Slashdot Mirror

They seem to spend all their time focusing on pet conspiracies, while ignoring the real problems facing the USA.

Most of the problems facing the USA are due to actual conspiracies. If you don't believe this, then you're deluding yourself. Happy Voting, fool.

Make sure you are seen more then the other guy and people like that persons face and you could win based on that.

> Implying this isn't exactyl the plan.

IMO, voting is the illusion of choice, from Gerrymandering to voting machines being rigged (preloaded with negative values).
WHO THE FUCK THOUGH A SIGNED INTEGER WAS THE RIGHT DATA TYPE FOR A TALLY? I'm sorry, if we can't even get unsigned int for our vote counts, then count me NaN. I'll just let the NSA decide who wins the votes, since that's what they do anyway.

Obama was elected twice;

Hey, fool, didn't you know that the votes do nothing? Our representatives do not represent us, We live in a plutocracy. Besides, since the paper trail has been erased and our voting machines are hacked, we might as well just ask the head of CIA or NSA who they want to be the next president (Once CIA head said "Me" another time he said "My son", currently looks like NSA wanted the Obamas and spy-friendly Clintons before that).

Please do not insinuate that I have we citizens have any control over our government. We do not. They have gone rogue, and the only reason we don't revolt is because. "Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." (from the US Declaration of Independence) We haven't quite suffered enough.

Fortunately our founding fathers gave us legal tools to use to replace our government without resorting to violent revolution (which the Pentagon has been gearing up to prevent, in the name of 'energy crisis' fears). We can fire congress and impeach the illegitimate presidents and judges; Failing this, we have the 2nd amendment.

Interesting thing about the 2nd amendment: Crypto was once classified as a munitions (essentially), so we should have the right to bear Crypto. Failing that, we have shown in the past that the 1st amendment right to publish crypto program source code. So, Obama is going to have to stomp on our 1st amendment rights. You can make it illegal to encrypt my own data, but I can just as simply (and legally) store and publish gigs of random noise (indistinguishable from encrypted data). Good luck outlawing archives of atmospheric noise, or proving that such are not encrypted messages. Also, every communication could potentially contain stenographically encoded data. The message could be in the inflection of my words, or my choice of phrases, even without any encryption system in use. Point being: Outlawing current encryption methods will do absolutely nothing to thwart "terrorist" communications. Tell you what it will do though: Ensure whomever suggests such legislation is never at peace from the deluge of messages from nerds with phones, pens, and keyboards in reach.

The problem is you.

No, the problem is not me. It is possible to have a problem without being the cause of it, moron.

Good luck with that, your voting system has been thoroughly compromised.

The only avenue you had left was protest, but the Pentagon in 10 steps ahead of you about preventing "anti-American" protest.

Hasta la vista, freedom.

Things like regulatory capture happen because people don't pay enough attention to their government, not because it is too big.

No, it gets that way because we have no way to enact accountability in a plutocracy. Furthermore we have no legitimate government because the voting systems have been compromised.

There are many people who give a fuck. We just can't do shit about it, and aren't pissed off enough to be calling a vote of no-confidence in congress to scare them.

With votes off the table the only avenue left is activism, but we have entire government machines prepared to deal with activism. They carry on a long history of anti-activist agenda.

I'm sorry, but your comments sound ignorant to me. Have you been living on the same planet I have? It doesn't sound like it. Please educate yourself. The apathetic citizens can be problematic, but in this case the problem clearly lies elsewhere.

The system is designed to have an easier method for regime change than bloodshed

Correct. And that's why the voting system has been thoroughly compromised. So the only avenue left is protest. Ah, but we've got "protections" in place to keep you from doing that as well.

Self satisfied people like you are actually sucking their own cocks. I, on the other hand, am not satisfied with my own self delusions, and actually seek out the fucking information available before I attempt to make up my mind. Don't piss on my leg and tell me it's raining, especially not if you haven't even tried looking into the issue whatsoever. You haven't.

Proof, once again, that lower UIDs are not correlated to intelligence.

Your failure is in thinking that America exists.

There is no USA. The Democratic Republic nolonger stands. your voting systems have been compromised. You do not have a legitimate government. Habeas Corpus has been eliminated, for fuck's sake.

