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Comment by shitgoose | Hacker News Reader

actually, it is the other way around. first, you must build the surveillance capabilities and make people accept it as inevitable. you also maintain certain level of paranoia in population to keep that fear simmering. the last piece, "criticism of supreme leader is punishable by death" can be quickly added at any time. in the meanwhile we have to live with second best thing: "telling the truth about government affairs, be it surveillance programs or shooting unarmed iraqis from apache helicopters, is punishable by life in prison or exile".

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Did Weimar Germany have a surveillance state and concentration camps and secret police? I don't think so. All of that can be built on more or less a moment's notice once you get the "right" leadership, though.

Except it was not built overnight - it began with the Enablig act granting extraordinary power to the government, which then extended their power gradually over the late 30s leading to the war.

If you read primary sources it is obvious that many people are aware of what is happening but none felt powerful to act, a situation not that dissimilar to our present.

"I don't think so."

a) It is irrelevant what you "think so", that is not an argument. Weimar Republic indeed did have a secret police, Gestapo was modelled from that.

b) You are probably referring to the subsequent Holocaust and World War 2. If so, argumenting with Weimar Republic and drawing a quick installment of aforementioned practices from it is a straw man argument. You create a notion of how Weimar Republic immediately, "on a moment notice", preceded WW2 etc. (which is incorrect) and then beat that notion (incorrectly) into dust. All of that was built gradually from 1933, which is 6 years before WW2 and 9 years before Wannsee Conference.

a) Of course it's not an argument. Why do you take a clear admission of ignorance, like "I don't think so," and use that as the basis of an attack? That's just bizarre.

Can you name a successful country with no protected military secrets? How would that even work?

Costa Rica?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kiriakou

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