See my sig for my opinion.
If the populace is completely dependent on the police powers of the state to protect it against predators and criminals, then it is a police state. Thus NYC, Chicago, D.C.. L.A. are or approach the status of police states.
And since those areas at least THINK they set the standards for The Rest Of Us, and are doing everything they can, By Whatever Means Necessary, to impose those standards on the nation, the movement toward a total Police State (and/or Tyranny) is well underway.
And, yes, it did start with Washington's suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion (L.Neil Smith for President!
) or maybe even the stealth creation of the Constitution by a convention whose only legal authority was to reform/revise the Articles of Confederation.
But I like the Constitution For The United States Of America, as originally written. Yes, they blew it big time with their failure to address slavery, leading eventually to the Appeal To Heaven sometimes called the Civil War - and States' Rights were NOT the issue, BTW; in fact the slave states had vigorously OPPOSED "States Rights" just 10 years earlier when the abolitionists claimed it as justification for ignoring the Fugitive Slave Act and the slave owners insisted on the supremacy of the Federal power in seizing escaped slaves.
Jeebus, I can digress.
Anyway, I support (and defend) the Constitution these days. Imperfect as it may be, it's the best humans have ever written down, and its principles are sound.
We do need to reawaken the average citizen's understanding and committment to it. The arguements of the statists would fall on deaf ears if the people truly honored the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution; the statists have had there way with defining the debate for 'way too long.
And they desperately want and NEED a Police State to ensure their domination: after all, It's For The Children.
The fact that The Children will in all likelyhood d@mn them for their presumption is of no importance - by then THEY'LL all be dead, as John Maynard Keynes noted when confronted with the certain consequences of HIS statist prescriptions.
:banghead: