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Post by tantalyr on Jun 10, 2013 13:57:34 GMT
In the past two weeks, fundamental American liberties have taken consecutive crushing blows.
First, in a 5-4 decision the US Supreme Court held that the police may take DNA samples from you anytime you are arrested for any supposed infraction--whether that arrest is rightful or wrongful--without a warrant. As Justice Scalia observed in his dissent, if some cop is just having a bad day, he can deliberately, wrongly claim you just ran a red light, arrest you and force you to have your mouth swabbed for DNA samples. And then go run those samples against a national database just to see if they might possibly match up to some cold case evidence. All without a warrant. All without even probable cause to arrest you in the first place.
Then we learned that for the past seven years the government has been collecting "metadata" about your telephone and Internet communications--who you talk to, how often you communicate with them, how long you communicate each time. Even the searches you make on Google and other search engines have been collected for years.
And Obama's brief "defense" of these measures? He posited four:
1) The Bush administration started it. Well that makes me feel just soooo much better . . . . It was wrong for Bush to start it, and wrong for Obama to continue it.
2) The administration informed members of Congress about this extraordinarily broad snooping. And once again that makes me feel sooooo much better . . . . One branch of government letting another branch of government know that the GOVERNMENT is snooping on every American with a telephone or Internet does NOT make me sleep better at night.
3) We're not listening in on your telephone calls. Well, at least not without a warrant from a special super-secret court--a warrant that is obtained without you even being notified, much less having a chance to challenge it. And are you reading my emails? Obama didn't address that question.
4) "Americans need to understand that they cannot have 100% security with 100% privacy." To which I respond with Benjamin Franklin's famous quote: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
It has finally come to pass, albeit 30 years later than Orwell prophesied. Big Brother is watching every call you make, every search you make, every email you send.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2013 16:32:22 GMT
I complete agree, I do however wish to point out one thing about this... Before we go laying all of the blame on Bush or Obama or both, let's not forget that laws are not passed by the President but Congress. Congress shares every bit of the blame for this, just as the Supreme Court does for upholding this travesty.
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Post by Pharcellus on Jun 10, 2013 17:25:34 GMT
Not sure why anyone is surprised about it. They've been spending most of time since WWII building this illegal domestic spying infrastructure. Occasionally, they get caught with their hand in *A* cookie jar, but we blithely ignore the signs of the huge and always growing stockpile of cookie jars they are continually amassing.
Our government is no better than the terrorists that we fight against. In fact, I daresay we CREATED the terrorist problem to begin with, and the government knowingly perpetuate it to this day to make sure we always have an enemy to be "at war" with.
Obama talked big in 2007 about ending this shit, but it is clear that the President doesn't have the power to solve these kinds of problems. Think about that for a minute -- the fucking PRESIDENT DOESN'T HAVE THE POWER to end this shit.
When you become complicit in something which, by its very nature, violates your own oath of office to the People to "uphold and protect" the Constitution of the US, it is beyond clear that it has gone completely out of control. It doesn't matter who gets elected -- they WILL become corrupted and complicit -- or they simply will not get elected. Period.
Personally, for these and other acts of wanton violation of our Constitution, I think the treasonous bastards who created, executed, and upheld these laws should ALL be lined up against the wall and shot, repeatedly, until the meat chunks bounce.
That is where this path we are on leads. There will be violent civil unrest at several places along it. Unfortunately, it will often be misdirected against the wrong people by those who should be its targets. Ultimately, though, the size and scope of the "bloody revolution" will be general enough to encompass those who are most responsible for it, and they will go down. Finally.
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xaeris
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Post by xaeris on Jun 10, 2013 18:09:30 GMT
This is a huge can of worms, to be honest.
Everybody wants 100% Privacy, 0% Inconvenience, and 100% Security/Safety.
IE, they want a Utopia where there is no violent crime and no policing force that ever interferes in their lives.
The problem is, just like a Utopia, it is an ideal that is entirely fucking impossible.
I'm not defending our current laws; I agree they go a bit too far (the Author of the Patriot Act even said so, I've read somewhere).
But think about it this way.
How many more people have to die until we *truly* do something about this shit?
Catching the people isn't good enough. What good does it do to "catch" the people (many of whom commit suicide anyways like the fucking cowards they are) when it won't bring back the dead, heal the wounds, or fix the damage?
The only REAL solution is to stop this bullshit from happening in the first place.
That's the right idea, IMO.
They're just going about it wrong.
What DO they need to do instead? Tighten the regulations concerning foreign nationals. Make them register with the government, with law enforcement officials, etc. THEIR records can be snooped around in. If they don't like it, they can get the fuck out of our country. They're being offered a PRIVILEGE to live here. They need to sacrifice some to keep it.
