amp;quot;just a piece of paper&amp;quot;, if not the &lt;i&gt;government&lt;/i&gt;, not the &lt;i&gt;judges&lt;/i&gt;, not the &lt;i&gt;media&lt;/i&gt;, and ultimately not even the &lt;i&gt;people&lt;/i&gt; respect it, live by it, and try to protect it as soon as it&amp;#x27;s endangered by people trying to accumulate too much power. Where are all the street protests?!&lt;p&gt;I also fail to understand people who so viciously defend the 2nd amendment &amp;quot;because of potential tyranny&amp;quot;, but don&amp;#x27;t try to defend the 1st and 4th amendments with the same aggressiveness, when in fact those amendments are the &lt;i&gt;first line of defense&lt;/i&gt; against that encroaching tyranny, and if they fail, it&amp;#x27;s the first clue the country is slipping into tyranny. Would you rather wait until the very last moment, until people can&amp;#x27;t take it anymore but to rise up against the government with violence and starting a massacre, all just to remove the government? Or would you try to fix things while you still can do it peacefully, by protecting the 1st and 4th amendments, so it doesn&amp;#x27;t have to come to &amp;quot;using the 2nd amendment right to defend against the government with guns&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;Or maybe it all comes down to who has more money to raise the awareness about it. NRA is a powerful lobby. ACLU and EFF less so.</text></item><item><author>newbie12</author><text>The right to bear arms is also, explicitly, a protection against tyranny BY the government.  Thomas Jefferson: &amp;quot;&amp;quot;When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.&amp;quot;</text></item><item><author>_airh</author><text>It is strange that the same country which cherishes its &amp;#x27;right to bear arms&amp;#x27; on the grounds that it gives them a level of protection that the government is unable to provide is &amp;#x27;happy&amp;#x27; to build the infrastructure which allows the same government to peek into their lives.&lt;p&gt;On the one hand, we don&amp;#x27;t trust the government with the basics (physical security).  On the other, we trust them with information we don&amp;#x27;t want our parents to see (facebook profiles, etc).  ...strange.&lt;p&gt;Edit: When I say &amp;#x27;the country&amp;#x27; I mean the people in aggregate.  Obviously, some people are outraged about this issue, just as some people were outraged when a gunman killed 30 children.  Techies seem to be particularly concerned about this issue but, on the whole, most people are indifferent.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>eli_gottlieb</author><text>&lt;i&gt;Where are all the street protests?!&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;The people who went to the streets protesting in 2011 got arrested.  You&amp;#x27;re looking at the maturation of a tyrannical, authoritarian neoliberal regime.</text></comment>