Now, given that you are aware of these things, you should operate accordingly. That means end to end encryption and storing all your data in a truly decentralized cloud, not on your machine where it can incriminate you.

And here's a man trying to BUY THEM BACK. Get off your asses and HELP HIM.

I would if I was under the delusion that voting actually mattered. Let me know when he wants to fix the rigged game called Gerrymandering.

Don't get me wrong, I'm just not insane. I'll throw in bitcoin but I realize that all this will do is demonstrate that the problem is deeper than you imagine. The government isn't influenced by the corporations, the government IS the corporations. They fight wars to deregulate and privatize national economies. USA isn't a capitalist country, the USA is capitalism.

"National security" means maintaining the social economic and political status quo despite the will of the people. The plutocratic media is in on it too. They pay what the market will bear, if there's a price war for congress critters the guys we're up against will just achieve their ends by putting more of their endless stream of money into the system. The sad thing is that not even a free market can fix things, because even they collude.

The sad thing is that people will actually do whatever it takes to survive, that means fighting over lower wages during and after the international corporations gut your nation. The founding fathers knew, "all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." It's the natural cycle of history, until a decentralized system is in place to match the decentralized nature of life. Things WILL get worse before they get better, I've watched it play out over the last five decades in lots of other smaller places with less resources, it's just taking us a bit longer. 100% chance that this dumbass move will just make things worse, but bring it on, any change is better than nothing at this point. It's not like we didn't go into this crap fully knowing EXACTLY what we were doing: Eisenhower warned us about everything that has happened. IMO, It'll be a bit entertaining to raise the price so the smaller lobbyists can't compete...

On second thought, maybe I should fund a video game dev. At least I might get something enjoyable out of it, enjoy life's pleasures while they're enjoyable instead of lamenting them later. Cybernetics will show you that the disparity in system powers is so vastly different between us and them that the bigger system can't be changed except through natural entropic heat death, just like The USSR. You could learn a lot from a Russian: Keep your head down and survive until this batch of bullshit blows over again, it'll be winter soon, and it won't be the last one either.

And here's a man trying to BUY THEM BACK. Get off your asses and HELP HIM.

I would if I was under the delusion that voting actually mattered. Let me know when he wants to fix the rigged game called Gerrymandering.

Don't get me wrong, I'm just not insane. I'll throw in bitcoin but I realize that all this will do is demonstrate that the problem is deeper than you imagine. The government isn't influenced by the corporations, the government IS the corporations. They fight wars to deregulate and privatize national economies. USA isn't a capitalist country, the USA is capitalism.

"National security" means maintaining the social economic and political status quo despite the will of the people. The plutocratic media is in on it too. They pay what the market will bear, if there's a price war for congress critters the guys we're up against will just achieve their ends by putting more of their endless stream of money into the system. The sad thing is that not even a free market can fix things, because even they collude.

The sad thing is that people will actually do whatever it takes to survive, that means fighting over lower wages during and after the international corporations gut your nation. The founding fathers knew, "all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." It's the natural cycle of history, until a decentralized system is in place to match the decentralized nature of life. Things WILL get worse before they get better, I've watched it play out over the last five decades in lots of other smaller places with less resources, it's just taking us a bit longer. 100% chance that this dumbass move will just make things worse, but bring it on, any change is better than nothing at this point. It's not like we didn't go into this crap fully knowing EXACTLY what we were doing: Eisenhower warned us about everything that has happened. IMO, It'll be a bit entertaining to raise the price so the smaller lobbyists can't compete...

On second thought, maybe I should fund a video game dev. At least I might get something enjoyable out of it, enjoy life's pleasures while they're enjoyable instead of lamenting them later. Cybernetics will show you that the disparity in system powers is so vastly different between us and them that the bigger system can't be changed except through natural entropic heat death, just like The USSR. You could learn a lot from a Russian: Keep your head down and survive until this batch of bullshit blows over again, it'll be winter soon, and it won't be the last one either.

Then there are those who grew up as scientists then wondered why the scientific method wasn't used for all policy and law, then looked into the systems of governance and found them defective by design largely due to gerrymandering. That's a process whereby your votes do not matter anymore because whomever draws district outlines selects the winners (Protip: don't register as a party [they ask at the DMV] nor answer political surveys unless your population is nomadic). Some places are trying to fix this particular blatant exploit of our democratic-republic, but found the powers that be one step ahead so our vote tallies themselves have been hacked. And now that we don't have paper ballots to verify the insecure digital tally with, we might as well just ask the NSA or CIA or FBI to appoint people they like.

