German police arrest 22 in neo-Nazi internet raid

[Sailor Steve]

"Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.
-James Madison

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
-H. L. Mencken

"Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."
-Hermann Göring

I've said this in threads about the American Civil War, and I've said it in threads about the Second World War - young men sign up to fight because they believe their country, their way of life and their families are threatened. Very few ever enlist out of a love of killing, or a love of an ideology. The average German soldier, and the average German civilian, was not a Nazi, and likely not even an idealist. They were just people, doing what they thought was best for their country.

I think of the quotes I posted above every time someone uses the words "Patriot Act". We are all susceptible to persuasion from above, because we all want to believe we are right, and we all want our church, our party and our country to be right as well. This blinds us to the possibility that we might be backing the wrong side for the "right" reasons.

Tater, I never suspected you had that much unreasoning hate in you.

"'My country, right or wrong' is something no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case."
-H. L. Mencken