- Joined
- Jan 15, 2019
They do occasionally employ direct violence against people who've deeply offended them (who they can get away with beating), but that tends to be reserved for people who betray the deep state (i.e. double agents who get caught, the early post-9/11 planners who were dumb enough to get caught, etc.) but it's pretty rare and it tends to be "personal." What they do practice regularly is wholesale destruction of lives through "legal" shenanigans.
There's an absurd amount of bullshit the government can pull against you without any semblance of "due process" (and often no recourse besides going full Minecraft). Piss off the feds and suddenly you start failing every background check regardless of purpose or originator, for no reason and with no appeal. Applying for a security clearance? Sure, piss away an afternoon filling out that god-awful 100+ page application and pay your fee. They'll happily take it, sit on it for a month or more, and reject it with no explanation. If you've already got a security clearance, expect it to be revoked for undisclosed reasons. Guess you didn't really need that job anyway. Want a gun permit? Fill in your application, send in your fee, wait six weeks, get denied. Already got guns? They'll concoct a reason to confiscate them (and they'll actually do it). No refunds!
Travel by air a lot? Suddenly you're getting "selected for secondary screening" every fucking time you go through an American airport security checkpoint. And each time, it's suspiciously thorough, and it occasionally causes you to miss flights (because naturally the TSA agents give zero fucks to begin with, and if you're flagged for the "special concierge service" they'll absolutely fuck with you enough to make you miss your flights). This actually happens frequently enough that the TSA set up its own "passenger redress program" where you can formally complain "hey you fuckers keep screwing with me every time I travel by air, wtf?" Naturally there's a fee. And once your "case" is opened, they give you a fancy "passenger redress number" that you can even provide to your airline at booking. And it gets printed right on your boarding pass! That means ... something. IRL of course it immediately tells the TSA goons that you're a troublemaker and it's time to fuck with you even harder.
Then there's the "no-fly list." It's another great example of death by red tape. It's a secret list (it took a leak to reveal it to the public at all), you can't see its contents, they won't tell you if you're on it (and you can't check for yourself), and they don't even share the info with the airlines. This means there's nothing stopping you from booking (and paying for) a flight, checking your luggage, going through security and waiting at the gate for your flight, only to be literally stopped during boarding because your boarding pass is flagged "no-fly." Notice how you absolutely must successfully scan your boarding pass before they'll let you board? Even going so far as to make you go back to the gate agent at the counter to present ID and have a paper boarding pass printed? That's because the scanner is checking the no-fly list for your name. That's the "moment of truth," before which neither you nor anyone else at the airport you can talk to can check to see if you're on the list.
Oh and they can detain, arrest and charge you for trying to fly while on the no-fly list, even if you can prove you didn't know you were on it and can show a paper trail documenting your efforts to find out. The charges might not stick, but they're expensive and time-consuming to deal with. No refunds!
It'd be bad enough if the no-fly list just meant you couldn't book flights, check luggage or make it through security, but they at least fucking told you ahead of time. But no, it's designed and used as a blunt "fuck you" to offensive persons, intended to be as inconvenient and bothersome as possible. If you learned at booking that you're on the list, you wouldn't bother with buying the ticket or going to the airport. But because they don't (and can't) tell you, you have to spend your money, make your travel plans, waste your time going through all the most unpleasant motions the airport experience has to offer and then -- only at the last possible moment -- they finally tell you "whoops, no flying for you!" Naturally because it's not the airline's fault (they don't get access to the list either), you generally can't get a refund for your ticket. Even with travel insurance. Sometimes they'll be major cunts about it and refuse to give a refund even if you paid a higher price for a refundable ticket! Then of course you need to cancel your accommodations at the other end. No refunds!
And what recourse do you have? None. Not one god damn thing you can do about it. Oh there's apparently a "review" process wherein you grovel -- to the very same government apparatus that's made it its mission to fuck with you as much as possible -- for reconsideration for permission to use air travel again. Good luck with that. Want to sue? lol okay, but you're suing the federal government in federal court. Neat trick about that: the government has to agree to allow itself to be sued. I'm not even fucking kidding. The government's lawyer can literally write a letter to the court responding to the suit saying "nah, we're not doing this, national security or some shit, lol fuck off" and that's the end of it. Or maybe they'll say "okay, you can sue us, but we're moving this to the FISA court," where everything is sealed and conducted in secret, where there are no reporters and where you can be thrown in prison for disclosing what goes on during the proceedings. National security, you see. No refunds!
