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They actually consider this to be in effect within 100 miles of the border, this may or may not include international airports. The map on my link doesn't show them.

The way that the U.S. defines borders, almost the entire country is constitution-free. Start with 100 miles from any border and add a functional equivalent border around international airports. That covers roughly 2/3rds of the population of the U.S. including most major cities, all of Michigan, Florida, and several north-eastern states.

Not that the constitution is followed in the U.S. anyway. Practically every single amendment is violated by the government.

...gets arrested for taking photos of police.

It's legal here, and generally you'll have no trouble finding a lawyer if you ran into that sort of issue here.

But there's also Trump, and our horribly awful healthcare system. So just stop photographing the police, and be glad it's the least of your worries.

Nothing has changed. In 2017 Nazis are still bad, but they still have a right to speak in the U.S., guaranteed under the 1st Amendment. They had that same right 2015 and in 1978, and even in 1945.

You're gonna love this...

URGENT: Congress Considering Bipartisan Bill To Make Political Activism A Felony!

ACLU Letter to the Senate Opposing Israel Anti-Boycott Act

The First Amendment Protects the Right to Boycott Israel

You're gonna love this...

URGENT: Congress Considering Bipartisan Bill To Make Political Activism A Felony!

ACLU Letter to the Senate Opposing Israel Anti-Boycott Act

The First Amendment Protects the Right to Boycott Israel

You mean the thing that is actually a discriminatory burden?

These court cases are crap and I'm sick of this argument that people are just incapable of getting an ID somehow. Everyone should have an ID. Here's a list of reasons why, provided by the NYC government:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/id/htm...

People object no matter how easy the local government makes it. People objected even when they were sending mobile voter ID vans into neighborhoods to make it easy. If those vans were giving out free phones people would have waited on lines for hours.

Voters are supposed to be adults. Treat them accordingly.

Is that Voter ID really free of charge or is it free after you pay a fee to get a certified copy of your birth certificate which is required in order to get your free ID?

You mean the part where you don't pay a fee and even with the existing ID that's available so you can get your free ID?

You mean the thing that is actually a discriminatory burden?

You can find lots of democrat and progressive talking points against free ID, using existing forms of ID which you're already required to use for everything from voting in your local primary(including entrance), to buying a pack of smokes, booze, or any type of government benefits for.

You mean the arguments that actually persuade a court of law, that the point out the discriminatory intent that is quite apparent from the actual statements of the legislators who enacted the law with the specific desire to disenfranchise voters? From legislators, who if your contentions are correct, were not lawfully elected in the first place, thus rendering their position suspect.

Can you make any valid argument where not having voter ID enhances and benefits democracy, democratic votes in any way shape or form?

Yes, I can. You forgot to ask it to be done though.

Can you make any valid argument as to how with such a huge problem with illegals, that not having voter ID benefits the state?

Yes, I can also do this. Of course, since you neglected to ask for any argument to be actually presented, so I don't feel any obligation to do so, and I won't until you address the question of what to do when the state legislature is found to have engaged in discriminatory intent in its passage of the laws. You instead resist any addressing of that concern at all, revealing at best, your own complicity in it.

Really, I don't know why you are so stupid that you go out of your way to dismiss the complaints, if you wanted to actually show your integrity, you'd condemn them even more soundly, and demand that the state ID its residents properly, rather than fail in their duty as has been consistently demonstrated.

It's kinda telling that you are though. It's like you don't know a little contrition would go a long way.

Why? That wasn't news, we already heard about it under Bush.

You're like the parent who confronts his kid's drug use, and then they say they learned it from you.

Who never had to teach grandpa to spy on Americans, let alone suck eggs.

Look, you want to convince me you give a rat's ass about privacy, and aren't just grinding a partisan axe? Show some concern beyond the previous administration, the one that's out of office. Take a gander overseas, or in the boardrooms. Then maybe I'll think it is something other than an irate pretense that you'll drop as soon as somebody else is in office.

On the Fourth Amendment claim, the search must be unreasonable in order to be a violation. An unreasonable search is one that is not supported by a warrant. Contrary to the claim, the NSA has always had a warrant to conduct mass surveillance issued by the FISA court.

