New tech.

Thanks, Amy. TSA News Blog, ever since the servers were moved a few weeks ago, has been experiencing intermittent problems. You'll sometimes get this message: "Error establishing a database connection."

Aaargh.

All I can say is, keep trying, folks.

(And I promise I'll move the computer next time so the background is books instead of my gowns and hubby's gym clothes!)

One of the best illustrations of rights erosion is in this excerpt (linked) from . . .

They Thought They Were Free
The Germans, 1933-45
Milton Mayer

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter."

"Nobody misses a slice from a cut loaf."
The Nazis used the term "Salami-tactic"-- cutting away our rights one slice at a time.

...noting how civil liberties are taken from us, not by some dark knight all at once, but in many small steps

and

The Nazis used the term "Salami-tactic"-- cutting away our rights one slice at a time.

Two questions:

1. How are you going to know (or when are you going to decide) when enough is enough, when too many small steps have been taken, when too many rights have been cut away?

2. Once you know (or decide) this, what are you going to do?

1. How are you going to know (or when are you going to decide) when enough is enough, when too many small steps have been taken, when too many rights have been cut away?

Well James Yeager pretty much said what is his line in the sand.

2. Once you know (or decide) this, what are you going to do?

Hopefully you still have your second amendment rights so you you can protect the other nine.

"Hopefully you still have your second amendment rights so you you can protect the other nine."

The hard part is actually exercising it.

The Founders didn't talk their way into independence. Orwell has a good chance of marginalizing those who won't be disarmed "for their own good".