Yes. One out of control cop is exactly the same thing as martial law.

They will proceed with: Fueling racial divides to fracture the peace estabolished by civil rights, therefore causing race riots. In which case some one will attempt on Obama's life. Only causing the current president to install martial law and finally destroying the constitution, then calling off the elections and declaring himself the supreme and ultimate leader.

3 days before the election israel launches a pre-emptive air strike against Iran's nuclear facilities using low-yield nuclear weapons. Iran responds by sending dozens of Shahab-3 missiles on Tel Aviv and Haifa. Human bombs are exploding in major cities across EU and US. President Bush suspends election and declares martial law. Within 48 hours army units patrol every major city in the US and the coalition of US and NATO forces starts bombing Tehran...

A desperate and failing campaign running for desperate measures. Before long the GOP declare martial law and cancel the elections.

I'd like to believe that, MGR.

But I'm sad to say that if martial law were declared and our soldiers were ordered to arrest citizens en masse, or god forbid to fire on them, I doubt that any soldiers would disobey those orders.

The ones who did would be few and far between.

Under declaration of martial law, maybe they would have the authority to arrest people. To answer your question: Yes, if they were doing something illegal. And I'm not talking about "Oops, we've just erased free speech, and they're protesting, go arrest them", but a legit offense.

This is all well and good, but whatever happened to that catastrophic i9/11 that the government was going drop on us? They were supposed to take our rights away 2 months ago. Guess they're running behind schedule and had to resort to martial law instead.

>> ^Aemaeth:
Notice he never said who was threatening. Call me a sheep, but it could have been his 12 year-old nephew saying that for all we know. Unless there's more to this story than is indicated by this video, there's nothing suggesting that anyone in power to enact martial law has suggested it. Doesn't mean anything to me at this point.


Sheep. (Sorry, couldn't resist)

Honestly, I think you're missing the point. The first question is "Do I trust those people involved," which you asked. You're right that it could have been anyone saying this, but the Bush Administration has a history of privately scaring members of Congress into complying with the Administration. The assertion cannot be verified, and I doubt both parties involved (Brad Sherman and the Administration), so more information is necessary.

The second question is "Which conclusion is better supported by existing evidence?" You may have asked this one and simply not written about it, but when I ask this question I end up believing Brad Sherman. For me the breaking point was the Republican National Convention. Both conventions had a large police presence and made some erroneous arrests (though many more were made at the RNC), but only the RNC carried out pre-emptive raids and targetted journalists for arrest. The raids were a scare tactic: Only seven arrests were made although over one-hundred homes were broken into. The suppression of journalism speaks for itself.

To me, that act goes beyond the distinctions of Republican or Democrat. Those people in power have shown that they are willing to do whatever it takes to remain in power. Since the doctrine of pre-emptive action worked so well overseas, it should work equally well here in the States, using the municipal police as the shock troops instead of the Marines. Such a thing seems like the mad ravings of a lunatic, except that watching how the police and National Guard conducted themselves in St. Paul seemed like watching a test drive of that strategy.

I honestly don't believe that the United States will reach that point. Even for an Administration that has grabbed power again and again without a second thought, the act of declaring martial law to maintain that power is very far fetched. Even in this country, there's a breaking point beyond which its citizens will not tolerate the rule of those in power. However, I don't doubt for a moment that the Administration would try to use the threat of martial law as a scare tactic aimed at another Executive power grab.

Hmm... Basic gist of what he said:

Fear mongerers/paranoid twats suggested/assumed there would be martial law, or a huge market collapse if the bill wasn't passed.

Little problem:
The bill wasn't passed(on the day he was talking about)

There was NO martial law, and no huge market collapse.

The fear mongerers/paranoid twats were wrong... AGAIN!!

Notice he never said who was threatening. Call me a sheep, but it could have been his 12 year-old nephew saying that for all we know. Unless there's more to this story than is indicated by this video, there's nothing suggesting that anyone in power to enact martial law has suggested it. Doesn't mean anything to me at this point.

Anyone who responds with "wake up, of course it was Bush/Cheney who said it, who else would" is simply not following reasoning and is jumping to conclusions.

The best I could find . . .

All the following is quoted from http://www.cbpp.org/7-28-06bud-stmt.htm

What is “Martial Law”?

The House leadership is using a parliamentary gambit to evade a longstanding House rule that is supposed to ensure that this kind of obfuscation does not occur. That House rule (Rule XIII(6)(a)) provides that a resolution (called a rule) reported by the Rules Committee cannot be considered by the House on the same legislative day that the rule is reported (except by a two-thirds vote of the House). This is supposed to ensure that Members of the House and the public have at least one day to examine and analyze what is in legislation before they have to debate and vote on it.