Did you miss the phrase "warrantless surveillance" in the summary?
The actual court ruling is here: https://www.aclu.org/legal-doc...

I wish I could be more agreeable, but if you actually consider the impact of the issues, the D's almost always have a big lead over R's. Net neutrality is a big deal, and R's are for big businesses even though it will hurt the whole industry - almost everyone. Clinton's email server, I'm sorry, was not a big deal compared to this. Poisoning Flint's water supply hurt everyone in an entire city, Bill Clinton got a BJ and "ruined" one young lady's life (granted she was able to sell her story and made $ off it). The Iraq War and related conflict has killed over 1 million people (thousands of Americans) the neocon R's lied to the country to get us into that. In Benghazi a few Americans died, and if Hillary personally shot them it'd still be _absolutely_ nothing compared to Iraq. I know, Obama continued it but by then the decision really was a lose-lose. Obama did increase the drones and they've still killed some tiny % of the million+ overall picture, and few (or none? idk) were American.

I have actually donated to causes that fight superpacs and money in politics in general, so trust me, I'm with you on #thankscorporateamericaandyoursuperpacs. But the organizations that fight it always seem to have more D's (ask watchers of Colbert and Oliver), while the R's do stuff like Citizen's United - wait, does that have anything to do with what you care about - who pushed that one?

UK already has hate speech laws, which must've been fine with you. And they are not "obsolete", but actively prosecuted.

Which was so cool with the "anti Tories", their Illiberal American brethren would love such laws to come to the land of the First Amendment — to the annoyance of the earlier generation of Illiberals, flabbergasted at what their rhetoric lead to.

That's why, for example, judges and jurors are sought to be impartial.

There you are! Justifying Trump's dismissing a judge as "biased" because he was of Mexican descent...Racist, racist, racist!

Of course, attacking a judge because of his ancestry is indeed, racist, and Trump's admissionsa actually showed his own realization of the bias and animus he had been demonstrating.

That is what Trump chose to do. He picked a deliberate course of racial antagonism to attack a judge in a lawsuit where it was immaterial. In the media. Nothing more. Remember, Trump University? It didn't get filed as a request for recusal in court, it was merely engaging in political aggrandizement. You don't get a judge to act in a case just because you go on CNN and pout like a crybaby.

You do know this, right? Trump was whining about a judge. He chose to do it with an included racist spin, so it only reflects on Trump. Not the judge. In the realm of public opinion. At least, until it becomes relevant to a legal matter. Now personally, I blame Trump's political advisers, who should have at least made Trump temper his remarks, but he still has a problem with running his mouth. Or twitter fingers, as the case may be. But he's not the only one with a problem with that in his administration. That sort of thing can reflect on you.

Which was why when somebody takes your statements, applies them to you, in a legal case, and submits them to court, well, then you have a judge rule on it.

Now if you want to see a judge who got in trouble because of their own actions, let's try one. That's one where a

Even non-criminal US citizens (queue the five felonies a day website or whatever it is) should be more worried about the US government than the faraway Russian government. If you haven't noticed the US has over 20% of the prisoners on Earth while only having 5% of the world population.
They're trying to build a prison.
captcha: bleakly

We have such a high prison population because of that pesky 14th amendment. The USA was founded on slavery and many of the people in power have managed to not only bring back the institution, but make it not only palatable but desirable.

Black guy speeding--gets pulled over for speeding. Black guy driving below the speed limit--gets pulled over for driving suspiciously. Black guy driving exactly the speed limit--gets pulled over for not going with the flow of traffic. Black guy ends up taking public transport and walking--gets harassed because he's called in for being a suspicious person. Black guy gets some weed to take a load off because he's being harassed by police--gets busted for possession and sentenced 20 years in a private prison because he's a hardened criminal with multiple police run-ins.

Even non-criminal US citizens (queue the five felonies a day website or whatever it is) should be more worried about the US government than the faraway Russian government. If you haven't noticed the US has over 20% of the prisoners on Earth while only having 5% of the world population.
They're trying to build a prison.
captcha: bleakly

So as long as it's not nationwide, it's ok? US police shut down cell service for hours to stop protestors, who almost certainly weren't planning anything actually dangerous.

