[dforrestwilson1]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fxx1KdGXti0

^ I was listening to this earlier and I can't help but point out the creeping government overreach in all aspects of our lives. We drop bombs at the drop of a hat, and send people to prison for thought crimes.

I really hope everyone can see that we must roll back the powers of the federal government, or it is going to roll over us.

[okreallywtf]

My problem with this is that people get a perception that just rolling back the powers of the federal government is good in general and also that it would be easy. This is not necessarily the case, but it allows groups that would benefit from a weaker federal government to prosper (sometimes at the expense of the people) because one part of the federal government is getting to powerful or is not transparent enough. This allows for a divide and conquer approach in areas like the environment, discrimination, labor rights etc.

The federal government isn't simply going to give up authority, and if it does it will likely be to the economic benefit of the organizations that lobbied for it in the first place (EPA cuts for example). If you want change, simply grumbling about the federal government is not going to help. It will take concerted effort to push candidates in one of the parties to take these issues seriously and to get elected on them.

[3131s]

Absolutely. Trump took over at the helm of a government with unprecedented surveillance capacity, highly militarized police, secret court systems, the ability to indefinitely detain and kill its own citizens without trial, and every precedent to engage in congressionally unauthorized warfare all over the world and sell weapons to the most brutal regimes imaginable.

Not to mention a web of military contractors, weapons manufacturers, intelligence agencies, and armed forces that often operate above the law and outside the control of the government itself. The US government has been captured by people in the business of war and 'defense'. Don't expect the feeble US media to mention that though, even the liberals prefer to wax poetic about blowing things up in destitute third world countries:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4n3SI81m9w

[zkms]

> I really hope everyone can see that we must roll back the powers of the federal government, or it is going to roll over us.

Local and state law-enforcement agencies absolutely do this sort of thing (and pretty much every other horrid thing that federal LE does) as well -- not just federal law enforcement.

[thex10]

this is all levels of government, not just federal.