The News Media. Seriously, guys, we need regulations on what the news media can show/say. I know what you're thinking.. "Freedom of Speech Blah blah" but honestly? The News Media are only fueling the fires for their own profits. Don't show the bastard's fucking mug all over every magazine, and TV. Then maybe these assholes won't think that "Terrorism/Violent Crime = Instant (In)Fame".
Everybody whines about privacy being invaded... what about the news media picking apart the private lives of each of these despicable cowards who do this shit? What about THEIR privacy? Oh, nobody cares, because they are criminals, right? What about their innocent family members who sometimes get slandered (sometimes falsely) all over the News Media? The Mothers, the Fathers of these cowards who are sometimes vilified (sometimes falsely so) by the news media?
Where's the outcries of "BUT, PRIVACY!!!!" there?
It is OK when the News Media does it?
Just think, if the News Media were not allowed to show the bastard's ugly mug all over every magazine and TV screen, if they were not permitted to disclose private details about their (and their families') lives, if they were not permitted to report every detail about how the deed was done, how many people would see these acts as an instant ticket to (in)fame?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2013 18:45:28 GMT
The other thing that concerns me is all of these calls that Snowden, the guy who leaked this stuff, is a traitor or at best has violated laws regarding top secret information.
Whatever happened to Whistle-blower laws to protect people who expose illegal or immoral activities by government or companies?
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xaeris
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Post by xaeris on Jun 10, 2013 18:54:53 GMT
The other thing that concerns me is all of these calls that Snowden, the guy who leaked this stuff, is a traitor or at best has violated laws regarding top secret information. Whatever happened to Whistle-blower laws to protect people who expose illegal or immoral activities by government or companies? Well, that's the whole "If you're not with us, you're against us" type black-and-white mentality. *rolls eyes* He doesn't agree with the government, therefore the government brands him as a traitor. |
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Post by Pharcellus on Jun 10, 2013 19:12:03 GMT
Everybody wants 100% Privacy, 0% Inconvenience, and 100% Security/Safety. Horseshit. Outside of a significantly convincing set of circumstantial (or even direct real) evidence of me doing something illegal, I *DO* want 100% privacy from -- note this part well -- THE GOVERNMENT. Whether I have 100% privacy from any other citizen or non-governmental organization is a DIFFERENT FUCKING ISSUE ALTOGETHER. I am willing to accept SOME inconvenience, as long as it is warranted, to obtain said privacy. However, I don't give a FLYING FUCK about anything above 0% security. Sure, I am happy to pay taxes to have a HIGHLY regulated police force to help curb some crime (and a military to defend the country from DIRECT threats, not imaginary ones in faraway lands), but if it comes at the cost of liberty (that includes privacy), then the "rent is too damn high". Good question. How many are enough for you? No, the only real solution is to stop CAUSING the fucking problem in the first place. We need to stop meddling in other countries' business at the behest of our corporate retards. We need to stop exploiting the third world and plundering its resources (both human and otherwise), installing shitheads and enabling them to commit atrocities against their people. We need to clean up our own damn house before we go out and even THINK about telling someone else how to clean up theirs. THAT is the right idea. WTF are you talking about? They already DO register with the government. WTF do you think a VISA is? It's not just the name of a credit card processing company, ya know. What good does tracking people visiting the country do when we're constantly pissing off (and pissing on) people who never want to come to our country in the first place by us indiscriminately killing their citizens, including women and children? No, we don't need any such damn thing. The problem is not with what the so-called "news media" (which have become little more than an entertainment show for the masses) says, but with the gross partnership between politics and the corporatists' monetization of same. That, and the public needs a god damn education in critical thinking. Turn off the "news" until they actually get back to reporting and journalism. In a word, yes, at least as far as the Constitutional right to privacy is concerned. It only dictates that we have privacy from unwarranted GOVERNMENT intrusion into our lives. It isn't and never has been a universal "right to privacy" against anyone and anything. I can agree that it is stupid and counter-productive to make a big deal over the actions of certain people, by publicizing everything about them. There are some people who, if you offered them 15 minutes of guaranteed national or worldwide fame in exchange for their lives, would gladly take advantage of it. That said, even though it would be highly immoral and unethical, I don't believe that there should be a law against showing it. Maybe against allowing such a Faustian bargain to begin with, but the speech is and should still be protected. No, we as a people have to decide, collectively, to turn away from that ugliness; to not give it our attention as a platform to exist. Then those who shout it into a vacuum will ultimately tire and find some other thing to amuse/enrich themselves with. |
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xaeris
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Post by xaeris on Jun 10, 2013 19:31:32 GMT
RE:Pharcellus:
A lot of words, but you didn't really counter the News Media part very well:
"We should turn off the news", etc is not an answer.
