Slashdot Mirror
Want Freedom?
Xenopax writes "According to this story on the Sacramento Bee Americans are now more willing to throw away their first amendment rights for the false feeling of security than ever before. In fact many believe that the First amendment goes too far with its protection and think we should allow monitoring of religious groups for national security. Also many people believe the media shouldn't be allowed to question the government in times of war. One has to wonder if anyone cares about their constitutional rights any more, or if everyone would be happier living in 1984." The study is conducted by the Freedom Forum every year and is available for download.
Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar. - Julius Caesar
You're using her as bait, Master!
It's the first amendment. You can monitor whoever you want as much as you want. It's a problem when you *restrict* speech.
I say that I'm going to blow up the local mall. Because of this, other things I say are monitored and I'm watched closely. I might even be picked up and hassled. But I shouldn't be imprisoned because I said it.
Why we have a second amendment.
When the Bible-Belt voters and the Texas conservatives mop up California & Chicago and head for New York, I'll be ready.
the media shouldn't be allowed to question the government in times of war
I don't know of anyone that thinks the government should be required to be entirely truthful about ongoing operations in times of war. If a reporter discovers classified information and shares it, it is not a matter of the first amendment. It is a matter of treason, as if they'd discovered documents and sold them directly to a foreign power.
Just because you belong to the press corps doesn't make you above the law.
Never confuse volume with power.
The problem is if we lay the legal foundations to do something now (ie Moniter a certain group) after the heat of the moment passes that foundation is still there to be abused in the future..
Trade freedom for security, and you'll get neither. If only people would understand.
I think they're still quite keen on their own rights, it's other people's rights (Muslims being the group named in the article) that they'd like to do something about...
The country is diverse, with many differing opinions. Too often we're encouraged to look at "the numbers" and try to imagine what "society" feels about a particular issue. There is no such thing. There are 260 million americans, with such diverse and opposing views that it should come as no suprise that in times of high tension, the "common ground" we thought we shared seems to slip away, as we retreat towards the safety of our personal biases. That's what's happening here. Whether we need to be concerned with it is another matter. Our first amendment rights are already non-absolute, so that's not even the question. It's shades of gray, degrees. All you can do is to try not to respond too emotively, measure and weigh your beleifs and opinions, and do what you know is right for yourself.
Bumper sticker suggested by a friend of mine. Says it all, really.
I don't believe the part about the media not being able to question the gov't in times of war. If that were true then they could never question anything as the US is always at war with somebody since they can't mind their own business and feel any problem in the world is theirs to solve.
We're being watched right now to see how we respond to this. I smell conspiracy by the government to lock /. users up for good...
The Freedom Forum is a nonpartisan foundation dedicated to free press, free speech and free spirit for all people.
and a "study" like this is a great way for them to get in the spotlight and receive additional funding.
There is no such thing as "nonpartisan". Ever. Be skeptical of everything you see/hear/read.
Intellectual property and copyright law in the digital era = censorship.
The computer is a communications tool which is an extention and enhancement to our ability to communicate and express ourselves, source code is the method of expression, 1s and 0s are the output of this expression.
However current intellectual property law is designed to reduce our abilities to express ourselves via code or even to copy a file.
Copyright and Intellectual property is out of control right now and its slowly removing our freedomm of speech and our right to expression.
Why is it ok to censor people in the name of capitalism, no one but rogue pirates dare step forward and say what we all know is happening.
Freenet, GNU, etc etc, its all about freedom of speech. Alot of people claim "well if you are going to have freedom to be open source you should also have freedom not to be"
However when you arent open source and you support the patent system you support censorship. Its very funny how Americans can jump to complain about China and the evils of Communism, claiming USA is all about freedom, claiming the constitution, but its all bullshit.
USA is about Capitalism right now, not freedom. While we are more free than China, we are only more free than China for now, eventually Capitalism will remove all freedom from us due to our own greed.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -- Benjamin Franklin
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
that there must be some kind of educational requirements met before you are allowed to breed...
Jesus saves souls and redeems them for valuable cash prizes
Study finds that as many as 50% of Americans have below-average intelligence.
When the gov is manipulating the media and general populace to gain these powers... Throw on top of that group think, and you have a dangerous combination.
I say we dont change a fucking thing, and let the government simply do the job they were SUPPOSED to be doing before 9/11 but now do it CORRECTLY instead of fucking around.
I'm not against keeping an eye on religions. They are the biggest source of conflicts in the history of man.
The problem is that not every religion will be treated equaly... Bush will surely not mess with his friends of the christian right...
Try it! Library of Babel
How are "freedom of speech" as mentioned in the first amendment and the neo-liberal concept of "freedom of expression" remotely related? I support the freedom of speech unconditionally - I do not support the "freedom of expression" - first of all, there's no such thing. Second of all, it's ridiculous to consider phyical actions as speech.
When was the first time "freedom of speech" got misconstrued into "freedom of expression"? Where did that term come from, the same place as "underprivileged"?
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
I for one don't think we should lose our rights at all, because without them, we just become like China, where you can't speak out against the government, you'll be locked up/shot/enslaved etc. Here's an example: When there's a structure set up, such as that of the US Military, and the command officers make all the decisions...they may not be making the right ones, and a private or a lieutenant might see a solution to the problem. Now, say for example, the 4-Star General in charge doesn't want to look bad to his superiors, for showing a weakness, or inability to see something. So he sets in motion a rule that anyone who countermands his orders, or mentions another way of doing what he's doing, or what he is doing wrong, they'll be court-marshalled. So, we'll pretend the General is sending troops into an area, and the patrols keep getting killed because they can't shoot first, they must be fired upon first. Private Jon Doe, realizes where the ambushes keep happening, and tries to speak up, to prevent more losses. But, the General doesn't want to look bad, so therefore Private Jon Doe is court-marshalled. Troops continue to die off, and everyone else under the General learn not to speak up, even when they see something wrong. Now, tell me, is this something you'd like to see happen every time somebody gets pissed at the good 'ole US of A, and decides to shoot or blow something up? I know I don't.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Seven in 10 respondents agreed newspapers should publish freely, a slight drop from 2001. Those less likely to support newspaper rights included people without a college education, Republicans, and evangelicals, the survey found. That paragraph just about says it all, doesn't it?
This is not the sig you're looking for
oh fucking bullshit. There has been more and more media bullshit since 9/11 about this. I don't know who the fuck they are interviewing but at quick survey of people that are nearby here (two neighbors, my girlfriend, my roommate, and two more friends) which is 7 people including me shows that 0 of 7 want to give up ANY freedom b/c of the tradgedys.
/. reader nor are they gung-ho anti-big-brother individuals.
Other than the links I send to my roommate and my gf (usually not privacy related) no one surveyed was a
So, I want to meet the morons these people talked to in order to get the bullshit idea that people are more willing to give up their rights.
I guarantee if I called my parents (both over 50) and asked them they would tell me HELL NO. If I called my grandmother (already pissed off that she had to be patted down in a wheelchair) she would say HELL NO.
Fuck these media morons.
Sheesh.
Every civilization, has a turning point. America is no different. Going by cultures it is very new, just about 250 years old.
The past events were a turning point just like WW2 was. So these insecurities and talk about changing rights and all is a phase.
Slowly things will go to optimum levels. We humans are not digital circuit, it takes time.
Many feel that ciivil liberties are being jepordized and many feel that the laws allow too much. To be honest the laws allow a bit too much. So now swing will be the other way, no more privacy, big brother watching and all that, and then the pendulum will start swinging the other way again.
Actually the civillizations which reduce the amplitude of swinging pendulum survive longest, others wither away or are replaced by something else.