Never said Medicare and Medicade were free - just that some people would not see a doctor if it weren't for them.

Now as to your personal attacks on me - I'm retired, bozo. Here people have the right to retire at 60, and given the state of my health, it was inevitable. Or are you going to characterize everyone who's retired as "out-of-work"? Same as you tried to characterize us as "practically wards of the state"?

I'll "chime in on US politics" as much as I damn well please. You see, freedom of speech isn't an American invention - and isn't being upheld too well in the US, what with FISA warrants, 100-mile border search zones where probable cause isn't needed for a search, etc. That "zone" covers 2/3 of the population. You need other countries that rank higher on freedom to remind you of what you've lost. In that respect, Canada has a freedom score of 99, and the US 89. That means 43 countries are more free than the US. No doubt it will get worse when next year's ratings come out. Or if you want something that makes the US look better, there's the 2016 rankings by the Cato Institute, where you're "only" 23rd.

Now as to my being a transsexual, that should be irrelevant, but it obviously is to you or you wouldn't have mentioned it. But why would you bother when my .sig makes it obvious and I haven't hidden it since I was outed here in 2006? Obviously, from the work you put into googling me and reviewing my posting history, I've struck multiple nerves. :-) Cry-baby.

It's so easy to troll libertarian-leaning retards - feels almost like te turn of the century again.

And yet the border 'territory' includes 100 miles INSIDE the US.

https://www.aclu.org/other/con...

Which includes something like 1/3 of all Americans.

2/3

And yet the border 'territory' includes 100 miles INSIDE the US.

https://www.aclu.org/other/con...

Which includes something like 1/3 of all Americans.

Sanctuary cities do not exist and nobody on the Progressive left talks about the need for them. Right?

Actually, they don't exist, especially not in the form that the Regressive right insists on falsely portraying them. They're pretty much just a straw-man where the right makes up false claims about lawlessness and crime in order to whip up a frenzy of hysteria.

Instead, what they are, is municipalities deciding that the Federal Government needs to be accountable, and forced to behave in a manner compliant with the law, by a policy of adherence to the strictures of law informing them that the cities won't knuckle under to their capriciousness. Not new, but a lingering problem for a supposed agency enforcing the law.

Of course, I'm old enough to remember when Janet Reno was demonized for returning Elian Gonzalez to his father. The mishandling of policies on Cuba is bad enough, but apparently we're supposed to decide parental rights on a whim?

So it's hypocrisy too. Even ignoring the other protests against the federal goverment, the silence on the failures of the immigration system is very telling.

Oh, I guess you are just another AC who's full of shit. Brave enough to hide in anonymity while claiming that I am being watched, as if you are a threat.

You're confused again, there's no threat to being judged, you're merely being observed, and recognized, for what your public behavior happens to be. It's called responsibility. You should recognize that as a natural consequence of communication. You spea

If a private business has a right to limit offensive speech on a social media platform in the name of moral righteousness, they have just as much right to deny service to people they find objectionable on the same grounds such as homosexuals or muslims.

Not if they want to do business in the the United States they don't. Religious groups are a federally protected class, and with very few exceptions, cannot be denied service on that basis. Sexual orientation is gaining traction as a protected class at the state level; any web-based service discriminating on that basis is likely to run afoul of some of these states' laws (for clarity, "public accommodation" in the context of that map means a business that is open to the public).

Would you be OK with ISP's being pressured by moral crusaders to not provide connectivity to people who host "offensive" content because the moral crusaders decide to label everyone they don't agree with "neo-nazis"?

No, I wouldn't be OK with that because the moral groups would have no standing or injury. Unlike YouTube and its advertisers, the moral groups in your scenario are not party to any contract with the ISP or its customers. Further, I'm of the opinion that ISPs should be regulated as utilities and required to serve anyone who's capable of paying their bill, just like the electric company. That, I suppose, is another discussion entirely.

Generally when censorship is brought up here, it's an attempt to conflate First Amendment protections with a private organization's lawful right to moderate content.