YOU might do that, I might do that.... but you and I are insignificant. The MAJORITY of the people, WON'T. And THEY are the ones doing all the damage; they're enabling this "trade my life for fame" bullshit.
Trying to preach to others what they should do, doesn't work. Your average citizen gobbles up everything on the mainstream media; that's why it is so damn profitable in the first place, and that's why some people go that route, KNOWING it WILL work.
And the whole part about Visas? Lol. Did you read the part where the Boston cowards left the country, and re-entered it and nobody noticed or reported it? How all of their suspicious activity went undetected all up until the day they carried a couple pressure cookers into the Marathon? When I say "Tighten the Regulations"I also mean ENFORCE them too. Strictly.
Us attacking other people overseas who are not directly threatening us?
Well, fuck yes I agree with that. Maybe we shouldn't be spending so much damn money in wars we have no business starting, and we MIGHT have some funds left over to funnel into our healthcare, our infrastructure, etc if we'd stop playing the World's Nanny/Policeman.
Good freaking luck trying to convince the government of that, though.
EDIT:
Wishing for that, is like wishing for a Utopia: It will not happen, period.
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Post by Pharcellus on Jun 10, 2013 20:24:07 GMT
RE:Pharcellus: A lot of words, but you didn't really counter the News Media part very well: "We should turn off the news", etc is not an answer. It's a better fucking answer than regulating free speech. I would rather preach at people to do the right thing, rather than pass a law, hold a gun to their head, and MAKE them do the "right thing". Don't you see that such thinking is precisely why we're in this deep ocean of shit in the first place? While I agree that there were some errors on the part of the State in keeping track of these two, especially after being warned about them from the FSB 18 months prior, at the time of the bombings, they were not technically considered as "foreign nationals", one having permanent residence status, the other a naturalized citizen. Yet that is precisely what we have to do, or we have to replace our government. Take your pick. Then, in that case, we're truly and completely fucked, and might as well just, as a nation, die. Note I am not asking for a Utopia, nor is that really a Utopic-level ideal. It is something we are most definitely capable of. Whether we find the wherewithal and means within ourselves to make it happen, despite the few who want things the way they are, is a matter of time and vigilance. I still much prefer that route over the even worse police state you are proposing, with more government control over free speech. |
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xaeris
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Post by xaeris on Jun 10, 2013 20:46:53 GMT
Which is EXACTLY what is going to happen, unless.......
And that would be quite messy with a nation as big as ours and as corrupt as our government/police/military is.
Your average well-off citizen doesn't care about the issues the "lower income" bracket are facing, most of the time. They think life is all dandy. Until/unless they get shot/robbed/bombed/etc, then it is too late.
There's not really much of anything you can do to convince someone who is living a comfortable lifestyle that things should change. Why would they want anything to change? THEIR lives are all dandy.
It is true that masses of the poor are increasing every day, but how well do you think a violent revolution will REALLY go? Especially when your average "angry" poor citizen has no concept of teamwork, effort, and they are being led around by a carrot on a stick (Welfare) from the government?
Yeah, they could resist.... and risk losing what little they have, including Welfare checks. Or they can just continue to take the easy road and wallow in their squalor (no offense meant) walking out the mailbox for their monthly free money the government hands over to keep their mouths shut.
And if they DID Revolt? It would be messy as hell, disorganized, and most likely an utter failure when the government has control of the (one of the?) most powerful military in the world.
For any revolution to actually succeed, the military would have to wake up and remember the "Against all threats, foreign and domestic" clause of their oaths, and realize the Government = Domestic Threat.