Currently everybody is at crossroads, unsure... they had the first amendment, freedoms etc., and the tragedies happened, no all these will be curbed to some extent. In fact it is very necessary to change things from within. Someday america will find the in between point, but then transition is always painful isnt it.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Isn't this not terribly suprising? These things move in cycles, as people want to get more freedom, and then more control and vice versa.
anti-liquor moved to the free WWII moved to McCarthyism moved into the equal rights movement. America has enjoyed the boon of freedoms in the 90's and is now moving towards a less free time. Once that gets too opressive, it'll move back to freedom.
Thank the founders that this country is not a democracy, but a Constitional Republic. Of course, the liberals and conservatives of this country like to forget that.
Our Constitution was set forth in order to protect our God given rights from destruction by an insane majority. As you can now see, the insane majority is here.
I will only vote for those who push legislation for smaller government. In Illinois, we will have libertarians on almost every ballot position, and that's how I will make my statement.
Of course, if we do find more infrindgements on our liberties, I will be one of the first to move to Costa Rica, or another country where their freedoms are GROWING, and because those countries aren't fighting "wars on everything," the standard of living is just as high as it is here (for entrepreneurs), but the tax burden and liberty loss is less.
Don't accept this mess. Vote to end government/business orgies and socialist schemes -- VOTE LIBERTARIAN.
Seven in 10 respondents agreed newspapers should publish freely, a slight drop from 2001. Those less likely to support newspaper rights included people without a college education, Republicans, and evangelicals, the survey found.
They needed a survey to find this out?
"Also many people believe the media shouldn't be allowed to question the government in times of war..."
This solidifies one of my beliefs: many people are stupid.
You've got it confused. We are NOT a capitalist system, we're pushing more socialism and mercantile protectionism than capitalism.
In a true capitalist system, government can NEVER subsidize, tariff, or embargo companies. They can't regulate or control. They can't tax.
In America, our government protects its friendly businesses with subsidies, while harming the competitors to its friends with tariffs and regulations.
Its not Capitalism that hurts our country (greed helps EVERYONE, not just the greedy), its excessive government regulations and subsidies that hurt us.
"They that can give up liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin. That pretty much sums it up. My 2 cents as well as one of our country's (USA) founding fathers.
It's a very dangerous line you leap across with such abandon. If you can't understand how the threat of monitoring (let alone being "picked up and hassled") could affect how free your speech is, I'm not sure that there is much point to further discussion. You don't have to be imprisoned to be silenced.
We need to prevent articles like this from ever seeing the light of day! Only through a proper restriction of free speech can we ensure that free speech is not restricted.
"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security."
don't get me wrong. I understand the gravity of the situation, when a question is posed "Do you think we should give up freedom a in order to protect ourselves?"
The problem I have is the seperation of church and state has gone to far. There is no reason they (churches) shouldn't pay sales tax, property tax, and income tax (on monies other than donations, and "requiring" a "donation" to partake in a fundraiser isn't really a donation, is it). Removing the Tax Exempt status of churches doesn't have an effect of the state crippling the church or supporting one religion over the other.
And NO WHERE in the constitution does it even imply that they should be granted some sort of EXTRA legal protection from being monitored. They don't have the right not to be monitored. The IRS frequently monitors them, to make sure they don't cross for profit lines.
If the question was "Do you think we should take away churches rights not to be monitored, as per the first ammendmant, in order to protect our national security?", then I have no feeling on the subject. It would be the same as asking "Do you think we should take away cowboyNeal's right to sell drugs to school children dressed as a nun in order to protect national security?", or "How many more apples do I need to add to this basket to get a bushel of oranges."
Because patents and copyright restrict speech.
Post the source code to DCSS? Go to jail.
Transmit a file to a user on P2P? Go to jail.
Freedom of speech is being removed by Capitalism, Greed is destroying the constitution. If you want to claim the USA is all about freedom, and hype the USA up to China and Communist countries, saying USA is the greatest country in the world.
On paper USA is the greatest country in the world, however we dont even follow our own rules! Constitution says freedom of speech rules above capitalism, so why are we allowing capitalism to remove universal rights?
If you are going to have freedom of speech there are no special case senarios, this means no source code can be copyrighted, and everything on the net we should have the right to share and copy freely.
Saying we cant share this, we cant copy that, we cant use certain source code, and we cant even mention how the code works in public, theres no free speech left on the net. I fear there wont be any off the net either after everything is patented.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Everytime a study is made saying something slightly bad is NOT a time to freak out and get out your tinfoil hats.
It's too bad the parent was modded as flamebait -- I think it's pretty close to on target (well, except for the flame at the bottom..ok, maybe it deserved to be flamebait). I don't think this study is showing a change in trend on what we think of the First Amendment -- I think it's showing the backlash of our fears. Questions can be phrased such that you'll agree with them, even if at the core you don't.
Take, for example, this statement:
With a poll error of +/- 3% this statement basically reflects our fear of radical Muslim attacks. [note, I understand calling them Muslim is a hypocrisy to the Muslim faith, it's just how they've been labeled in the media] Newsflash: no kidding. We know this already. Had the question been phrased "Do you believe YOUR religious activities should be monitored by the government", and specified just how it would be done, I wonder if the answer would be different.Far more interesting will be to look 20 years down the road and see how the opinions shift. As far as I'm concerned, this is only a blip on the radar -- it may be something, but it's not worth sending out the armed forces yet.
"One has to wonder if anyone cares about their constitutional rights any more, or if everyone would be happier living in 1984."
To your Average Joe, living in "1984" wouldn't feel that much different. Unfortunately for the minority who believe in strong first amendment rights (including me), Average Joes make up the majority of the voting population. With increasing government and corporate pressure to give up our first amendment rights, and the average people just running with the crowd, there won't be much resistance to change.
It's like trying to stop a water main with plastic wrap. There's a barrier with 100% coverage, but it's really thin, and in the end, it won't slow the water at all.
Obviously, this means trouble.
Karma: \Kar"ma\, n. [Skr.] (Buddhism) One's acts considered as fixing one's lot in the future existence.
It was the intent of the founding fathers to protect legitimate political discourse. It was not their intent to protect child pornography, "performance art" and other nonsense. At present the first amendment has been stretched far beyond its original intent. It is time to restore the original purpose of the first amendment. The nonsensical interpretations of it must be laid to rest and we must get back on the original path which the framers intended.
Thank God, or whatever CONSTITIONAL PROTECTED diety (or not)that you choose to worship that only 49% think it goes too far.
That's is still a wide margin from the 2/3's of both Houses and 3/4 of the states needed to make an amendment.
We could use this study to reduce our reliance on foreign oil (and the Saudi's) by using the spinning of the Founding Fathers in their graves to generate electricity.
I hope that someday we will be able to put away our fears and prejudices and just laugh at people. - Jack Handey
This story in the paper is nothing but a troll. This particular posting is nothing but a giant, smelly TROLL. AAAAHHH! RUN! the last thing we need around here is MORE F*CKING TROLLS. Please stop before you start yet another goddamned argument about how much freedom we must trade for security. Sheesh. We've has this same discussion over and over and over again since the 11th of September last year. We don't agree. Get over it. You will not convince me that you are right because you just aren't that smart OR persuasive . I will certainly not convince you that I am right, because I'm not any smarter or persuasive than you are. So, let's agree to SHUT THE F*CK UP for once in our miserable lives about this particular topic and go get a beer and shoot some pool or something. Because this argument is COMPLETELY F*CKING POINTLESS!!!!!!!!!!!
The Sacramento Bee (an extremely lame newspaper to begin with, imho) is notorious for running crap like this to stir up the readers.
Look, it even got *me* to post, and I never post anything anymore! Check my sig for thoughts on people who post here.
...not that I'm a pirate.. Hell I've never even fired a cannon. - oldwolf13
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.
- Martin Niemöller
Let me say this clearly: Bush sucks. He's a dangerous, arrogant man who's brother stole the election for him, and who's flushing our democracy down the toilet as fast as we will let him.
Unanswered Questions about 9/11
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
We interupt your surfing session with a special bulletin:
The Internet is now under martial law. All constitutional rights have been suspended. Stay in your homes! Do not attempt to contact loved ones, science fiction authors, or software developers.