Speaking of which, if you apply a bit of observational power you'll discover those secret agencies answer to no one and have a long history of silencing any form of activism -- you know, because protest was the only avenue left to affect the government. It's hard for a scientist to survive mentally in a country that's hell bent on leveraging disaster capitalism regardless of public benefit: Humans will do whatever it takes to survive the disasters our government plans for us -- including compete for lower wages offered by immortal corporations.

Some of us have taken a step back, done some calculations and realized that some fights are entirely unwinnable: We've got to the point where the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment allows a senator to read a passage from the bible and declare it as proof man can't change the climate -- only god can. Listen up, newbie, that's corporate oil interest speaking, leveraging religious fundamentalism against science from the very panels addressing climate change -- What can you do? Replace them and get a new panel bought off? It's not just congress, your executive and legislative branches are sock-puppet parades too. The government fights wars at the behest of corporations and Habeas Corpus has been revoked, FFS. It's not that everyone is stupid and we're "getting what we voted for"; The 'republic' part of our democratic-republic is designed to fix that: The dumb elect folks who are smarter, but our forefathers didn't count on the majority of congress being corrupt so the whole system became utterly broken. They did leave us the option to call an emergency session of congress and wield a vote of no-confidence, so next time you see the "fire congress" carousel go round, hop on board (not that it'll fix anything, but it'll scare some straight).

So, what? Organize some activism and try to fix the illegitimate rulership system that has benefited the powerful all too well for well over a hundred years? Then you're an "anti-government extremist" / terrorist, and the plan to silence that disastrous shit is already so firmly in place they can keep the worst of it even if PRISM is leaked to the public. To me the innefectual occupy movement was a test to see how quickly the elites and FBI will work their magic on the police to silence dissent, and to see how effectively the news is controlled by corporate statist interests. There were protesters shoulder to shoulder filling a large swath of Wall Street one day of the protest and the local news in my southern town mentioned nothing. Days later I had to pull up video and images of the event to convince my clueless friends and neighbors it even happened. They scratched their heads, "Why wasn't this on the news then?" -- indeed. Can you

Then there are those who grew up as scientists then wondered why the scientific method wasn't used for all policy and law, then looked into the systems of governance and found them defective by design largely due to gerrymandering. That's a process whereby your votes do not matter anymore because whomever draws district outlines selects the winners (Protip: don't register as a party [they ask at the DMV] nor answer political surveys unless your population is nomadic). Some places are trying to fix this particular blatant exploit of our democratic-republic, but found the powers that be one step ahead so our vote tallies themselves have been hacked. And now that we don't have paper ballots to verify the insecure digital tally with, we might as well just ask the NSA or CIA or FBI to appoint people they like.

Speaking of which, if you apply a bit of observational power you'll discover those secret agencies answer to no one and have a long history of silencing any form of activism -- you know, because protest was the only avenue left to affect the government. It's hard for a scientist to survive mentally in a country that's hell bent on leveraging disaster capitalism regardless of public benefit: Humans will do whatever it takes to survive the disasters our government plans for us -- including compete for lower wages offered by immortal corporations.

Some of us have taken a step back, done some calculations and realized that some fights are entirely unwinnable: We've got to the point where the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment allows a senator to read a passage from the bible and declare it as proof man can't change the climate -- only god can. Listen up, newbie, that's corporate oil interest speaking, leveraging religious fundamentalism against science from the very panels addressing climate change -- What can you do? Replace them and get a new panel bought off? It's not just congress, your executive and legislative branches are sock-puppet parades too. The government fights wars at the behest of corporations and Habeas Corpus has been revoked, FFS. It's not that everyone is stupid and we're "getting what we voted for"; The 'republic' part of our democratic-republic is designed to fix that: The dumb elect folks who are smarter, but our forefathers didn't count on the majority of congress being corrupt so the whole system became utterly broken. They did leave us the option to call an emergency session of congress and wield a vote of no-confidence, so next time you see the "fire congress" carousel go round, hop on board (not that it'll fix anything, but it'll scare some straight).