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Post by Pharcellus on Jun 10, 2013 21:10:38 GMT
And that would be quite messy with a nation as big as ours and as corrupt as our government/police/military is. Umm.. I hate to break the news to you, but revolutions are, without exception, "quite messy" ordeals, for exactly those reasons. Your "average well-off citizen" isn't so "well-off" any more. A lot of them are unemployed or underemployed. Wages are down, homes are being foreclosed on, more people are out in the street, etc. A lot less people than in previous decades think "life is dandy". The problem is that they have been disinformed as to why and how it has come to pass. More and more people all the time are falling into the "lower income bracket". Things change, regardless of whether they want them to or not. When their neighbors lose their home, when (as you say) crime comes a-knocking on their door, when any other misfortune they are unequipped to deal with comes home to roost, they can become quite attentive. Us, as their friends and family members need to keep after them, constantly harping on the issues and real solutions, and enlist them to do the same once they have been awakened from their drunken stupor. No one ultimately likes being disenfranchised. If you know anyone on welfare (which I highly doubt), you know that it is the LAST thing the vast majority of them want, and they tend to be VERY fed up with the government, especially since the government is constantly demonizing them, and doing everything it can to kick them off into oblivion. Most people on welfare actually DO have jobs, or have valid reasons for being unable to work. The asinine stereotype of the "welfare mom" is highly inaccurate and highly offensive. As you can see with the Occupy movement, even a disorganized, random rabble can make a mess out of things. Imagine what will happen in the future when there is some semblance of organization behind it. That's the way revolutions have happened throughout history, dude. That's nothing new. The people fight against the military power of the existing government until the people in the military wake up and realize they are killing their brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, then they turn their weapons against the government. It won't be clean, or efficient, or organized, or quick, or painless, or easy. That's what makes it a revolution. |
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xaeris
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Post by xaeris on Jun 10, 2013 23:51:45 GMT
*reads the thread now that I'm not nodding off at the keyboard*
Please excuse anything I said that sounded a bit odd... I picked up a nasty virus that started out as full-blown diarrhea, and about the time I finally got home from work (and my stomach emptied out), a huge crushing headache, along with an inability to keep my eyes open while sitting in front of the computer.
But then I laid down to try to sleep and guess what? My brain decides "hey, let's not sleep. at all." So, 3 hours later... I'm sitting here reading this again.
Okay, so you have a point that Freedom of Speech probably shouldn't be infringed upon any further than it already is. Okay, I can accept that. But surely you have to recognize that the mainstream media are like vultures, profiting off of others' misery?
Really wish people would wake the hell up. But sadly, as I said above... getting them to do this is *incredibly* difficult.
And then you've got the part where you mentioned that people are not "well off" anymore.... I beg to differ. Anybody who makes more than 35k a year (assuming Pennsylvania. Obviously, California would be a very different story) is easily capable of a very comfortable lifestyle... if they'd manage their finances better. But sadly, most of these people won't/don't/can't and end up in debt, which is the very thing the government seems to want them to do, or at least that's the way it looks.
As for the Welfare people, uh.
Sometime, try taking a trip to Southwestern Pennsylvania. The hicks around here are very ignorant and don't care. Some of them even joke about it, saying things like "All I have to do is walk out to the mailbox to get MY Money!"
I also know several people IRL who went on Foodstamps when they had Child #1. The one woman now has 6 children. 6 more children that will grow up in a lifestyle of near-poverty while suckling the government's teats. What kind of future do you think THEY look forward to?
A lot of these lazy bums don't feel like working; my place of employment (not the most glorious job position to ever have, but it _IS_ a job, better than what a lot of these people have) needed someone who would work 25-40 hours a couple times last year. Very few applied for the job (Cashier/Stock at a grocery store), yet I personally knew at least a dozen jobless people. Why? They knew if they got a job, they'd receive less free money from the government. That, and they're lazy.
Maybe around your neck of the woods, Welfare people hate their predicament and the government.... the ones here are quite different.
Oh and what really grinds my gears? 90% of those people on Welfare smoke. I should know, I'm a cashier who has gotten to know, personally, nearly 500 people who are on Welfare and have seen the fact they smoke. Their absolutely foul breath and the fact they buy cigarettes gives it away.
EDIT: This makes me remember a group of customers who came in Saturday Night. A mother or grandmother with two daughters/granddaughters. The one was a Honey Boo Boo lookalike, and her sister was nearly as bad. Morbidly obese kids, about 10-12 years old. They bought a TON of Icecream, Potato Chips, Soda, you name it. The older woman had smoke breath and was not only using a cane and leaning on her cart, but I also noticed that her skin was.... not well at all.
They, of course, used a Foodstamp card.
Nice to know we're paying for that, eh?
