The only thing between you and a police state (or that which you fear) is the Bill of Rights.  If the Bill of Rights is that flimsy…. then we are:

  1.  screwed, or
  2.  better than the founders

We’re Not Screwed

It’s not about them, (the power-mongers), it’s about us…. we the people.  The real power is vested in the people.  The greater measure of control the govt exercises over the rights of the people is indicative of how out of control those in the govt really are.  You have no idea how frightened “they” are of the free expression of the public’s opinions….. the power is with the people.
On living without fear:

What’s the worse thing “they” can do to you?  Kill you, torture you, lock you up without legal representation……  I’m not afraid of any of these things happenning to me.  But these things are being done “in our name.”

What is the worse that can be done to you?  This is Martin Luther King’s statement after his house was bombed:

    (After the bombing of his home and the assurance his wife and baby were all right.)  “If you have weapons, take them home; if you do not have them please do not seek to get them.  Let’s not become panicky.  We cannot solve the problem through retaliatory violence.  We must meet violence with nonviolence.  Remember the words of Jesus, ‘He who lives by the sword will perish by the sword.’  I urged them to leave peacefully.  We must love our white brother, no matter what they do to us.  We must make them know that we love them.  Jesus still cries out in words that echo across the centuries:  Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; pray for them that spitefully use you.’  This is what we must live by.  We must meet hate with love.  ‘Remember, if I am stopped this movement will not stop, because God is with the movement.”  (Stride Toward Freedom, autobiography of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

The worse that can be done to you is what was done to the late Coretta Scott King.  How did she live her life?

    Such will be the days of mourning for Coretta Scott King, who not only stood by her husband but also by her country, by which she meant what it might yet be.
    Stood by? No, not just stood by, but walked ahead, holding her husband to his vision, and her country to its. She bid us follow without needing to say a word. Did she ever give a memorable speech in her life? She didn’t have to. All she had to do was appear, and the message was delivered.

    (Paul Greenburg; Sacramento Bee; January 31, 2006)

FDR:

“THE FOUR FREEDOMS”
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Address to Congress
January 6, 1941

    In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

    The first is freedom of speech and expression — everywhere in the world.

    The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way — everywhere in the world.

    The third is freedom from want — which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants — everywhere in the world.

    The fourth is freedom from fear — which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor– anywhere in the world.

    That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called new order of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

    To that new order we oppose the greater conception — the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

    Since the beginning of our American history, we have been engaged in change — in a perpetual peaceful revolution — a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly adjusting itself to changing conditions — without the concentration camp or the quick-lime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

    This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights or keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.

    To that high concept there can be no end save victory.

    From Congressional Record, 1941, Vol. 87, Pt.

We need to consider the moral legitmacy of leadership. I am not saying that FDR had that moral legitmacy. FDR was good; Kennedy was great. But do not forget, never forget, the internment of Japanese Americans, and try to understand the Bay of Pigs situation.

I am not saying I expect the President to have the best qualities of a human being. Plato had an idea like that. Vatican City expects that. I am saying IT’S NOT ABOUT THEM IT’S ABOUT US.

There are 300 million Americans. The average wage of a Chief Executive Officer of an American company is 430 times greater than the average wage of the worker in that company. In England the average wage of a CEO is 13 times that of the average worker.

The people want a decent wage and health care. An anti-terrorism agenda would mean that the people do not want to be terrorized. FOX News is the govt’s media arm to keep the people in a state of terror.

The modern concept of presidency is the complete inverse, it occurs to me, than the way the govt was set up. It is NOT that the Executive has the Power Of One, but the power of many…. that’s we the people. And it’s we the people who have the power of one….. freedom of speech and freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and the right to be secure in our homes and our persons from warrantless searches….civil rights, constitutional rights… that invests in us the power to inform government of the will of the people and to keep them in check.

But this beautiful system of government only works when the people do not give up their individual rights…. primary among them is the right to vote.

This form of government trusts the PEOPLE and NOT THE EXECUTIVE. This form of government cannot work through Groupthink. This form of government is based on the dignity of the human person and the ability of the individual to make up and speak his/her own mind.

Once one accepts the powerless position, and that there’s nothing one can do to redress the great imbalances and wrongs of concentrated corrupt power bases…. then one has given up one’s belief in the system of govt that was built just for them and just under these circumstances.

Well friends, I’ve got a plane to catch.  What’s the solution?  Literacy and citizenship. That means voter registration and voters voting.   Sorry, but there’s not a single ill in American govt that can not be addressed by the American people… and that’s the way it was built.