So, what? Organize some activism and try to fix the illegitimate rulership system that has benefited the powerful all too well for well over a hundred years? Then you're an "anti-government extremist" / terrorist, and the plan to silence that disastrous shit is already so firmly in place they can keep the worst of it even if PRISM is leaked to the public. To me the innefectual occupy movement was a test to see how quickly the elites and FBI will work their magic on the police to silence dissent, and to see how effectively the news is controlled by corporate statist interests. There were protesters shoulder to shoulder filling a large swath of Wall Street one day of the protest and the local news in my southern town mentioned nothing. Days later I had to pull up video and images of the event to convince my clueless friends and neighbors it even happened. They scratched their heads, "Why wasn't this on the news then?" -- indeed. Can you

we dont need activists or guerilla armies to get ourselves out of this mess, the future is now. we need nerds to fight, not guns.

Oh look, the ape woke up and smelled the shit that's flying. It seems angry, and confused. Aren't you aware that people who express sentiments such as yours are exactly the "radical anti-government" extremists that big brother has been preparing for? Shut up with your "fearful masses" bullshit. Perhaps you missed the 70's? Did you happen to miss how quickly the FBI got involved with squelching the Occupy protests?

Take it easy there greenhorn, the other side has got a huge jump on you. Your voting system is compromised, and your governmental process itself is stacked against you. You don't need to be added to the terrorist list, haven't you been paying attention? They already suspect everyone, and are automatically collecting all of our correspondences.

It's not whining and fear that keeps people from doing anything to fix it, it's the cold hard fact that most people are stupid, emotional, and ignorant. So long as emotional appeals work against all these damn dirty apes, then this deceptive bullshit will continue. The answer isn't reactionary bullshit, your opponents have adapted and are now resistant to it. I mean, just look at the purposeful blatantly lies that won backing for the Gulf War, or the McCarthyism before that, the "red scare" and adding of "god" to our money and pledge of allegiance to distance us from "godless commie bastards", etc. Hell, the FBI has been blatantly corrupt for over a hundred years. Omnivore, Carnivore and ECHELON mass surveillance programs have been going on for decades. PRISM's room 641A existed long before 9/11. The USA has been waging socio economic WW-III since the 70's....

And you what? You want to disable license-plate scanners? You want to do some "hactivism" against the NSA and wind up locked up as a pedophile, or framed for rape or murder, just plain old disappeared? Get real. I'm glad you've been roused from your slumber, but education and reform is the answer, not fighting a cyber war against your government. Make no mistake, you'll have given your life in vain and only helped to strengthen their tools of oppression. It's dipshits like you that will get our devices, automobiles, phones, PCs, cameras, etc. rendered inoperable unless an approved citizen authenticates them periodically with a government approved WIFI tower and ID code. They've already mandated the black boxes in our vehicles. Go fight the battle in California where they're proposing mandatory phone kill switches -- The next step after the "anti-theft" kill switch is just to turn the black-list into a white-list, and presto, no phones work unless big bro allows them. Intel already demonstrated their ability to add such cellular kill switches to their CPUs.

I can see the headline now: Cyber Terrorist, Resfilter, Arrested - "The terrorist resfilter has been apprehended and charged with treason and crimes against humanity after coordinating an attack against government infrastructure. Intelligence sources indicate he may be working with Iranian hackers. The FBI reports finding child pornography and videos of Islamic female genital mutilation rituals on his home electronics." You'll be deemed a terrorist and detained without trial to protect national security, since Obama and congress have already eli

we dont need activists or guerilla armies to get ourselves out of this mess, the future is now. we need nerds to fight, not guns.

Oh look, the ape woke up and smelled the shit that's flying. It seems angry, and confused. Aren't you aware that people who express sentiments such as yours are exactly the "radical anti-government" extremists that big brother has been preparing for? Shut up with your "fearful masses" bullshit. Perhaps you missed the 70's? Did you happen to miss how quickly the FBI got involved with squelching the Occupy protests?

Take it easy there greenhorn, the other side has got a huge jump on you. Your voting system is compromised, and your governmental process itself is stacked against you. You don't need to be added to the terrorist list, haven't you been paying attention? They already suspect everyone, and are automatically collecting all of our correspondences.

