Dr. Frank's What's-it

Howard Owens takes a good

Howard Owens takes a good long look at the "American police state" nightmare scenarios beloved by conspiracy theorists on the Left and on the Right. Regardless of which party is in control, and no matter who the president happens to be, this kind of empty talk is a continuous, irritating buzz running through what passes for political discourse in all quarters in this country. It's loudest and most enthusiastic on the fringe, but on occasion it is referred to, hinted at or even adopted outright by mainstream figures and organizations when they judge it to be advantageous. As Owens points out, the tendency to issue dire warnings of the other party's secret plans to impose a police state is a commonplace hallmark of partisanship on both sides, but only a handful of wackos actually believe it; for most, it's just a thing you say.

As an example, Owens links to Democrats.com, your one-stop source for information on "the Bush dictatorship." I've seen many links to this site, usually accompanied by withering captions, over the past few months, but I never really paid much attention to them; I have no idea who is behind it (other than "aggressive progressives"-- most amusing) or what connection they may have to the Democratic Party. But if the goal of Democrats.com were to provide a textbook illustration of the contention that "liberals" are loopy out-to-lunchers with no sense of balance and only a distant acquaintance with reality, or to cause good and decent non-extremist Democrats (me, for example) to question the wisdom of their party affiliation, they could hardly have done a more effective job. And any Democratic Party strategists who aim to persuade swing-voters and fence-sitters, or to re-affirm the faith of wavering but loyal Democratic voters, better hope that none of these people ever see Democrats.com.