SHUT UP!
Do not attempt to think, or depresion may occur. Stay in your homes. Curfew is at 7 pm sharp after work. Anyone transferring content on ports other than those allowed by their subdivision router - will - be - shot.
(Remain calm.)
Do not panic. Your neighborhood Digital Rights Inspector will be around to collect access logs in the morning. Anyone caught interfering with the collection of access logs - will - be - shot.
Stay in your homes! Remain calm! The number one enemy of progress is questions! The security of Hollywood's business model is more important that individual will!
(All sports broadcasts will proceed as normal.)
No more than two people may discuss programming techniques without permission! Write only the code prescribed by your boss or supervisor!
SHUT UP!
BE HAPPY!
Obey all orders without question!
The comfort you've demanded is now mandatory!
BE HAPPY!
At last, everything is done for you...
How does that Benjamin Franklin quote go?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Indeed.
And for those of you who have never heard of The Freedom Forum, please take a moment and take a look around. This foundation is certainly a group of good folk doing good work.
--
Custom Computer Systems for Discerning Tastes
Rather than restricting citizen's rights to ask questions, it's much better to choke off the seditious answers. With so many negative stories,, dangerous voices of dissent and defeatist rumourmongers creeping around the dangerous and unregulated Internet, it's high time we had a clampdown on traitors!
..monitor the Christian and Catholic churches as well?
You know, the ones that have been responsible for more unjustified death over the years than the Roman Empire, Hitler, Stalin, Israel, Palestine and our favorite cave-dwelling morons put together?
Okay, okay, that was a cheap shot, especially since no one sees the pope running around shouting for holy wars and crusades these days.
But maybe they should still be monitored. After all, they're sucessfully preventing the advance of science. (Waaah, cloning/genetic engineering/abortion/cold fusion/latest buzzword is wrong! Let's bribe our senators!)
Oh, wait, that's right - science will progress despite what these god-fearing fools try to do about it.
Nevermind. Viva la first admendment!
A question. Why is it that there seem to be many Americans that believe that the USA invented the concepts of democracy, freedom and liberty? The issue comes up time and time again. Is it something that is taught in schools in the USA?
It is suprising (not to say a little annoying) for many outside the US to hear this opinion expressed repeatedly by Americans. Democracy, feedom and liberty are ideas have been around since the Greeks, and probably before. There have been democratic governments in parts of Europe for over 800 years.
So can we please drop this idea that America invented freedom? It's just a tad irritating.
or is anyone else sick of special interest groups spouting their opinions as though it was factual 'news'? (slashdot included)
to quote the article..
nearly half of Americans now think the constitutional amendment on free speech goes too far in the rights it guarantees, says a poll released Thursday
A poll? Who conducted the poll? Released by who? Half of Americans? That implies they asked every american, and noone asked ME.
And I would doubt, no matter what specially targetted demographic they polled, the question wasnt 'Do you think we should give up our first amendment rights for the war on terror?'
probably closer to 'Do you think its fair that filthy islamic scumbags like Usama Bin Laden should have the same speech priveledges as you?'
But of course, checking the local mosques to see if they're planning anything is 'giving up our freedoms for a false sense of security'. Pure bullshit.
As though there was no room for compromise.
I tire of reading this crap. Post another 23 year old book review, or link to the latest processor to be 1% faster than the one it replaced.
News for nerds? Stuff that matters?
Shorten that to "Nerds.. Stuff"
Theres no news here and nothing posted matters.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
If you don't want freedom, get out of the country. Don't ruin it for the rest of us.
This country was built on one funadamental philosophy: a weak central government. As the tenth amendment says, the federal government has only the powers that are granted to it by the constitution.
The constitution freed us from tyrranny. If we let 9-11 scare us into destroying what this country was based on, then the terrorists won. They are not free. We are free, and that is essentially why the hate us.
TodayTM BillyJoelTM GoogleTMd for StitchTMes due to WindowsTM while RollerbladeTMing with an AppleTM and a PopsicleTM
These statistics just prove to me that people these days are very ignorant of their rights. They are willing to throw away something and the moment they do they will realize what they've done and then want to retract it but won't be able to.
Individual opinions are ultimately innocuous when you're incapable of expressing and propagating them.
Do you like German cars?
I wonder what people who think the First Amendment should be chipped away at would think if the discussion was, instead, about the Second Amendment. My guess is that they would suddenly become great defenders of their constitutional rights and go on about how it keeps the government in check...
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
If you don't want your first ammendment right, then, for goodness sake, shut up!
Yes, the media should be allowed to question the gov't., but within certain boundaries What they should NOT be doing is pandering to the pinheads in the Congress to gain access to leaked (potentially secret) documents in order to scoop the competition/gain ratings. IOW, they should NOT be pushing their own liberal based, appeasement slanted, self-serving agenda at the potential cost of human lives.
Karma: Professionally Doomed (mostly affected by inability to keep opinions to self)
There is only one crime defined in the US Constitution, and that is treason...
Article 3, Section 3, Clause 1: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.
You don't what is reported, so you call it treason. Views like this are a threat to all of us.
I'm not a huge fan of the press, but they are hardly treasonous, and do act to protect our rights, if only for selfish reasons.
Hell, America wasn't a capitalist nation when Carnegie lived. There's never been a truly capitalist nation. Too bad; I'd enjoy living in one.
The Orwellian reference is most often quoted, but the society in which we increasingly find ourselves bears more similarities with Huxley's work than that of the overrated hack. Our freedoms are not corroded because of fear of any particular oppression, but rather because it's generally more comfortable, more stupefying, to give those freedoms away. People *will* trade their freedom for security - hell, people will trade their freedom for pretty much anything that makes their lives a little easier in the short term, and that allows them to think a little less, to make a little less effort.
In a society where creature comforts are increasingly easy to come by for the average man, there's an increasing willingness/tendency to sacrifice - or ignore - everybody else. So a few of those funny towel-heads get harassed - what of it? So a few lazy bums are on the streets - not my problem. So long as I get my multiple television channels, eh?
Most people just don't care all that much about their freedom - they view 'freedom' as the right to watch tv, drink a beer, see a football game. Even on Slashdot, there are always people who are happy to espouse the free software alternative right up to the point at which they want to play a Windows-only, proprietary computer game. Is it really surprising that most of us don't know what our rights are? We don't need or want to know - and such rights are threatening, particularly in the hands of _other people_.
Just a quick rant.
I have no problem with the government monitoring religious groups, so long as they do it on the same basis that they would monitor any other organization. That is, it must be done based on a warrant, must be reasonable, and must not target groups solely on the basis of their religion. For example, if a judge agrees that sufficient evidence exists of possible meetings by a terrorist cell at a mosque; and if the monitoring involves only the suspected people, rather than the population of the mosque at large; and if it is a specific group at a specific mosque that is being watched (rather than any gathering of young men at any mosque); then I am OK with it. Now, if the same evidence were presented for a synagogue or a temple or a Baptist church, I'd be similarly OK with it. On the other hand, if there was no judge's warrant (or if false information were presented to the judge to obtain the warrant), or if the monitoring was of everyone (or most people) at a certain mosque, or if the monitoring covered several mosques as a linked investigation, without evidence that there was a link other than that they were all mosques, then this would be very, very dangerous.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Always remember that Journalism and the news media are the fourth branch of government that helps perfom checks and balances on the other three.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
The sad truth is, many people don't care. The world they see is limited to what goes on in their everyday life. They go to work, come home, do family things, then sleep. As long as nothing interferes with this process, they don't care. Why worry about what's going on in Iraq if it doesn't bother you? I doubt most people would care whether or not we lived by the constitution or under a dictator. Just as long as it doesn't bother their daily schedule, they are happy.
The World is Yours.
People are not more ready to throw their 1st Amendment Rights away.
They are more ready to throw other people's 1st Amendment Rights away.