It's not whining and fear that keeps people from doing anything to fix it, it's the cold hard fact that most people are stupid, emotional, and ignorant. So long as emotional appeals work against all these damn dirty apes, then this deceptive bullshit will continue. The answer isn't reactionary bullshit, your opponents have adapted and are now resistant to it. I mean, just look at the purposeful blatantly lies that won backing for the Gulf War, or the McCarthyism before that, the "red scare" and adding of "god" to our money and pledge of allegiance to distance us from "godless commie bastards", etc. Hell, the FBI has been blatantly corrupt for over a hundred years. Omnivore, Carnivore and ECHELON mass surveillance programs have been going on for decades. PRISM's room 641A existed long before 9/11. The USA has been waging socio economic WW-III since the 70's....

And you what? You want to disable license-plate scanners? You want to do some "hactivism" against the NSA and wind up locked up as a pedophile, or framed for rape or murder, just plain old disappeared? Get real. I'm glad you've been roused from your slumber, but education and reform is the answer, not fighting a cyber war against your government. Make no mistake, you'll have given your life in vain and only helped to strengthen their tools of oppression. It's dipshits like you that will get our devices, automobiles, phones, PCs, cameras, etc. rendered inoperable unless an approved citizen authenticates them periodically with a government approved WIFI tower and ID code. They've already mandated the black boxes in our vehicles. Go fight the battle in California where they're proposing mandatory phone kill switches -- The next step after the "anti-theft" kill switch is just to turn the black-list into a white-list, and presto, no phones work unless big bro allows them. Intel already demonstrated their ability to add such cellular kill switches to their CPUs.

I can see the headline now: Cyber Terrorist, Resfilter, Arrested - "The terrorist resfilter has been apprehended and charged with treason and crimes against humanity after coordinating an attack against government infrastructure. Intelligence sources indicate he may be working with Iranian hackers. The FBI reports finding child pornography and videos of Islamic female genital mutilation rituals on his home electronics." You'll be deemed a terrorist and detained without trial to protect national security, since Obama and congress have already eli

We get the NSA we deserve because we the people are doing nothing to reign them in.

Fool. We have never had the NSA we deserve. Secret agencies are now and have always been anti-activist. There is nothing we can do about them legally, we are their enemy. They will not bow to the demands of the enemy. I speak of activism because voting is meaningless. If you think otherwise then you're under the flawed assumption that our government's voting system isn't compromised, that or you wrongly believe it hasn't been blatantly rigged all along.

How dare you accuse the powerless of deserving their despotism. It's thinking like yours that allows it to perpetuate.

We get the NSA we deserve because we the people are doing nothing to reign them in.

Fool. We have never had the NSA we deserve. Secret agencies are now and have always been anti-activist. There is nothing we can do about them legally, we are their enemy. They will not bow to the demands of the enemy. I speak of activism because voting is meaningless. If you think otherwise then you're under the flawed assumption that our government's voting system isn't compromised, that or you wrongly believe it hasn't been blatantly rigged all along.

How dare you accuse the powerless of deserving their despotism. It's thinking like yours that allows it to perpetuate.

TFA is disinformation or ignorance, do not believe the message therein.

You are only as free as they let you be. The news is not the news. You are slaves to corporations that farm you. Your wars are fought to privatize economies. Since secrets were allowed in government they have been actively against all activism, because activism the only thing that affects change, your votes do not matter, the political system is rigged. Maintaining the social, economic, and political status quo, even against the will of the people, is what "national security" means. They don't have to fake disasters, they can craft legislation and posture politically so that when one comes along they can turn a blind eye if need be. Each disaster makes the people more powerless, increasing the wealth gap. This is disaster capitalism, and it is working great even in communist nations.

With unemployment up, you are still spending too much time working: One can not truly fulfill their potential as humans without time to relax, enjoy life, create, and explore new opportunities. Your office jobs are pointless, replaceable either by computers or outsourcing to individuals with less cost of living, and we do so increasingly to ensure no job stability -- nearly everyone is a buggy whip maker one step of progress away from being an "unskilled" homeless person. The labor jobs largely have no unions so their working conditions suffer. In both blue and white collar cases people are given no time to seek new avenues of employ, or even manage their finances (you think bankers hours aren't such for a reason? Information disparity is the source of all evil). With inflation out-pacing pay, money in savings is diminished so that people can not safely leave employ -- The better to entrap and farm you with my dear. If you had a little more time you'd have leverage at your disposal to find better work or keep a plan B so that you can bargain for better pay and working conditions. Each disaster allows the system to ratchet your belts a bit tighter, more reliance, less time to be human. This is why banks are not held accountable, and are rather encouraged to destroy markets. How could anyone benefit from economic disaster and the mayhem it brings? Humans will do whatever it takes to survive, and the unscathed upper echelon will capitalize on this.

