T.A.I.N.T - ThatAreaInNeitherTerritory
That is, are we in a free country OR a dictatorship OR in an area that is neither but is in between the two?
Some say such a thing--freedom or dictatorship--is an either/or thing like being pregnant is and not a measureable continuum thing like the (slippery) slope of a hill.
But I don't completely agree.
I say its more like being a promiscuous woman who is cavalier about whether or not her partners wear condoms and hence she runs a measurable risk of becoming pregnant.
At this point in our culture's promiscuous playing around with socialism it's all about becoming a dictatorship.
What do you call the zone between a free country and a dictatorship?
Is there a zone, as in buffer zone or is it the proverbial abyss and we just go over the edge into oblivion?
Or, if there is a zone how do we measure where we are in relation to it?
This last is actually not as impossible as you'd think.
There are four characteristics which brand a country unmistakably as a dictatorship: one-party rule--executions without trial or with a mock trial, for political offenses--the nationalization or expropriation of private property--and censorship. A country guilty of these outrages forfeits any moral prerogatives, any claim to national rights or sovereignty, and becomes an outlaw.
So allow me to isolate--with commentary--the 4 elements on the road to dictatorship and score them to see where we are on this road.
1. one-party rule ... is there really that much difference between the Republican'ts and the Democans? that is, the Republicans can't protect my individual rights (to life, liberty, and the pursuit of [property and] happiness) and the Democrats can take them away.
2. executions without trial or with a mock trial, for political offenses .. NOT ... (yet) here .. and it seems highly highly unlikely to be here also ... so we are 'kinda safe for right now.
3. the nationalization or expropriation of private property - today this is too obviously happening.
4. and censorship ... political correctness is stepping stone, as is hate crimes, see Canada for hate crime examples.
Scoring on a 0 to1 scale for each with 1 = 100% over-the-line-there-already and 0, 0% not-even-close-yet with fractional amounts between these two endpoints based on a gut feel I have about them (you can have your own gut feel too and hopefully ... well, right now hope is beyond me): a score of 4 is full dictatorship.
1. 0.24
2. 0
3. 0.76
4. 0.24/2 = 0.12
Total score equals 1.12 or that is, we are 28% of the way (1.12/4) on our way to becoming a dictatorship.
And we notice that the 28% is not insignificant and could be viewed as an actual warning sign/danger level as it is greater than one of the magical numbers in BiO Spiritualism's
Number'ology view of numbers where 24% represents a critical point (see
Yes pages 8 and 9 for reference on this) and hence 28% of the way to a full dictatorship represents a threshold crossed.
And of course I mean, crossed in the wrong direction.
Inspite of what we eternally optimistic Americans might think, dictatorship isn't an impossible thing to happen to us.
A square circle is an impossible thing, but a crimpled, distorted one is not.