That's funny, because the way I usually see it go on /. is that the pro-censorship side (i.e. you) brings up 1AM/government censorship first, as a strawman so they can claim that, because it doesn't apply, we should care about private censorship either. The concept of free speech (and censorship) still exists outside of the 1AM (the world is bigger than America and American laws, for starters). The ACLU has a blindspot a whole amendment [aclu.org] wide, but when it comes to free speech even they acknowledge the extent of the threat:

Censorship, the suppression of words, images, or ideas that are "offensive," happens whenever some people succeed in imposing their personal political or moral values on others. Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups. Censorship by the government is unconstitutional.

In contrast, when private individuals or groups organize boycotts against stores that sell magazines of which they disapprove, their actions are protected by the First Amendment, although they can become dangerous in the extreme. Private pressure groups, not the government, promulgated and enforced the infamous Hollywood blacklists during the McCarthy period. But these private censorship campaigns are best countered by groups and individuals speaking out and organizing in defense of the threatened expression.

And before you start harping on the First Amendment, no, the First Amendment does not require that private parties assist you in spreading your speech. It only disallows the government from making your speech illegal.

But as usual, it's the pro-censorship side (i.e. you) who's brought up the First Amendment first, as a strawman so you can dismiss it.

The concept of free speech (and censorship) still exists outside of the 1AM (the world is bigger than America and American laws, for starters). The ACLU has a blindspot a whole amendment [aclu.org] wide, but when it comes to free speech even they acknowledge the extent of the threat:

Censorship, the suppression of words, images, or ideas that are "offensive," happens whenever some people succeed in imposing their personal political or moral values on others. Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups. Censorship by the government is unconstitutional.

In contrast, when private individuals or groups organize boycotts against stores that sell magazines of which they disapprove, their actions are protected by the First Amendment, although they can become dangerous in the extreme. Private pressure groups, not the government, promulgated and enforced the infamous Hollywood blacklists during the McCarthy period. But these private censorship campaigns are best countered by groups and individuals speaking out and organizing in defense of the threatened expression.

Nor are ranks from California.

It used to be that in the US there were no such things as police sergeants, lieutenants, captains, etc. The quasi-military rank structure came into being IIRC in Los Angeles California(?).

http://www.ci.richmond.va.us/P...

1807: The Richmond Police Department officially was established as one of the first formally organized law enforcement agencies in the United States.
...
1861: Virginia seceded from the Union. The president of the newly formed Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, established Richmond as the capital of the CSA Officers began wearing badges and were considered members of the militia.
1863: With the city's population swollen to almost 100,000 by the Civil War, the Richmond Police Department was overwhelmed. As a result, the Department was reorganized with 13 day officers, one of whom was designated the Chief of Police. The night watch was given one captain, three lieutenants and 40 privates.

https://web.archive.org/web/20...

As the oldest police department in the country, the Boston Police Department (BPD) has a rich history and a well-established presence in the Boston community. The initiation of a formal department began in 1838, when the General Court passed a bill allowing the city of Boston to appoint police officers. The department was structured after the model developed by Sir Robert Peele for the London Police force.
...
The first police force consisted of 260 officers and a chief. Each division had a captain and two lieutenants; sergeants were not appointed until 1857. In these early days, an officer on duty carried a six-foot pole, painted blue and white to protect himself, and a "police rattle" to call for assistance.

Ranks were there back in the day when police officers were armed with RATTLES.

Ranks are NOT militarization. Police all around the world have ranks. Fire brigades have ranks.

Militarization is when regular police starts employing military weapons, tactics and equipment on daily basis.
I.e. When police thinks that it actually needs those "5,638 bayonets ($307,769) and 36 swords and scabbards", or when campus police thinks it really needs those M16s there is something terribly wrong both with their internal philosophy AND their purchasing program.

Could it possibly be that the USA has been staging these huge military operations around the globe since... oh... the Desert Storm?
And could it be that such huge military operations overseas create an increase in surplus of military equipment - while at the same time draining the budget of money that could be spent on local law enforcement, among other things?
Could it also be that unloading all those hundreds of millions of dollars of military equipment onto law enforcement agencies is hiding actual holes in the law enforcement budgets?
And is there a chance that, besides all that surplus military gear, police has also been getting

First of all, it's a private company doing it, so it's not censorship

Let's put this myth to rest. Free speech is a bigger concept than the 1st Amendment (the world is bigger than America and American laws, for starters).