Christians don't mind, if muslims are being monitored. US citizens don't mind, if foreign nationals are being monitored. Jewish people don't mind, if Palestinian people are being monitored (and vice versa).
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill hypocricy
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Meant to say ..."You don't >like what is reported...
Ooops.
I'm also critical of farm subsidies on the part of Europe and the US - I think that form of government protection is preventing the best of globalism from actually developing and hurting third world economies considerably - but capitalism, especially complex high-tech highly-interdependent late-capitalism, will always rely on a non-trivial legal and political framework, and on elements of infrastructure that are publically supported (transportation, utilities, financial institutions like the FDIC).
We should try to forget them.
If you are part of a religion whose leaders profess death to non-believers, and whose more radical element have NO PROBLEM in flying loaded airliners into buildings to fulfil that concept, expect to be monitored more closlely. Yes, read the constitution but also read the great body of law which has refined it. Free speech is responsible speech, not saying anything you want any time you want in any form you want. The first amendment is not a national suicide pact, which means religious radicals (including Islamic, Christian and left wing religionists) may not tear the basic fabric of our nation apart just because they think they are entitled to do so. Take my advice. Sell this hyper-liberal bullshit about losing 'our' righs by placing religionists known to tke up arms against innocents, to the porn belt, but not to the rest of us. Kindly note I don't have a problem with Islamicists unless they are toting munitions or are helping to pay for munitions.
Dawn of the Dead
[This comment was intentionally left blank due to news laws]
They don't tell you on the website, but the FreedomForum and the Newseum were founded by Gannett, the corporation that has done the most to destroy local newspaper ownership. There are many, much smarter than me, who belive a media that daily tells us our freedoms are not important does a lot to undermine democracy.
I'm much funnier now that I'm a subscriber.
Wiretap THEIR church for a month. Have black vans sitting outside THEIR houses for a few weeks. Rinse, lather, repeat. Take the survey again.
OR
Spend some quality time in a country that doesn't afford the freedoms that Americans are trying so desperately to get rid of for the sake of "security". Any middle-eastern country. Many African countries. Any of the communist or fascist countries. A couple of months should do nicely. Give it a try. Then take the survey again.
Move to Arizona and stop worrying about it.
IF they however, broadcast information which would be considered sensative, such as the movements of our troops etc, then they have just aided the enemy. I'm all for freedom of press, however I'm also for discretion and self control.
The press knew of the Cuban Missile crisis beofre the public did, the government knew before the press. Should the government have todl the press? No. Should the press have told the public? No. Creating widespread pandimonium is not bennificial to anyone except your enemies.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
You have to wonder if there was a single Muslim in the 42% who favour giving the government more powers to snoop in on Muslims. It's the same story yet again: the people who are least likely to suffer the abuses are the most willing to give everyone's rights up. Racial profiling is okay with the majority because the majority doesn't get profiled, minorities get profiled. Pro-choice activists have been dealing with this for years too, with male lawmakers and jurists limiting the rights women have over their bodies. Documents like the American Bill of Rights and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms exist to protect minorities and underpriveliged groups from the whims of the majority. I'm no civics expert (and heck, I'm not even American), but as I understand it, protecting minority groups from "the tyranny of the majority" was a major concern when the American Constitution was being written. No matter where we live, we'd do well to remember that now, more than ever.
The problem, in my opinion, is that most Americans are not taught critical thinking. As a group (yes, I'm American), we generally accept whatever is spoon-fed to us by the media, by our elected leaders, or by whatever commercial happens to be on between reality TV shows.
I'm sure this problem exists everywhere, but it seems to be really bad here in the U.S.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin
And we are becoming more and more an information based economy.
True Capitalism couldnt work in the real world just like true Socialism cant work. Theres a reason we are a mixture of both, because this is the only thing that could work.
Without public schools, police, government, etc we'd have complete chaos because the people in this country arent intelligent enough, arent responsible enough, and they arent mature enough to successfully govern themselves.
Greed helps everyone? Thats not even logical, Greed only helps you, it doesnt always have to harm everyone else, but it only helps YOU.
Greed helps you. Depending on how you make your money decides how many people you help or harm.
I could say Socialism helps everyone too, you go to the police when you need them, you depend on the military to defend you from al qaeda, without socialism you wouldnt even have the internet, we would have never gone to the moon, we wouldnt have big industries.
Look, pure capitlaism can never work, its a pipe dream, pure socialism most likely can never work either, the best we can do is have a mixture of both, as the economy becomes less labor based and more information based, and we dont have to work as hard, we'll become more socialist, progression forces socialism because you cant sell something when theres unlimited amounts of it.
Capitalism if it was pure, it could work if it were 100 percent fair capitalism, this means capitalism without globalism, this means forcing companies to raise the minimum wage they pay their workers along with the amount of money the company brings in, meaning dynamic salary which increases when companies do good and decreases when they do bad, equal salary for everyone in the company this means the CEO shouldnt make billions and everyone else thousands unless the CEO actually is working the hardest and has been working there the longest.
Enron and Worldcom situations should not be tolerated at all, a person should go to jail for life and their assets removed from them.
Globalism cannot work in pure Capitalism because Capitalism is all about small businesses not big businesses, big businesses are like governments and we dont need this.
No tax? Theres always going to be a tax because people always have to pool their money together to pay for say military forces or hospitals, however by making paying the tax a choice such as a donation you could still have pure capitalism while increasing freedom.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
While I agree with you that this is not, necessarily, a permenant switch, I think it's still cause to grab the old tinfoil. Do the boys in C.R.A.B (Cheney, Runsfeld, Ashcroft, and Bush, in order of the amount they actually run the country) show any sign of LESSENING the fever pitch of war so aptly and lyrically described in the "Julius Caeser" quote at the top of the page? Not until they decide to listen to their own general and back off Iraq (or at least get some legal justification for anything). The rollercoaster will be forced up, and up, and up... until it's impossible to get back down without spilling some blood.
AHHHHHHH! I'm burning with goodness again!
- Reakk, Sluggy Freelance
If they wanna trade their freedom, let them. I certainly won't. seems like cult loyality to me.
Ok why is everyone getting their panties in a twist over some polls? I mean c'mon! Just because they asked some morons around the office doesn't translate to anything.
/. seem incapable of doing.
Actually that's my problem with all of the posts of this genre: where's the substance at? "People might do this!" "People say they would be willing to do this!"
How about some "Government/Corporations doing this." topics. And not only that, but how about some constructive solutions to what can be done instead of sitting around beating off.
Things like the DMCA I can understand: that is law. It exists. It matters. But all this hypothetical FUD and backlash is so fucking Junior High. The same damn quotes from Ben Franklin. The same damn stuff about capitalism or the evils of the Bush Empire. Hell, why not throw in some Microsoft trolling while your at it?
Man, I wish for more people like Bruce Perens. At least he actively tried... something that the other 99.9% of
What is music when you despise all sound?
Anyone who thinks the US is winning the "War on Terrorism" is wrong. The terrorists have already won it. It's sickening how many people are willing to hand over their rights to privacy and free speach just to avoid the CHANCE that something bad MIGHT happen. I can't even count how many times I've heard people say "If you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to worry about". *shudder* Due to 9/11, many Americans are willing to give up some of the most important things that make them Americans. Even if every single terrorist on the planet is killed/imprissoned it doesn't matter -- they've already won.
"War" is a specially provided-for constitutional state that requires a real declaration. Then there's a lot of things that, while frustrating, are a little more reasonable. Saying the words "we're at war" over and over again doesn't make it a war. Of course, this country has never really done it right ever since the "undeclared war" against France and the Alien & Sedition Act. And the press has been just as nosy as well (and far more outrageous than some tend to think of the press today).
Kineska: Cinema, soapbox, music & musings
Look, when people perceive a choice between a more proactively monitoring government and a higher risk of themselves getting blow'd up, it's not surprising that they'll give a bit.