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Kulamata
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Post by Kulamata on Jun 11, 2013 2:50:11 GMT
Tant, a question. How does the DNA ruling compare to the present fingerprint rules? Are they the same? In any event, I've been unhappy with what I think the fingerprint rules are, and I'm certainly no more happy with the DNA ruling. I suspect that the fingerprint rules may have been the dromedary's nares in the tent. In other response to your most excellent post; 1) Yup, dumb!! And Obama's base will ridicule it, and nobody else will give him any credit for it. 2)Worse, because it was super-awfully-incredibly top sekrit, those members of Congress who knew of it but did not approve, could not speak of it without being gently accused of treason. 3) Well, what else would they say? Why is there any reason to believe them? Incidentally, that court supposedly has never turned down a single request. Purported perfection? Two eyebrows up! 4) No, 100% security will never happen anyway... but 97% and no snoopery? Sounds good to me! I just read of a poll saying that a mild majority of Dems approve, and that when Bush got caught inspecting the cookie jar's innards by feel, a mild majority of R's approved. Damn, I dislike this kind of moral relativism; it was wrong when Nixon did it, it was wrong when Bush did it, and it's wrong when Obama does it. With Nixon, it raised a perfect storm; with Bush a weatherable storm, and now? We're slipping. Ya know? Having voted for both Feinstein and Obama isn't making me much happier right now  . |
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Post by Pharcellus on Jun 11, 2013 3:04:50 GMT
Sorry you are feeling ill; not usually a good idea to get into RR debates, but it's never stopped me.  Okay, so you have a point that Freedom of Speech probably shouldn't be infringed upon any further than it already is. Okay, I can accept that. But surely you have to recognize that the mainstream media are like vultures, profiting off of others' misery? A large part of our society is built around profiting off of other people's misery. Life IS pain.. anyone who tells you any different is trying to sell you something. Why should anyone expect the lamestream media be any different? Just because a bunch of shitheads abuse a freedom isn't a reason to limit the freedom, it should be a reason to ostracize and shame the shitheads for what they are and STOP giving them money and resources to continue to do it. Any SINGLE person making $35k a year *might* be able to survive on that, but is not remotely what I would consider "well off" under any circumstances. Then you have the situation where you have FAMILIES trying to live on $35k a year. It just is not possible no matter how you try to budget your money. Nice anecdotes. I have a few too. Friend #1 is a 60+ year old guy who has no choice but to live on welfare and food stamps, because of the "bridging problem"... where if you make any significant income, but nowhere near enough to replace welfare, you lose it all. He is a wonderful photographer, and could likely live off the income from selling his work, but getting started means he immediately loses his support, so if work comes in slow for any reason, he's fucked. So he gives away his work as stock on DA. Friend #2 works at a job where they treat him as a contractor and has been royally screwed over by his place of work repeatedly for years. He's lost his apartment several times and has come very close to living on the street. He refuses to take welfare, but he has had to go to a food bank just to eat. He WANTS to work, has even tried several times to switch to another company in the same industry (which has failed because his current employer lies about his record), and has applied for anything else he could do, turning up nada. Friend #3 is pretty much an invalid with severe illness, he cannot work, and lives with his aging father. He loathes having to take welfare and medicaid, but he truly has no choice. He's in his late 30s now, and has outlasted several doctors' prognoses about his life expectancy. That is 3 of the many I have encountered. I have family members who have had to take welfare at one time or another; none of the people I know of have acted like you describe. They resisted it until they had no choice, and only took is as long as they had to in order to get back on their knees (let alone feet). The ones who remain on it have no choice for valid and rational reasons, even though they would prefer to not to have to be on it. Does that mean that some people treat it like a lazy-ass entitlement? Sure! My argument is that they are far in the minority. Statistics from the various welfare programs seem to back that view up as well, indicating that the majority of people on welfare at one time or another are not on it for long, unless they have a valid reason to be on it long-term. Well, thank the government and the tobacco industry for that. That's not a failure of welfare, that's a failure of society in general. From a rather dark and morbid point of view, allowing welfare recipients to more or less kill themselves from smoking and bad diets limits society's liability to them. You can't collect welfare checks when you're dead. However, that doesn't factor in the cost of medical treatment for these people. I think that welfare could be done better, but what we have is far better with the slobs and moochers than not having it at all, which is what the kind of examples you are making naturally lead to. Yeah, it sucks, but it helps far more people who do deserve a hand up than the people who abuse it. I am quite content for it to be, considering the people I know and care about having the ability to even continue living who also are on the program. I'll take the bad with the good, thanks. |
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Post by Pharcellus on Jun 11, 2013 3:21:23 GMT
Ya know? Having voted for both Feinstein and Obama isn't making me much happier right now While I approved of Feinstein's vigorous backing of the gun control reform bill in opposition to that retard Ted Cruz, she's ultimately just another god damned idiot. "We're looking at you next, video game companies!" and now her "oh we knew all about this since forever, stop your whining!". Bitch. Fuck her and her retarded bullshit. As for Obama, do you think any of the Republitards would have made this smell any better? I can see President "Flipflop" Romney up there right now.. he'd probably hold two nearly simultaneous press events, one where he denounces/denies knowledge of it, and one where he defends it. I was well aware that Obama has been corrupted by the office, long before the election. Like so many of our elections in this broken political system it was a choice between Dumb and Dumberer. |
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