The ACLU has a blindspot a whole amendment wide, but when it comes to free speech even they acknowledge the extent of the threat:

https://www.aclu.org/other/wha...

Censorship, the suppression of words, images, or ideas that are "offensive," happens whenever some people succeed in imposing their personal political or moral values on others. Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups. Censorship by the government is unconstitutional.

In contrast, when private individuals or groups organize boycotts against stores that sell magazines of which they disapprove, their actions are protected by the First Amendment, although they can become dangerous in the extreme. Private pressure groups, not the government, promulgated and enforced the infamous Hollywood blacklists during the McCarthy period. But these private censorship campaigns are best countered by groups and individuals speaking out and organizing in defense of the threatened expression.

Was there a "Second of all"?

First of all, it's a private company doing it, so it's not censorship

Let's put this myth to rest. Free speech is a bigger concept than the 1st Amendment (the world is bigger than America and American laws, for starters).

The ACLU has a blindspot a whole amendment wide, but when it comes to free speech even they acknowledge the extent of the threat:

https://www.aclu.org/other/wha...

Censorship, the suppression of words, images, or ideas that are "offensive," happens whenever some people succeed in imposing their personal political or moral values on others. Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups. Censorship by the government is unconstitutional.

In contrast, when private individuals or groups organize boycotts against stores that sell magazines of which they disapprove, their actions are protected by the First Amendment, although they can become dangerous in the extreme. Private pressure groups, not the government, promulgated and enforced the infamous Hollywood blacklists during the McCarthy period. But these private censorship campaigns are best countered by groups and individuals speaking out and organizing in defense of the threatened expression.

Was there a "Second of all"?

"There are special cases where 4th and 5th Amendment protections do not apply, and the border is one of those"
The "special cases border" is also a moving target and now extends 100 miles inland from the physical border.
https://www.aclu.org/other/con...

So if you live in Seattle, San Francisco, ALL of Florida, 2/3rds of New England, New York, Charleston, Augusta, Washington, DC & Philly - among many other places where up to 200 million Americans live, you're a "special case" at any time.

Here's the map of those "border zones."

Note that only 13 states don't have a portion of them within the zone and many states have all or most of their area within the border zone. For example, all of Maine is in the border zone. If you live in Maine, theoretically you could have your car searched without a warrant at any time because you're within 100 miles of the border. I live in NY and it's hard to tell for sure on the map, but I think I live barely outside of the zone. Still, most of New York State is within the zone including all of New York City.

Technically CPB agents may need reasonable suspicion to stop you and probable cause to search you, but in practice they routinely exceed their authority, and they usually aren't challenged when they do. People just acquiesce to get it over with. That's a problem because if it remains customary long enough the courts will inevitably tend to view it more positively.

Additionally, the "Border Zone" in which CPB operates is within a hundred miles of the US border including coastlines. This means cities like Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne, Sacramento and Portland are "border cities". Two thirds of Americans live where they can be stopped and searched by CPB. The ACLU has a convenient map of the "border zone" on their website.

How exactly is data sitting on a server in silicon valley "at the border" just because the person who created that data is at the border? By that logic, you can search their car, house, workplace and bank account without a warrant as long as they are standing at the border when you do it.

Because it's within 100 miles of the coast (embedded PDF, with cites.)

How exactly is data sitting on a server in silicon valley "at the border" just because the person who created that data is at the border? By that logic, you can search their car, house, workplace and bank account without a warrant as long as they are standing at the border when you do it.

Because it's within 100 miles of the coast (embedded PDF, with cites.)

"... the US's general posture in the world is wildly preferable..."

The U.S. government has many secret and semi-secret agencies. No one, literally no one, knows all of them, or which are badly managed. As we've seen, the secret and semi-secret U.S. government agencies often hire outside consulting companies that often have areas of sloppy management.

The U.S. government is, by some measures, such as money spent, the most violent in the world.