Even the difference between protected free speech and outright threats / persuasion to violence can be a blurry one. Should antiabortion groups feel free to publish websites with the names, addresses, family makeup, typical commuting hours, and bullet resistant building materials usage of abortion doctors and people who've received abortions? With a note saying "jeez, wouldn't it be *awful* if something happened to these folks?"
Frankly, I'm glad that cryptography for non-sales-transaction communication isn't ubiquitous. (In the ways in which I'm a scofflaw, I take a calculated risk, and kind of assume safety in numbers, sort of like speeding.) If PGP emails with bomb planting plans aren't lost in a sea of PGP emails of people just saying Hi, I wonder if we aren't better off.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
And even if a majority did support rolling back freedom, civil liberties fans can still count on an NRA effect--a majority of Americans seem to want further restrictions on guns, but more of those who want to keep guns tend to vote solely on the basis of the gun issue. Likewise, I think there are a lot of obsessed civil libertarians--if there were a serious assualt on Amendment One, they would become better organized (though this effect is mitigated by civil libertarians focus on the judiciary rather than the legislature as a target for activism.)
Also, although I don't agree that the First Amendment has gone too far, I don't find this such a radical, offensive position either. I don't think school should have a pledge of allegiance (this issue probably has more of an impact on American's perception of the First Amendment than the War on Terror) and I think Nazis should be free to scream and holler as much as they want, but I'm not so silly as to believe I'd be living in a Police state if my wishes on these issues do not become reality. We'd have to go a long, long way before there was any significant legal impediment to criticizing the government. Indeed, the concentration of news media in to the hands of a few corporations frightens me a lot more, and the First Amendment has nothing to say regarding that.
If I choose to trade my rights for a convenience, a pox on me. If you trade my rights for your convenience, prepare for a harsh reaction.
Im movin'
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
This is exactly why we have a constitution, a legislature and a court system, rather than simply putting every major issue up for a majority vote. Our elected officials and appointed judges are supposed to act wisely and apply a knowledge of history and a sense of continuity. Whether they actually do that is another story.
I'm a Jedi by religion, and if they start monitoring us, we'll know. And we'll use the force to f*** with them.
... could be people are just sick and tired of the Biased media constantly bashing Bush and any move he makes. The people realize that we are at war with forces who targe every single man, woman, and child in the US, but the media does nothing but bash every move that has been made. The media complained that that Afganistan would be the Vietnam of the new century, the media then complained about the "horrible" conditions in Guantanimo Bay, Cuba. The truth couldn;t be further from the truth. Look at how the US bends over backwards to make the conditions first class, while our enemy's beat and murder Daniel Perl and anyone they can get their hands on.
I could go on with example after example of the garbage the media prints, but the people realize that the media prints/reports crap and they are getting tired of it. The people are just getting sick and tired of the media bashing everyhting that is America and what it stands for. The media would have you believe Palastinians are victims in every way instead of reporting that Palastinians are targeting women and children by attacking civilians.
Hmmm, I wonder why fox news is kicking CNN's ass in the ratings? Could be that people are sick of the Biased Liberal Agenda.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
The spying on religous groups... Though Muslims tend to have the focus right now, what's to say another group isn't going to get lined up next.
Separation of Church and State should work both ways... If God (Church) has to be removed from State... then State should stay out of Church.
But as a US History major, I have come to see and understand, the American population goes through transitions, rights are given, when abused, they are taken away, then they are returned. Why? Because a democracy is made up of people, and when there is a real threat, some freedoms need to be restrained slightly.
Look at the American Japanese, then the Communist witch hunt, the ridicule of the Christian right, and now the Muslim extremists. Groups are targeted, but eventually things balance out.. And they tend to balance out ONCE THE THREAT IS GONE!
I believe in RIGHTS and RESPONSIBILITIES! You shouldn't have one without the other... But that's just me... If you hippies want to protest, I've got some pepper spray and water cannons for you!
Tournament Management Online &
From the above, it has been inferred that any kind of prayer in public schools is unconstitutional, that putting the 10 Commandments on public property is unconstitutional, that pr0n is legal, that a woman has the right to privacy and, consequently, the right to terminate pregnancy, that public libraries may not filter web sites, and so on and so forth.
The point I'm making is that we have become accustomed to reading an awful lot into that one small amendment. As a student of political science, however, I find it both amusing and disturbing that the first five words of the amendment are the ones most frequently ignored: "Congress shall pass no law..."
Taken literally (and as the Founding Fathers intended!) this means that most of these freedoms we take for granted were never intended to be freedoms at the level they are, but rather issues left to the individual states!
I don't know exactly what that means for us today, but it is food for thought.
----------
Something cleverBend Over
that the americans who want to give up freedom only want to do so because they're so used to it that they don't appreciate it. They've never lived where they didn't have those freedoms, and can't realize that so many things they take for granted are excersizing those very freedoms they want to give up...
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
"Question authority"
And the authorities will question you!
Or, to beat another messageboard joke to death:
"In Soviet Russia..." the authorities question you!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
He who fails to learn from the lessons of history is doomed to repeat them.
http://www.constitution.org/rf/vr.htm
The Virginia Report, J.W. Randolph, ed. (1850) -- Documents and commentary arising out of the controversies attending the Alien and Sedition Acts, including the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and 1799 and the Virginia Resolution of 1798, which set forth the "Doctrine of '98" concerning constitutional interpretation, and led to the "Revolution of 1800", the dominance of the Jeffersonians, and the demise of the Federalist Party.
The issue is not whether sensitive information should or should not be disseminated - it should not.
The issue is precisely WHAT comprises sensitive information.
It is beyond the authority of CONgress to make such a determination, when the information fails to cross the line past which enemies are given strategic or tactical information.
Is W channelling George Orwell, or just plagerizing him?
By the way, on what day precisely did CONgress declare this current War?
Liberty is not a concept... Liberty is a way of life!!!
For example, so wrote Justice White in the Supreme Court case that stated the release of the Pentagon Papers was protected speech:
"I do not say that in no circumstances would the First Amendment permit an injunction against publishing information about government plans or operations. Nor, after examining the materials the Government characterizes as the most sensitive and destructive, can I deny that revelation of these documents will do substantial harm to public interests. Indeed, I am confident that their disclosure will have that result. But I nevertheless agree that the United States has not satisfied the very heavy burden that it must meet to warrant an injunction against publication in these cases...."
Note that he agrees that the release of sensitive goverment information will hurt the government.
Now, this does not protect the whistle-blower -- but newspapers are protected far, far beyond the average protections. It isn't 100% protection (troop movements would probably be a fine exception, as you point out), but it is a far higher hurdle to stop a newspaper than it is to charge you or I with the same crime.
If the US government can't keep sensisitve information from the media then we have much bigger problems than treason. Trust me, if the media can get information, then so much more easily can foreign goverments (with spies, etc. Not paranoia, the US has always had spies from all over infiltrate -- we usually find out decades after the fact. I mean, *Cuba* has infiltrated in recent years! Not to mention England, the USSR back in the day, etc. etc.).
I have to say, I find all of this terrifying, and I'm not sure if it's just a lack of historical perspective (is history not taught in the US?), or just a blind, naive and (IMHO undeserved) confidence in a "completely benign" government (ha!).
Do people really not understand that's what made a lot of communist (arguably really totalitarian, but that's another topic) countries not pleasant to live in?
If you're really willing to give up these freedoms, then I suggest China or Cuba (or for that matter Iraq). That's the government you're looking for. No human rights or due process to protect you from the tyranny of government? Sorry, comes with the territory! But at least you'll be protected from the media selling secrets to foreign goverments!
In fact, to quote someone who may carry more weight with Americans:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759.
(I could go on about the quote. I love that it's not just "will not have" but actually "do not even *deserve* liberty nor safety". I have to agree).