The sad truth of it is the United States is only marginally better than third-world dictatorships in terms of what its government is willing to do to its citizens. The difference is here, we don't have public executions or open violence, but there absolutely is death-by-bureaucracy here and if the government decides it's going to fuck with you, god help you. Even god damn Donald Trump isn't safe from it, and he's a former US President and a billionaire. What chance do any of us plebs have in fighting it?
Travel by air a lot? Suddenly you're getting "selected for secondary screening" every fucking time you go through an American airport security checkpoint. And each time, it's suspiciously thorough, and it occasionally causes you to miss flights (because naturally the TSA agents give zero fucks to begin with, and if you're flagged for the "special concierge service" they'll absolutely fuck with you enough to make you miss your flights). This actually happens frequently enough that the TSA set up its own "passenger redress program" where you can formally complain "hey you fuckers keep screwing with me every time I travel by air, wtf?" Naturally there's a fee. And once your "case" is opened, they give you a fancy "passenger redress number" that you can even provide to your airline at booking. And it gets printed right on your boarding pass! That means ... something. IRL of course it immediately tells the TSA goons that you're a troublemaker and it's time to fuck with you even harder.
Then there's the "no-fly list." It's another great example of death by red tape. It's a secret list (it took a leak to reveal it to the public at all), you can't see its contents, they won't tell you if you're on it (and you can't check for yourself), and they don't even share the info with the airlines. This means there's nothing stopping you from booking (and paying for) a flight, checking your luggage, going through security and waiting at the gate for your flight, only to be literally stopped during boarding because your boarding pass is flagged "no-fly." Notice how you absolutely must successfully scan your boarding pass before they'll let you board? Even going so far as to make you go back to the gate agent at the counter to present ID and have a paper boarding pass printed? That's because the scanner is checking the no-fly list for your name. That's the "moment of truth," before which neither you nor anyone else at the airport you can talk to can check to see if you're on the list.
Oh and they can detain, arrest and charge you for trying to fly while on the no-fly list, even if you can prove you didn't know you were on it and can show a paper trail documenting your efforts to find out. The charges might not stick, but they're expensive and time-consuming to deal with. No refunds!
It'd be bad enough if the no-fly list just meant you couldn't book flights, check luggage or make it through security, but they at least fucking told you ahead of time. But no, it's designed and used as a blunt "fuck you" to offensive persons, intended to be as inconvenient and bothersome as possible. If you learned at booking that you're on the list, you wouldn't bother with buying the ticket or going to the airport. But because they don't (and can't) tell you, you have to spend your money, make your travel plans, waste your time going through all the most unpleasant motions the airport experience has to offer and then -- only at the last possible moment -- they finally tell you "whoops, no flying for you!" Naturally because it's not the airline's fault (they don't get access to the list either), you generally can't get a refund for your ticket. Even with travel insurance. Sometimes they'll be major cunts about it and refuse to give a refund even if you paid a higher price for a refundable ticket! Then of course you need to cancel your accommodations at the other end. No refunds!
And what recourse do you have? None. Not one god damn thing you can do about it. Oh there's apparently a "review" process wherein you grovel -- to the very same government apparatus that's made it its mission to fuck with you as much as possible -- for reconsideration for permission to use air travel again. Good luck with that. Want to sue? lol okay, but you're suing the federal government in federal court. Neat trick about that: the government has to agree to allow itself to be sued. I'm not even fucking kidding. The government's lawyer can literally write a letter to the court responding to the suit saying "nah, we're not doing this, national security or some shit, lol fuck off" and that's the end of it. Or maybe they'll say "okay, you can sue us, but we're moving this to the FISA court," where everything is sealed and conducted in secret, where there are no reporters and where you can be thrown in prison for disclosing what goes on during the proceedings. National security, you see. No refunds!
The sad truth of it is the United States is only marginally better than third-world dictatorships in terms of what its government is willing to do to its citizens. The difference is here, we don't have public executions or open violence, but there absolutely is death-by-bureaucracy here and if the government decides it's going to fuck with you, god help you. Even god damn Donald Trump isn't safe from it, and he's a former US President and a billionaire. What chance do any of us plebs have in fighting it?
" the media whined about as GoFundMe was shuttered. Basically they're not happy that Americans and other people around the world are financially supporting the truckers and this protest movement.