The U.S. government has killed, or caused the death of, an estimated 11,000,000 people since the end of the 2nd world war.

War is extremely profitable for some corporations. See the book, House of Bush, House of Saud, by Craig Unger. Bush and Cheney started a war that was profitable for them.

The U.S. has the largest percentage of its citizens in prison, of any country, in any century. The prison system is hugely profitable for prison corporations. Two of the many articles:

ACLU: With only 5% of the world's population, the U.S. has 25% of the world's prison population.

ThinkProgress: The United States Has The Largest Prison Population In The World -- And It's Growing.

He still has a right to complain and point out their hypocricy and hold them accountable to whatever degree his is able to do so.

From the ACLU's "What is Censorship" page.

"Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups."

"Private pressure groups, not the government, promulgated and enforced the infamous Hollywood blacklists during the McCarthy period. But these private censorship campaigns are best countered by groups and individuals speaking out and organizing in defense of the threatened expression."

They are largely uneducated rural people

This is patent horseshit. Depending on you define "rural," you'd be looking at about 20% of the population. There's a reason why 2/3 of people live within 100 miles of the borders and it's mostly metropolitan areas.

You're also automatically equating "rural" with "uneducated" with nothing more than your own bias. It's not like people that live in rural areas can't drive. When was the last time you stepped foot outside of your comfortable city dwelling or suburban home? I'm going to guess the answer is never.

They ban a protected first amendment activity. There is no compelling state interest, as no evidence of this being abused has popped up anywhere in any state.

The only downside is that NY is outside the 1st Circuit so this farce will actually take a little while to play out instead of an immediate injunction being granted.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/spea...

Only to a fucking retard. These laws are overturned on 1st Amendment grounds. If you can't connect the dots, turn off the computer and tell your parents you need to go to bed. There is even precedent!

https://www.aclu.org/blog/spea...

http://motherboard.vice.com/re... (June 21, 2016 )
The "login records" get tracked :)
"Surveillance and Security Lessons From the Petraeus Scandal" (Nov 13, 2012)
https://www.aclu.org/blog/surv...

The American Civil Liberties Union - the fucking ACLU - supports the Citizen's United ruling.

When you are on the opposite side of a free-speech issue from the ACLU, you need to take a long, hard, look at yourself.

Free speech? What free speech?

The US technically has the same but if you're within something like 100 miles of the border (which includes the coastline) you are in a "speical" area where your rights are flimsy. https://www.aclu.org/constitut...

I'm modding you up (hence posting AC), but I just want to say that I was confused by what you said until I read the link you provided. Relevant excerpt:

Roughly two-thirds of the United States' population lives within the 100-mile zone—that is, within 100 miles of a U.S. land or coastal border. That's about 200 million people.

.
The Constitution in the 100-Mile Border Zone

Why the fuck would they use orbital cameras? They just use standard cameras mounted on police cars and on the side of the road, read in your license plate and store your location in a database. If the man wants to know where you've been, he'll know.

https://www.aclu.org/feature/y...

"I'm shocked that the ACLU, for example, isn't too."

The ACLU is against using the watch lists for background checks. See https://www.aclu.org/blog/wash... for example.

No they're not. People have been trying to get it in but with little success, probably because it would prevent filing thousands hit-or-miss requests every day as some big firms currently do That's one of the big problems with the DMCA, there's no real punishment for filing false claims. Go read the actual text if you don't believe me.

DMCA full text

The DMCA contains the word perjury twice: once in relation to the person making the claim, and once in relation to the person making a counter-claim:

(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly in-fringed.

You'll note that the only statement subject to perjury is that the claimant is authorized to act on behalf of a rights owner. The first half, about accuracy, is not subject to the same penalty. The prior section (v) mentions that a statement must be made that there is a good faith belief that the subject of the claim is infringing, but it makes no mention of any penalties if this is untrue.

There is some token language later on about misrepresentation - that the claimant is liable for any damages incurred by the alleged infringer should the claimant knowingly misrepresent that the material is infringing. However, proving there was intentional misrepresentation is a pretty high bar, and in most cases, the damages are low enough as to be not worth the legal fight anyways.