First they came for the Muslims and I said nothing because I was not Muslim. Next they rounded up the homosexuals and I stood aside because I was not gay. The Athiests left quietly while I averted my eyes. When they came for the copywright violators and the bussiness model damagers I hide in the basement. When they came for me, I looked around for someone to stand with me, but there was no one left.
SD
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
The public education system is heavily biased towards the "government knows best" mindset. Take the second amendment, for instance. Many government-mandated history books interpret the amendment for "government has the right to use tax dollars for military purposes" rather than the original intention of the founders (that individuals have the right to use firearms [force] in defense of force), which is quite obvious to any historian. The US government, like all socialist/pseudo-socialist systems, also spends many millions (bilions?) of tax dollars on propaganda.
My point? Always question the motives of government. Always. Government has the potential to do many times more damage than the private sector. Politicians, as well as unelected representatives and other "public servants", are driven by personal incentive just like the rest of us. There is noting wrong with personal incentive, of course -- this is the foundation of a healthy market economy. The problem lies in the fact that government does business by coercion (force), instead of voluntary association like the private sector. They do not play by the same rules.
Of course you make the assumption that one obtains material from the goverment illegally. In most cases, information is leaked from the government. I could be mistaken, but I understand that this is a typical method used in DC to desiminate information and has been used for years. The Bush administration has tried to put a halt to this - but its part of DC culture. You know - let the steam out so the pot doesn't explode
The adminstration would have you believe all leaked information is illegal and a crime to publish. In that case, what do we do? Use the governments own press releases? The government must be accountable to the public. And since the goverment doesn't want you to know anything about what it is doing (especially this administration) - I say - leak and publish away.
There will never be a pure anything for a long long time.
Currently the best we can do is have a mix of Capitalism and Socialism.
Socialism to give everyone universal benifits, the right to have the military protect them for example, the right to get an education, etc
People arent always born with the money to go to private school, buy a shitload of machine guns, pay their own personal doctor, and so on.
And if people did have to do this, doctors would make less money on average because people wouldnt have any money to pay them with, teachers would be working for pennies literally and poor students would never have access to good teachers, etc etc.
People can argue all they want for a pure Capitalist world but its just impossible, just like a pure Socialist world is impossible, the only way we could have a world like this is to have a utopia where everyone is responsible,mature, intelligent, and we have a perfect democracy.
When we have a Utopia then we can decide if we want it to be a Capitalist Utopia or A Socialist Utopia.
Right now we arent there yet.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
That on average, citizens of countries with more freedom tend to be much safer than citizens of countries with less?
Think of the world's non-democratic countries, like Iraq, or Argentina under the fascists. Are the people there safe? NO! People are taken from their homes in the middle of the night, imprisoned, tortured, and killed. Why? Because people arent' free to question and criticise the government. Because people either believe that their government cannot be opposed, or that opposing it would weaken their country.
Your freedom doesn't harm your safety. It guarantees it. Freedom exists to protect the individual's right to life, liberty, and security of person.
And as soon as you try to trade your freedom for safety, you will find that you've lost them both.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
Maybe what they really are saying is that they want less media repeating the same damn thing EVERY 15 MINUTES, with TRAFFIC AND WEATHER on the 10s... and SPORTS every 15.
We already of restrictions to freedom of expression, I can't go calling black people N%%%%%rs (at least in Canada) without potentially getting fined for it, or charged with a verbal hate crime.
Anarchy is unrestricted freedom. I believe in small government, with my house as my castle. But I don't want my crazy neighbour to have unrestricted freedom!
Tournament Management Online &
Capitalism, at list according to the person that defines it depends on several criteria, one of which is each person has access to complete information. Companies, like countries, have vested interests in hiding as much as they to keep their competitive advantage. They only way members of a capitalist society can get companies to provide that information is for a third party (the SEC, the federal government, whatever) to make it in the company's best interest (through laws).
Also note that that corporations (i.e. an artificial person), copyrights, trademarks, and patents (all limitted monopolies) do not exist in a capitalist countries and mafias (i.e. capitalists who "protect" the people they "tax" from people who they don't "tax") would be perfectly legitimate members of a capitalist society.
Limitted greed is okay as is limitted altruism and limitted egoism and limitted humility, but unchecked greed, altrium, egoism, and humility can be very destructive (or at least very self-destructive). Read Shakespeare or a good greek tragedy to understand why.
"Shut up."
The economy sucks, most people I know are out of work, 911.
Yesterday I went to go visit some friends up in San Francisco. I was appalled at the
number of large office spaces availiable for lease along the 101. Entire business parks empty. It was an amazingly traffic free drive on the way home down the 280 during what would have been bumper to bumper during the boom.
GWB reminds me of the construction people in my neighborhood. They don't understand the importance of dumping money into the tech sector. They forget that during the boom that EVERYONE had money and was spending it on
everything.
As far as GWB being a great president, well we could have had Saddam Hussain as president when 911 happened, all he would have had to say was Lets kick butt and instant popularity in the polls. Satan could
have said Lets Kick butt and the pope would have rallied behind him. Sure you think i'm kidding? Think back to 911, when GWB said he wasn't going to put up with terrorism. Didn't you think what a cool guy?
I think GWB is a liar! I think he lied to win the election, he's lying about the impact 911 had on our economy, he's lying that we can't catch usama. 27
million dollar reward and nobody has turned the guy in yet? I mean cmon folks get real here, if I was some starving Al Quaida soldier fuck my religion, gimme the money! I think GWB is trying to get as many young
americans into the army as possible to lock us in a huge war so he stays in office. We have no business fucking with Hussain in Iraq either, GWB's daddy already carpet bombed the place in the 90's, we kicked his ass so hard
that he now allows UN weapon inspectors to make sure he isn't building weapons of mass destruction.
We should be focusing on rebuilding our economy and the twin towers, not bombs.
After a year and a half of not working, eating ramen noodles to pay the mortgage and watching a lot of my friends in the same predicement, i'm beginning to suspect that 911 was just a ploy by GWB to gain popularity. Yeah
I know it sounds sick, but we're talking about a president who's father was in the CIA, and did some suspicous things when it came to the election.
Another thing bothering me, is what happened to all the 911 relief funds? I have inlaws in NYC that had inlaws that died. They've gotten jack shit from anyone. My guess is it went to the GWB bomb building
fund.
Mod me down if you like, this is honestly how I feel about things. I think times really suck now and I wish Clinton was still president. Hey the man liked cigars, I can relate to that (wink wink nod nod say no more)
Now on top of fucking the economy to fund his war, lying to the public at any chance he can, and letting the RIAA fuck us on our personal rights, he wants to take more away from me? Fuck no! I won't stand for it. Even
though my vote didn't make a difference in the last election there is no way GWB is going to be able to pull that florida crap a second time. I will vote his ass out and I would urge any slashdotters in a similiar situation
to go do the same. Fuck GWB he's a joke!
Now that i've said all these nasty comments about GWB I can expect a knock at the door from the FBI, because he wants my first ammendment rights too.
What kind of questioning of the government do you mean? If you mean that you don't want a man imprisoned for asking "Why are we invovled in an unpopular war?", then I wholly agree. If you mean that you don't want a man imprisoned for asking "Why did you attack this village, and burn it to the ground?", then I wholly agree. If you mean you want an answer to "Are we gonig to secretly invade Iraq?", I disagree. i actually watched as a SEAL team landed on a beach head under the cover of darkness, trying to be secretive, only to have news media floods and cameras trained on them. That was ridiculous, and a product of Pentagon being too media friendly. The news channel justified its abuse of the NDA, because they didn't tell anyone about the attack before it happened. They just pointed everyone right to the scene as it was happening. The courts have ruled, and rightfully so in my opinion, that your right to free speech (press) ends at the truth, and my safety. No shouting of "FIRE" in a crowded theater, or inciting riots, that sort of thing. Although I applaud the Freedom of Information Act, and hope it never gets repealed, I don't think our right to say anything that is true correlates to our ability to demand someone else (including government) tell us the whole truth. There are oversite commitees in place to look into the things that the common man shouldn't have knowledge of. And yes, there are things that a government needs to know, that the common man doesn't. And no, I am not naive. I am some what of an idealist. The oversite process doesn't work as well as it should, and probably err's too much on the side of the government control. I wish this wasn't the fact, but I don't wish that we would scrap the entire idea of national security because you think Saddam Hussein has a first ammendmant right to know when we are going to send our secret hit squads.
