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Land of the Free? Maybe Not for Long...
Authoritarianism in the United States: Is that really where we are headed?
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By Jill Noble
Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:45:00 ET |
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Socionomist Alan Hall’s research shows that an authoritarian/anti-authoritarian battle is brewing around the world, and that participants are choosing sides. Eventually, he says, the conflict will turn incendiary.
In the U.S.:
- WikiLeaks posted a quarter of a million sensitive U.S. diplomatic cables, inciting widespread furor from politicians and governments around the world.
- Heated debate continues over new TSA screening procedures.
- Last week the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously approved the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act (COICA), which purports to combat digital piracy. If passed into law, Hall said recently, the bill gives the Attorney General the power to close down websites with a court order, even if no crime has been charged officially.
- On November 9th, Federal agents detained a WikiLeaks supporter as he returned to the U.S. from abroad,confiscating his digital devices without a warrant. He is the second known WikiLeaks supporter subjected to this treatment, which exploits a legal loophole allowing search and seizure at border checkpoints: In 2008, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that government agents do not need "reasonable suspicion" to confiscate citizens' digital devices under the "border search exception" to the Fourth Amendment.
- Despite the negative attention he receives from the U.S. government, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is currently at the top of Time Magazine’s Person of the Year poll.
In the August 2010 issue of The Socionomist, researcher Alan Hall published a short update to his two-part "Authoritarianism" study (now available for free), which had explained that the clouds of a gathering storm are fast approaching as "serious authoritarian/anti-authoritarian conflict is just beginning."
Part one of the studies described how the Wave Principle and socionomics show that "negative mood trends produce fear, anger, polarization, discord, and challenges to the status quo."
In part two Hall forecast that:
- Authoritarians will continue to use the fear of terrorism to institutionalize a culture of surveillance and control…
- Governments will shut down sections of the Internet.
- The days of unrestricted whistleblowers on the Web are numbered.
Also:
- As society's consensus diffuses into fearful discord, authoritarianism gains footholds. The majority of people see each authoritarian step as merely temporary, necessary inconveniences --small freedoms traded for promises of safety.
- As fear increases, society makes ever larger concessions. If a negative trend in social mood is large enough, blatantly authoritarian leaders emerge and promise security. They attract support as well as strident opposition.
Coincidence? We don't think so. The Wave Principle and socionomic research are invaluable tools to measure trends that are happening right now.