Adults have the right to consume any substances they choose so long as they do not hurt others while doing so.

Because the war on drugs is big $$$ for the government. It gives them an excuse to tax even more. You need $$$ to pay for all of those police, prosecutors, prisons, and education (read: indoctrination) programs. It also gives the goverment the ability to steal from people for no reason. If you think they're going to stop this insane war on drugs, you might be crazy yourself! ;-)

I guess what I'm really saying is that you'd get a lot more people to listen if you said "let's improve the licensing and background check system like in Czech Republic", instead of "let's enact an assault weapon ban, or ban all semi-autos outright, like in Australia". The latter elicits an immediate knee-jerk reaction, and for a good reason.

And it really doesn't help when prominent Democrat politicians - Obama, Clinton, Feinstein, Pelosi etc - all cite Australia as the role model. It basically validates all the NRA tinfoil hat rants about how the gubmint is coming for their guns, because, well, Australian system has gun confiscation ("mandatory buyback" - but that's just a PR-friendly label for the same exact thing) at its core. It's exactly what they did in 1996.

I agree that NRA is nutty and there's little logic there. But mainstream gun control proposals coming from the left are also largely devoid of reason, or constitutionally suspect (such as that whole terrorist watchlist thing - and don't take my word for it, see what ACLU has to say).

So it becomes a shouting match with little place for logic and facts. And in the meantime, those of us who would prefer some reasonable legislation are left without a place to go. I dropped my NRA membership 4 years ago because I couldn't associate with that organization in good conscience; but when I see the usually reasonable Sanders go on a rant about "assault weapons", I can only facepalm.

The other thing is, existing gun laws have many places that are badly in the need of reform, and this could be done in a quid pro quo basis to satisfy both sides. For example, silencers are currently heavily regulated, with a $200 tax for manufacture and then every transfer, fingerprinting, and a waiting period of several months for ATF to process it all. Does it need to be that way? UK - you know, that place with some of the most draconian gun laws in Europe - lets you buy silencers easily, and they don't have any problems with that. And it cuts down on noise - good for people who shoot, to avoid hearing damage, and good for those who happen to be in the vicinity, for the same reason and to minimize nuisance aspects. So, why not just treat them same as any other firearm, and drop all the special restrictions? And package it in a bill that does so, and introduces universal background checks on federal level for all gun transactions. I bet you could get quite a few Republicans in Congress to vote for such a thing.

Similar stuff can be done with legislation around short-barreled rifles, and quite a few other things.

The problem is that it requires people who actually know what they're talking about to come together and discuss it from both sides. And there's a distinct lack of such. On the left, most people who want gun control - including politicians who actually write laws - have literally no clue. On the right, it's not really all that much better - you have those Republican politicians frying bacon on their ARs as a publicity stunt, but they still have no idea how that AR works, or what laws regulate it.

To correct your metaphor you'd need to distinguish the vehicles on the road by brand, not by their capabilities.

The government, that maintains the roads, gives priority to the buses, which it also runs, how is that? For another, the government, which wants everybody to pay tolls electronically (to make it easier to track citizens' movements), gives priority to cars that have E-ZPass installed.

The problem with Internet Service Provision is lack of competition. Adding more and more regulation only helps the incumbents ward off would-be challengers.

I know Americans can never contemplate the idea that anybody may have freedom who isn't American let alone have MORE freedom

A few places are comparably free, but the vast majority of the world's population, regretfully, continues to live under regimes considerably more oppressive than the US. And I'm not talking just the usual suspects — like China or Russia — generally respectable places like India can be quite intolerant of unpopular opinions and authoritarian in controlling the information networks. It may seem crazy to Americans, but Germans and Brits, for another example, routinely get arrested simply for saying the wrong things on social media — in the US attempts to criminalize "hate speech" are still duly resisted.

Not to mention certain sunny locales, where one's had can be removed for apostasy.

Reducing America's control over the Internet will — inevitably and by definition — increase the share of control by these governments.

We've seen this before — UN's "Human Rights Council" is a good example of it. All of the things about it, that the so called "Liberals", dismiss as "myths", are actually quite true. It will happen to the Internet's governance — inasmuch as it needs any — as well.