What is worse than 1984 is having it worse while fools like the article writer think it's not as bad. Classic ignorance. An example of thought control at its finest. When I became an adult I looked upon your world as though an alien from a distant planet -- I managed to forget all the programming about what "the real world" is, and question everything as a scientist would. The most telling and alarming is your willful resistance to application of the scientific method to governance and worklife. It's fucking disgusting. No engineer or scientist would agree to be ruled thus.

The answer is to modularize and decentralize your production of necessary resources, but no one wants to hear that... Moronic NIMBYs, you deserve what you get for your apathetic ignorance and inaction. The government has codified resistance to sustainable coexistence. That's why farmers can't grow excessive crops, even for personal use, and no city can survive on its own. Hell, school kids aren't even taught basic technologies like how to start a cooking fire, swim, sew, butcher, or bake -- Not survival

TFA is disinformation or ignorance, do not believe the message therein.

You are only as free as they let you be. The news is not the news. You are slaves to corporations that farm you. Your wars are fought to privatize economies. Since secrets were allowed in government they have been actively against all activism, because activism the only thing that affects change, your votes do not matter, the political system is rigged. Maintaining the social, economic, and political status quo, even against the will of the people, is what "national security" means. They don't have to fake disasters, they can craft legislation and posture politically so that when one comes along they can turn a blind eye if need be. Each disaster makes the people more powerless, increasing the wealth gap. This is disaster capitalism, and it is working great even in communist nations.

With unemployment up, you are still spending too much time working: One can not truly fulfill their potential as humans without time to relax, enjoy life, create, and explore new opportunities. Your office jobs are pointless, replaceable either by computers or outsourcing to individuals with less cost of living, and we do so increasingly to ensure no job stability -- nearly everyone is a buggy whip maker one step of progress away from being an "unskilled" homeless person. The labor jobs largely have no unions so their working conditions suffer. In both blue and white collar cases people are given no time to seek new avenues of employ, or even manage their finances (you think bankers hours aren't such for a reason? Information disparity is the source of all evil). With inflation out-pacing pay, money in savings is diminished so that people can not safely leave employ -- The better to entrap and farm you with my dear. If you had a little more time you'd have leverage at your disposal to find better work or keep a plan B so that you can bargain for better pay and working conditions. Each disaster allows the system to ratchet your belts a bit tighter, more reliance, less time to be human. This is why banks are not held accountable, and are rather encouraged to destroy markets. How could anyone benefit from economic disaster and the mayhem it brings? Humans will do whatever it takes to survive, and the unscathed upper echelon will capitalize on this.

What is worse than 1984 is having it worse while fools like the article writer think it's not as bad. Classic ignorance. An example of thought control at its finest. When I became an adult I looked upon your world as though an alien from a distant planet -- I managed to forget all the programming about what "the real world" is, and question everything as a scientist would. The most telling and alarming is your willful resistance to application of the scientific method to governance and worklife. It's fucking disgusting. No engineer or scientist would agree to be ruled thus.

The answer is to modularize and decentralize your production of necessary resources, but no one wants to hear that... Moronic NIMBYs, you deserve what you get for your apathetic ignorance and inaction. The government has codified resistance to sustainable coexistence. That's why farmers can't grow excessive crops, even for personal use, and no city can survive on its own. Hell, school kids aren't even taught basic technologies like how to start a cooking fire, swim, sew, butcher, or bake -- Not survival

By what leap of mental gymnastics do you assume our votes matter?

How arrogant of you to think so lowly of us while remaining so ignorant about the state of elections.

In my state no security audits have been done on our frequently fucked up electronic voting apparatuses and we have rampant gerrymandering. Bite me you fool. Nothing short protesting and going on strike will fix anything. The official channels are reserved for oppression and pork-distribution, they are worthless. It's always been vocal complaining that gets things changed in favor of the people -- Remember SOPA, how about Jim Crow?