Funny, the parent was posted by someone in your 'friends' list that was too afraid to post it logged in due to the backlash s/he woulda recieved.
American citizens need to be involved in what is going on in the government. This is a representative democracy, therefore it is the right and obligation of all citizens to write, call, and petition their reps and to hold them accountable for their votes. If a Senator or congressmen sees that the majority of the people in his/her district want him/her to vote in a certain way, even if it is against the will of a lobbyist, said representative will more than likely vote the way of the people. Because if the people of his/her district hold him/her accountable for his/her votes then that rep will be out of a job come the next election, no matter how much the lobbyist pay.
Basically bother the living shit out of your representatives.
Democracy is for responsible, and rational people who do not need laws to dictate common sense. Socialism is for the weak and the fearful, who refuse to take responsibility for their actions
Burning his money. It worked for freedom didn't it?
"4 legs good, 2 legs baaaaa-d" "christian good, islam baaaaaaa-d" "ra ra ra, blood blood blaaaaaad"
The sad truth is that the average person is dumb, and half the population is even dumber than that.
Thus, it doesn't surprise me when 4 out of 10 people say that they don't think the press and the academic community should be allowed to criticize government plans -- they're the 4 who are dumber than average.
I share your disdain for religion.
That said, it should be noted that Christians haven't attacked the United States since 1814.
Thats just my point, Piracy is just sharing information, thats free speech, thats constitutional!
So how can you be anti piracy yet support freedom of speech? You cant censor someones speech by saying they cant share intellectual property, then say you support it.
Corperate Welfare? Well real capitalism only works on paper not in the real world.
Real Capitalism or Real Socialism has never been done, mainly because it requires a perfect society to do it, which we can never have.
You'll always need public schools, police, free hospitals, and so on.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The question the article makes a lot of noise over (question 2.) Question 2 is basically a recitation of the text of the first amendment, followed by the text:
"Based on your own feelings about the First Amendment, please tell me whether you agree or disagree with the following statement: The First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees.'
In this context, more people agreed than disagreed (by 2 points) that the First Amendment goes to far.
Now, if you look at questions 3-9, each of which ask the interviewee to rate the importance of each freedom guaranteed by the First Amendment individually, there's a solid and vociferous defense for the freedoms guaranteed (on average, between 65% and 80% of people feel that any given freedom is 'essential'.)
What does this tell us? It tells me that there is an effective lobby against "The First Amendment", and that, when the freedoms are disassociated from "The First Amendment", Americans are rabidly supportive of their First Amendment rights. This leads me to hope that, while First Amendment attacks are en vogue in a number of circles today, that the people will lash back should the Frist Amendment face too concerted of an attack.
If we want to draw attention to the erosion of First Amendment rights, we need to step away from the "XXXXX is taking away our First Amendment rights" argument and approach the problem from an "XXXXX is taking away your (right to assemble/right to practice religion/right to privacy/right to speak your mind)."
Sadly, it seems that people cherish the First Amendment considerably less than they cherish the rights that amendment provides.
(My views are my own. They do not reflect those of my employer. I am not a real political analyst, I just work with them.)
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
"I don't know what to call this."
Try SOP[*] -- since 1963.
I'm only half joking
[*]military parlance for "Standard Operating Procedure"
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
We just applied it to it's rational conclusion.
Of course, the Greeks only did it for the aristocracy... I believe we were the among the first to share it with the masses. (non-landowners, women, etc)
BTW, Ya they do pretty much teach that in our schools though.
Whats important is where the money is going. We spend 450 billion on the military, and 20 billion on schools? We need to raise the school budget and bring down military budget, bring up the budgets for cures for cancers and life extention, bring up the budget for NASA, bring down the budget for the FBI and CIA who waste our money fighting the endless war on drugs.
Best of all our democracy should allow us to vote for where the money goes, if we could vote on where the money goes in the first place we'd have an efficient government.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Burning the flag is wrong because it is rude and deeply offends others. So does many other things, but we should not be in the business of trading protest for politeness. To those who are truely offended by flag burning I say I am sorry that there are such rude and offensive people, but please bite your tounge and understand that it is better to endure such rudeness than start passing laws that could hurt our democracy.
Those that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Ben Franklin, ~1784
is there any way? everyday i see the other kids in school getting dumber/ more ignorant, i see the news every night and the propaganda they spew, i see whats going on in the government and it makes me sick, i know its possible to have dual citizenship, but i was born here in the USA, can i renounce it and get Canadian Citizenship or something?
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
all you geeks out there have read (i imagine) a sufficient amount of sci-fi, pol-sci and philosophy to understand the basic concepts. people need a thing to believe in. without these beliefs, people are scared, confused and depressed. those are the kind of people that the [fill in the blank] leader want. the others are just there to second guess their decisions and cause general trouble.
i don't think i've ever met one person who hasn't overstepped their 'personal power' boundaries in their life. doesn't matter if it's jimmy fatboy stealing a doughnut, bush lying to your face or hitler. everyone has to deal with their own power demons and some fare better than others.
until we have some sort of universally accepted faith, idea or fact, the human race will continue to blow eachother up and throw airplanes at buildings. deal with it. don't like america? try another country. the people that roll over and let the [fill in the blank] leader do the talking are obviously happy or lazy. move somewhere else or deal with it. give up personal comforts for three minutes for your morals.
otherwise, get back in the fishbucket and flop around with the rest.
your jesus is another mans xebu. chew on that hypocrites.
This isn't the first time that we've gone off the collective deep end this way. A couple yars ago, I read American Aurora, which tells the story of the 1800 presidential election through the lens of contemporary newspapers. The curtailment of liberty and supression of dissent that went on then are absolutely appalling to me, and probably to any modern westerner.
:)
Those who do know history are doomed to watch others repeat it.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Hardly surprising, despite the obvious biases of poll results coming out of the People's Socialist Hegemony of California. In general, the opinion poll seems to be the sole authority that American courts need nowadays to judge that laws are "Constitutional". Once the will of the people was broken the Constitution became a dead document, and laws only faced the test of popular opinion. This strikes me as significantly so from the 1970s onward due to individual financial hardships in America, but you could chose any number of other points like 1913 (Federal Reserve and the income tax) and 1933 (socialism and rumblings of a military coup).
Those who assert the Const is a living document point out that the Const has a mechanism for change called Amendment. But that requires that inconvenient Const Convention thing, and other such trappings of law and public procedure. Since it is far easier, quicker and -- more significantly -- sneakier to just ignore things in the Const, it is done the easy, quick and sneaky way. The sneaky way is particularly important part of the affair due to well-armed types like Ted Nugent hanging around saying: "The guys who wrote [the Constitution] were light years ahead of anyone today, and they meant what they said -- now leave the document alone, or there's going to be trouble."
And people actually have the nerve to wonder why there is widespread lack of respect for the law.
[also misbehaves on Kuro5hin as Peahippo]
Luckily, I'm atheist. If they try to monitor me, all they'll get is static.
The World Jones Made by Philip K. Dick is yet another book about how the government deals with cultist religious groups. Only, in this case, they start a movement called Relativism under which all opinions are relative - none are right and none are wrong. Everyone is allowed to think what they want to think, but no one's thinking is better than another. This is the way the gov. keeps tabs on cultist groups forming... only humanity fights to believe in something instead. Humanity gets one thing, they fight for another. We've had freedom too long to be appreciated, now we want oppression. Yay for the masses.
