Stick boy sent me this earlier today. He looks at this sort of thing as Ashcroft and the Patriot Act run amuck. This is along the line of the Fish Story that Jerry Pournelle posted a couple of weeks ago.

I think its more along the lines of petty bureaucrats on a power trip. I think it's human nature. Whenever you get an idiot and put them in a position of power over others, they WILL abuse their power.

I can remember plenty of folks on the right who thought Clinton was out to set up a dictatorship. They were wrong. Just as the left is wrong in thinking the Bush administration is out to set up a police state.

No, we are not as free as our forefathers. Over the last hundred years the federal government has eroded the powers of the states, the states in turn have got into local governments. Some of it is nanny-state bullshit, but a lot of it is simply the nature of bureaucracies.

A bureaucracies primary goal is it's continued existence. EVERYTHING else is secondary, including whatever the bureaucracy was originally created for.

I do not think there is any conspiracy to turn us into Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union, I think that we will see some of the more odious Patriot Act provisions to be repealed.

The best way to fight this sort of thing is to do exactly what these folks from the links posted above have done... tell your story. Enough people raise hell about something, even the Yankee guv-mint in Warshin'ton will listen.

I'm just thinking off the top of my head right now, I will probably be editing this again and again...