By what leap of mental gymnastics do you assume our votes matter?

How arrogant of you to think so lowly of us while remaining so ignorant about the state of elections.

In my state no security audits have been done on our frequently fucked up electronic voting apparatuses and we have rampant gerrymandering. Bite me you fool. Nothing short protesting and going on strike will fix anything. The official channels are reserved for oppression and pork-distribution, they are worthless. It's always been vocal complaining that gets things changed in favor of the people -- Remember SOPA, how about Jim Crow?

Grow the fuck up and stop spamming the comments. The grown ups want to discuss the news.

What a childish thing to say. When I was younger and naive I thought that voting and going through proper channels was how people changed the systems that govern them or otherwise affect their lives. When I became an adult, I put away childish idealism and threw out the narrative fairy tales of the indoctrinators. Once I let only observation and fact shape my thinking I was able to clearly see that voting doesn't matter. The systems are rigged. If you do not know this, then you are ignorant of history. The rulers react only to save face when confronted with loud and vocal and persistent protest. Just look at the majority of changes enacted by the world's peoples.

It is been made painfully and bluntly apparent that here at slashdot we do not even have the illusion of a vote. We therefore use our voices as it is all we still have, for now. Fuck Beta. The grown ups know how the world works better than some ignorant, complacent, and short sighted children. Rarely do rulers actually know what's good for the people they rule, and nearly universally do they reject the Scientific Method -- a means by which they could discover the correct course of action! This is because they care not for what's best for the people. We have to make them care. It is the very grown ups who see in longer terms and are willing to sacrifice the comments here for a while if it means there's a chance we may not let the community be destroyed. Extract your head from your ass: The beta makes discussion of the news difficult. A few weeks of pain is nothing compared to eternity.

Grow the fuck up and stop spamming the comments. The grown ups want to discuss the news.

What a childish thing to say. When I was younger and naive I thought that voting and going through proper channels was how people changed the systems that govern them or otherwise affect their lives. When I became an adult, I put away childish idealism and threw out the narrative fairy tales of the indoctrinators. Once I let only observation and fact shape my thinking I was able to clearly see that voting doesn't matter. The systems are rigged. If you do not know this, then you are ignorant of history. The rulers react only to save face when confronted with loud and vocal and persistent protest. Just look at the majority of changes enacted by the world's peoples.

It is been made painfully and bluntly apparent that here at slashdot we do not even have the illusion of a vote. We therefore use our voices as it is all we still have, for now. Fuck Beta. The grown ups know how the world works better than some ignorant, complacent, and short sighted children. Rarely do rulers actually know what's good for the people they rule, and nearly universally do they reject the Scientific Method -- a means by which they could discover the correct course of action! This is because they care not for what's best for the people. We have to make them care. It is the very grown ups who see in longer terms and are willing to sacrifice the comments here for a while if it means there's a chance we may not let the community be destroyed. Extract your head from your ass: The beta makes discussion of the news difficult. A few weeks of pain is nothing compared to eternity.

This is what "national security" means: Maintaining the political and economic status quo, even against the will of the people.

Since they dropped law enforcement from their mission statement and donned "national security" the FBI won't have to worry about their actions exposed as they directly support de-facto communist corporate interests, not the people or the capitalism we're told is at play.

Think about it: How capitalistic is it to confiscate a bunch of goods to prevent competition? The sportswear price is inflated because the state ensures a monopoly for the normalization the product. Hello, that's communism. In a free market capitalism the cheaper "counterfeits" would compete with the "official" sports gear on price, and quality, allowing the public access to a cheaper product for less money.

The FBI prioritizes copyright issues over missing persons. You live in a corpro-communist dictatorship where your votes don't count.

which exposes law-breaking in government.

Yeah, we all know it's rife with illegal crap, but the mainstream media remains silent. They're your biggest enemies.

One can only hope that the severely slanted aren't able to maintain control as media migrates online. However, being that I have many times witnessed such "news" sites as ABC, removing all counter view points even if not demeaning or trolling from their comment sections -- Including posts that simply link to information proving the article or segment wrong, esp. suspect is the the 20/20 "investigative" segments, which now only serve to further political and corporate interests.

