But it totally had a functioning democracy when the President had a team of henchmen breaking into the offices of his political opponents, during an era where the Joint Chiefs had a plan to depose the President if he was unwilling to abide by impeachment.
That president was forced to resign after public, televised House hearings showed the country what was going on.
Certainly, democracy must have flourished during the time where the administration waged an undeclared war in Central America that sponsored death squads and brokered arms deals with the Iranians, in part as an effort to undermine the campaign of the preceding incumbent President.
The public Iran contra hearings exposed what happened and sent Oliver North to jail.
And democracy was no doubt stronger during the era of the Vietnam Draft.
Nightly news programs showing the war and giving the count of US deaths led to protests that ended the war and the draft.
And it absolutely had a functioning democracy during a time when the House had a committee on "Un-American Activities" that subpoena'd citizens and had them testify under penalty of perjury --- a penalty that actually imprisoned Americans --- for merely sympathizing with the aims of Communism.
And those public hearings ultimately led to the downfall and disgrace of McCarthy.
And surely we had a functioning democracy during the times where voting was controlled by literacy tests --- "Question 13: Spell Backwards, Forwards" and dogs and firehoses greeted people who dared challenge enforced, legal segregation.
Would those tests have ever ended if they were not publicly known?
The idea that it's never been worse in American, because some government agency might be reading your Facebook posts, is lunacy; an insult to people who actually stood up to real malignant government power. It's an easy mistake to make: it's the availability heuristic. You understand the implications of worldwide Internet surveillance, but barely remember (if you even knew about in the first place) HUAC.
You're purposefully trivializing what has been going on. All of the situations you described were ended by public knowledge of what was going on. In the current case not only is there no public knowledge, there is the threat of imprisonment for those who discuss what they know publicly.
I don't know what Carter's excuse is, though; he surely knows about Watergate, Iran-Contra, HUAC, Tuskegee, COINTELPRO, and the Hoover FBI. Carter is just being a coot.
Carter has always listened to a different drummer. He's also been willing to speak for others. In this case he happens to be speaking out for us.
You're romanticizing. It's easy to talk about how public information solved these crises in hindsight, but in reality the US government did a far better job of concealing things from the public during the 20th century than it does now. As a concrete example: the entire Vietnam War was predicated on a lie that was only fully uncovered in 2005.
The NSA issue is just beginning. I'm not prepared at this stage, less than 2 months in, to declare a defeat for democracy.
Watergate, Iran-Contra, Vietnam, and McCarthyism each took years to run their course to a good resolution. The U.S. federal government is not optimized for speed, it's optimized to achieve the best result...eventually.
That president was forced to resign after public, televised House hearings showed the country what was going on.
Certainly, democracy must have flourished during the time where the administration waged an undeclared war in Central America that sponsored death squads and brokered arms deals with the Iranians, in part as an effort to undermine the campaign of the preceding incumbent President.
The public Iran contra hearings exposed what happened and sent Oliver North to jail.
And democracy was no doubt stronger during the era of the Vietnam Draft.
Nightly news programs showing the war and giving the count of US deaths led to protests that ended the war and the draft.
And it absolutely had a functioning democracy during a time when the House had a committee on "Un-American Activities" that subpoena'd citizens and had them testify under penalty of perjury --- a penalty that actually imprisoned Americans --- for merely sympathizing with the aims of Communism.
And those public hearings ultimately led to the downfall and disgrace of McCarthy.
And surely we had a functioning democracy during the times where voting was controlled by literacy tests --- "Question 13: Spell Backwards, Forwards" and dogs and firehoses greeted people who dared challenge enforced, legal segregation.
Would those tests have ever ended if they were not publicly known?
The idea that it's never been worse in American, because some government agency might be reading your Facebook posts, is lunacy; an insult to people who actually stood up to real malignant government power. It's an easy mistake to make: it's the availability heuristic. You understand the implications of worldwide Internet surveillance, but barely remember (if you even knew about in the first place) HUAC.
You're purposefully trivializing what has been going on. All of the situations you described were ended by public knowledge of what was going on. In the current case not only is there no public knowledge, there is the threat of imprisonment for those who discuss what they know publicly.
I don't know what Carter's excuse is, though; he surely knows about Watergate, Iran-Contra, HUAC, Tuskegee, COINTELPRO, and the Hoover FBI. Carter is just being a coot.
Carter has always listened to a different drummer. He's also been willing to speak for others. In this case he happens to be speaking out for us.