To maneuver around this House rule and rush the three proposals discussed above to a vote before they have been fully examined, the Rules Committee reported a rule late Thursday afternoon (H.Res. 958) that would waive the application of Rule XIII(6)(a). Instead, it would allow the Rules Committee to wait until the last minute and not to report the rules governing the consideration of these bills or to release the text of the bills themselves until immediately before debate and votes on the bills, and on the rules governing their consideration, commences.

This extraordinary procedure is known as a “martial law” rule because it suspends the normal procedures and safeguards and allows the House Leadership to operate in a more authoritarian fashion. It enables the Leadership to seek to ram a bill or conference report through before the Members have the opportunity to fully understand what they are voting on.

Legislation that has far-reaching implications for millions of Americans deserves to be considered under a more democratic process. Waiting until the last minute to reveal what is in these bills, and then “spinning” or potentially mis-characterizing changes in the bills without Members of the House or the public having an opportunity to obtain a more objective review of what the legislation does, is unfair to Members of the House. It also is unfair to the millions of Americans whose lives could be affected by this legislation. It represents a further step in reducing the degree of transparency and democracy in how this country is governed and how decisions are made. At a time when our leaders preach the goal of promoting democracy abroad, they should not be reducing it at home.

Speaker declares martial law...

What does that mean?

Well...

The human part of me is worried that our rights are being further trampled by George W. Bush's totalitarian neo-conservative philosophy that crosses the line into 1984-fascism, and that martial law is just around the corner, especially if Obama wins the election.

But...

The inhuman side of me begs for this to happen, just around the time the LHC destroys us all. And if those catastrophes fail, I hope an unseen asteroid or comet hurtles into the Midwest, obliterating civilization.

And I hope God doesn't do bailouts.

you know, recently i've been reading alot of naomi klein and chomsky thinking would obama really make that much of a difference? does it really matter who is in power anymore? and while i think the answer is (unforunately) probably not.. i just really don't want this person to have any sort of say in how i should live my life, or how my government should spend its money. seriously, i hate this stuff. it makes me so angry. i think the republicans are going to win again and martial law will prevail (by the way, did u know that martial law was reintroduced by the founder of Hewlitt Packard as deputy secretary of defense on the nixon administration?). under the guise of 'homeland security' you, as americans, will see further intrusion of your privacy by your government. your children will be fed lies on a daily basis at schools and their school will become mostly funded by corporate sponsorship. drilling for oil will continue and your national parks will get smaller. censorship will be slowly introduced into mainstream media.

Vagina monologue alert! Kidding. But seriously, I never said I was for vouchers, DFT. It seems you're repeatedly trying to put words in my mouth, or more accurately claim certain policies to be mine that I never laid claim to. Let's stick to what I say when grouping me with other political opinions, please.

Just like marriage, religion and other areas of free choice, I believe education to be something the federal government should not manage. Furthermore, they have no constitutional right to do so. I want every child to have a decent education, because it sounds good and right, and it makes me feel good to say and believe in that. It still doesn't make it right to extend the federal government in such a way to forcefully (and arguably unconstitutionally) take money from everyone to pay for a welfare program. To do so means the government is entitled to your money, therefore owns you.

Pardon my tangent: This sort of overreach is why presidents like JFK have been entitled to write Executive Orders extending their powers, especially in the name of doing good with it when the time comes. JFK wrote EOs giving him the right to seize communications in the media, electric power and fuel, transportation (seaports, highways, airports, airspace, etc); seize all health, education and welfare facilities; force registration of all men, women and child; seize all housing and finance authorities to establish "Relocation Designated Areas"; force abandonment of property and areas; and (the most egregious of all) seize any and all American people and divide up families in order to create work forces to be transferred to any place the gov. sees fit.

You can argue the president would never use this sort of power unless a national crisis necessitated it, but that's too much power for a ruling body to have, especially one that is supposed to be a limited branch. This is why I think it's important to ensure we don't allow our government to overstep their limited power, lest we suffer martial law (see Katrina) or worse a complete loss of Rights. Even if it makes you feel good, that doesn't mean it's right. I care about people individually, and I've given thousands for AIDS projects here in LA, but I do it because I choose to do it, and I wouldn't think it fair to force my neighbor to do it even if I think it's the right thing to do. [/vagina monologue]