With DRM on the track to inclusion in HTML5, the anti-open-source messages are already appearing -- Ireland, come on now, that's just too blatant even for you. The FBI dropping Law Enforcement and donning the cloak of secrecy in "national security" instead is all more evidence of the world's current anti-openness, and zero-accountability trend. You've got to realize the front you're fighting is on all sides, or you'll be flanked.

Best of luck, but I've been watching this show for decades, I know how it ends. There's always been votes controlled through Gerrymandering and if not then blatant vote counting manipulation. Over a hundred years the US government has been explicitly creating and condoning illegal government programs, and thus disinformation and lying to the public -- These are the politicians real jobs, to cast the will of the government as good for you... I'm a scientist, where's the proof it's good for me? Where's the experimental evidence for these bills virtues? There is none, it's asinine, but it's not like anyone really cares about goodness or integrity.

The US government serves to "Protect America" -- but they do not consider We The People important, only the international "American" Corporate interests must be preserved. When they say "security" it means socio-economic and political control to maintain the status quo and enrich corporations. 58% of congress are global warming denialists for the same reason there were no WMDs, and for the same reason the FBI and NSA keep such close watch on civil-rights activists, privacy-rights activists, women's rights activists, and all anti-war activist organizations -- and now with PRISM all people.

The government has tasked itself with "protecting" the "security" of "America" (see above definitions), and will craft laws to allow their "legal" continuation of this corrupt practice whether in the best interest of the citizens they farm or not. Jim Crow was a law. What the fuck does "law-abiding" or "law-breaking" have to do with Justice and Integrity? Rosa Parks went to jail for sitting at the front of the bus. Fuck "law-breaking in government" -- That's a wild goose chase, otherwise big corps would have to pay taxes. Prove there's even a legitimate government in place first, then you can try holding it accountable. You're barking up the wrong tree. Expose the injustice in Banking, Wall Street, ISPs, Media, Government Contractors, and other such corporations. Then the fur will really fly. Otherwise you're just pissing into the wind: Impeach one stooge and you get another from the queue. This has all happened before, and it will all happen again.

Firemen douse the source of the fire, not the flames themselves.

Are you going to claim you had no hand in putting him there?

Actually, no. Why would we need to make claims when it's a well known fact that we did not.

No. Most of our votes don't mean shit thanks to Gerrymandering.

Educate yourself, fool.

We need 53, after all, the US is "One nation, indivisible."

One nation, indivisible, but with primacy through gerrymandering for all.

They don't need to vote. They just buy whatever side wins. Some just keep both sides on the books at all times. Corporations have more influence over politics than you. Also: Gerrymandering is a thing; Ergo: Your vote means less than squat.

Your comment offends me. Please pay me restitution.

You my be surprised to learn that until recently that was the way it worked in both the UK and the US.

Does the UK not have an equivalent of the first amendment or something?

From WP - Lord Justice Sedley, in his decision regarding Redmond-Bate v Director of Public Prosecutions (1999), described Speakers' Corner as demonstrating "the tolerance which is both extended by the law to opinion of every kind and expected by the law in the conduct of those who disagree, even strongly, with what they hear." The ruling famously established in English case law that freedom of speech could not be limited to the inoffensive but extended also to "the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome, and the provocative, as long as such speech did not tend to provoke violence", and that the right to free speech accorded by Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights also accorded the right to be offensive.

OTOH, the right to be offensive in the US was not properly established until 1988, and it's unclear (to me) if that right extends beyond the parody of public figures. There's an excellent documentary about Flynt called The right to be left alone, I recommend it to anyone interested in the recent history of free speech in the US.

"Unschooling: For those kids who aspire to be the dish washers of the future"

I know plenty of dishwashers who graduated high school and several, in this economy, have college degrees. At what point do we say that no matter how you progress through school, there may come a time when you are at the bottom rung for one reason or another?

Do I think that "unschooling" is a good idea? Not particularly, especially after watching a documentary entitled Off the Grid: Life on the Mesa (you can watch it there free). This particular documentary had a portion where a father was raising his family on the Mesa in a camper. Their education included all the things that were supposedly important like measuring things, shooting shit, and watching the others on the Mesa smoke lots of pot. I'm sure that "unschooling" done properly and with the right child could be successful--unfortunately I have a feeling that the majority of those that think it would be the best option, are probably better off going back to school themselves.