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Tim Mannello
Williamsport
What are the clear indicators that a Constitutional Republic is losing its democratic freedoms? These are some tell-tale signs and they are all in the works:
1) Public officials and citizens feel they cannot express dissenting opinions because they fear vengeful payback from their government's leaders.
2) Laws are passed and enforced that limit information dissemination, financially cripple or eliminate media outlets and threaten journalists opposing government policies.
3) Peaceful protests are met with violence, unwarranted arrests or unlawful military intervention.
4) Courts become tools of political repression rather than impartial arbiters of justice through politically motivated prosecutions and biased politically motivated judges.
5) Opposition party leaders are criminalized and prosecuted.
6) Power becomes concentrated in the executive branch of government without adequate checks and balances.
7) The electoral process is undermined by legislation restricting voting rights of specific demographics and by factually unsupported charges of election fraud sufficient to overturn election results.
8) A ruling party lays out its specific plans to carry out numbers 1 through 7.
9.) A select group of individuals/companies are rewarded with government contracts, reduced regulation or favorable/dismissed prosecution and an oligarchy develops.
10) Long time international alliances are ignored or abandoned and atocratic leaders become our friends.
I feel like the proverbial person on the top of a mountain watching a driver in a car (in this case, representing our country), racing at high speed around a curve on the road below, unaware he is heading toward a steep precipice. I am struggling to imagine a last second intervention, an unforeseen miraculous rescue, a just-in-time rescue from our peril. I am coming up dry.