A friend of mine teaches Constutional Law and Governement for a high school here in Atlanta. Unfortunately, it's an AP class. If a class like this was mandatory for EVERYONE, maybe we would see less of the populace willing to give away THEIR rights to politicians whose only goal is to keep their cushy jobs and promote their backer's agenda.
There is no spoon or sig.
The US is(was?) a Republic, as the ancient Greeks were. The countries in Europe you're talking about were mostly Democracies.
Republic: representative rule
Democracy: majority rule.
There's a huge difference between the two. Part of why we think we have a monopoly on these concepts is because our system really is that much different than most others. If you think checks and balances are just "little details that don't matter" you've got another think coming.
Treason is going against your own country in war. Not the war itself.
Another interesting topic:
When a president is inaugurate he must swear to uphold the constitution.
Secondly, I'm sure you're happy the that the President isn't above the law anymore. I mean he sort of was until Congress gave him the right to do as he pleases without needing their consent. Which means the President currently and future can have a bad and call it wartime and then of course any nonconformist stream of consciousness or thought pattern can be labeled as treason.
Kinda the CyberPatrol blocks Peacefire as being pornographic.
Welcome to America...?
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
This whole war on terrorism thing got interesting when attitudes began to forget the "fighting to protect your" clause of "Fighting to protect your freedom."
Well - everyone should stop whining, Join the ACLU and write their congressmen/women.
\Drew National Data Director, John Edwards for President
These are inalienable rights, not privileges. The question is whether you choose to excercise them.
The state can't give you free speech, and the state can't take it away. You're born with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Like old Campbell said, 'Freedom is something you assume. Then you wait for someone to try to take it away from you. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free.' - Utah Phillips
As long as we're whoring with gratuitous quotes...
"A perfect democracy, a 'warm body' democracy in which every adult may vote and all votes count equally has no internal feedback for self correction. It depends solely on the wisdom and self-restraint of citizens...which is opposed by the folly and lack of self-restraint of other citizens. What is supposed to happen in a democracy is that each sovereign citizen will always vote in the public interest for the safety and welfare of all. But what does happen is that he votes his own self-interest as he sees it...which for the majority translates as 'Bread and Circuses'
Bread and Circuses is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader--the barbarians enter Rome."
-- RAH, To Sail Beyond Sunset
Post Scriptum: In accordance with Sircar's Corollary, and since Fascism is already mentioned somewhere in this thread, I'm pre-emptively invoking Godwin's Law.
If you (and I mean YOU Mr. Constitutional Expert) will read the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution, you will find that they are prohibitions against the federal government, nothing more.
Those who assume that the Bill of Rights is the source of their freedoms are being scammed.
http://come.to//foundation.
The problem with freedom is you don't realise what it really means. I know a few people who really understand what religious freedom means. All were religious in the Soviet Union (or satalite countries), China, Pakastan(sp), Malasia, or other country where religious freedoms do not exist. I know ministers who do not have email because China will read it, they get their regular mail only when the visit other countries. They carry a bible with absolutely NO marks on it. (Most love those little notes they normally write in their bible). No pictures, names, or contacts are ever allowed written down.
As an american though, I don't live like that. I make no seceret that I'm religious, and even though many /. readers think it is foolish, not one will attempt to kill me for my beliefs. In the town where I live there are 10 different churchs (that I know of) all who claim they are the only right one in town. Nobody in my town as ever been threatened because of their beliefs, even though most (including athiests) would prefer everyone belived like them.
P.S. the more technicaly savey of the ministers I know are the only ones who I know that actually use pgp and encourage it. They however know that keystroke loggers and the like make pgp less usefull in non-free countries.
if one morning they woke up to find that while they were sleeping the US government had become a totalitarian dictatorship with Pres. Bush at the helm? Granted, that seems unlikely since they apparently prefer to work the government slowly in that direction, but the question still remains.
If the US government was openly and violently suppressing the American people, what do you think the rest of the world would do? Would the Europeans come to our aide? Would the Africans laugh at our disgrace? Would China just go on with its business of becoming the next super-power?
Would the French help an American resistance movement? Would the British sell the people arms? Or would there be endless talk and admonitions of human rights violations? I really can't imagine that anyone would help us.
I really do believe that the greatest threat to American citizens is not terrorism, but our own government. That might be paranoid, but it's how I feel about it. And everyday I become more and more concerned. And then I wonder, who would help us? What would the world do?
Gah!! never was there a more messed up concept or following arguments about it.
If I buy a flag and burn it, that's my right. If I burn a flag owned by someone else, that's a very different matter. Especially if that other person's flag had sentimental value (like the one my grand-daddy was buried in)
True" capitalism CAN work, and it DID work in America's most prosperous era (from the founding until the Civil War, when Lincoln's many fascist treasons corrupted the whole political system)"
Oh so using slaves to do all the work and just sitting and taking their money is pure capitalism? If you believe its Capitalism I suppose you also support reperations? After all if slaves did all this work shouldnt they be paid the money your pure capitalist ancestors "earned"?
Like I said, We have never had pure capitalism, and for pure capitalism to work it has to be fair. This means no slavery or other forms of cheating.
"If people aren't smart enough to save money to educate their children, then they'll need to LEARN responsibility over the generations when they're poor. That's what's great about this country -- the unintelligent "darwinistically" fall by the wayside, and the MOST intelligent from other countries immigrate to our country to make the society stronger."
They wont live for generations. Poor people die quickly, or become criminals which your tax dollars use to build their prisons, face it what you are saying is that only successful people should survive. People who arent born into success will be poor and uneducated, lets say this was you, lets say you had nothing, no parents, no money, and you were homeless, how would you turn this around with no free education?
Also I dont support darwins theory, Darwin was talking about the competition between species in terms of evolution when resources are limited and competition for these resources are required.
The world is not like highlander, or at least it doesnt have to be, we dont need to fight over resources when theres enough food to feed everyone, it becomes a self destruction process,Sure you can have capitalism but it has to work for everyone rich or poor.
I know I'm a solo voice, but the hopes for liberty ARE growing, and I can only hope that people eventually see the fallacy that we "NEED" public education, or that we "NEED" minimum wage laws (laws that have removed 500,000+ jobs from the market, and hurt minorities and the young). Pick up one of those two books, settle in for a long week, and learn why Government Doesn't Work.
You arent a solo voice, you are a typical upper class rich white male, most likely single, who had a mother and a father put you in a private school and provide all you needed to be successful.
What you dont realize is, not everyone in this country has what you have and gets a fair start, people who start with nothing and people who start with everything are in two diffrent worlds.
Capitalism as you mentioned cant work for this simple reason, if you are poor, and you dont have any support from family, you cannot get an education, so you cannot get a legit job, so you go to crime and end up in prison because in your society theres absolutely no other option.
How exactly do you move up in the class system if theres absolutely no free services to help you do it? There has to be a way up if theres a way down.
Options, provide the same wage for everyone and make education not matter at all (yeah right)
or
Make education free for everyone and use education to decide wage, allowing people rich or poor to be able to benifit from Capitalism.
Why do we need minimum wage? Alot of people cant work 3 jobs and raise kids.
Alot of people have to work 2 jobs now just to survive onn their own WITH minimum wage, without minimum wage more people would have jobs, less people would be on welfare, but the poverty would be much more extreme than it is now.
Extreme Poverty becomes Extreme Crime, alot of pregnant teenage women will be robbing people and begging on the streets, because they arent educated enough to get a good job.
And lets not even try to imagine how the kid would turn out if they had to live on the streets with a mother who works 3 jobs and still cant afford anything, I guess you'll have to remove the child labor laws so kids can go to work and they can survive.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Real Life
Very often we heard of threats. We knew people were being investigated. The FBI kept track of people at home, and the CIA did likewise abroad. Plans were sometimes disrupted by the arrest of a ring-leader.
Computer World
Advisories are sent out. