>The thread wondered off into the usual direction of attempting to
>dissuade usage of the term xxxxx. Okay, they were Italians, so they
>were different, and?
>
>That wasn't really the intent of the question. So I'll repeat it.
>
>``.. I want to ask you to explain, why you don't think a (xxxxx) threat
>comes from the Bush administration? I am serious. In my view they are
>not just horrid or icky, they are dangerous..''
>
>
Chuck, here are a few things worth remembering to keep things in
perspective.
* In England, a journalist can be put in jail for publishing information covered by the Official Secrets Act.
* In the 1960's, the FBI ran secret programs to destroy radical groups, assassinated activists, spied on members of Congress and tried to blackmail Martin Luther King into committing suicide.
* In Germany, members of Scientology are under state surveillance. National intelligence officials have publicly called for the church to be outlawed. Until a few years ago, citizenship was determined by blood and children of immigrants were refused German nationality even if they were born in the country.
* During WWII - while fighting against several xxxxx regimes no less! - the US government put 120,000 Japanese-Americans in concentration camps.
* One day in 1961, the Paris police announced a curfew that applied only to "French Muslims." When Algerian immigrants demonstrated in protest, the police drowned up to 200 of them in the Seine.
* During the Reagan administration, the National Security Council drew up plans to suspend the Constitution and place leftists in detention without trial in the event that we invaded El Salvador.
This list, which could be indefinitely expanded, covers a good part of the liberal democratic world over the last 60 years. Do you feel that this world is made up of xxxxx regimes? If it is, what regimes have been non-xxxxxx? Seth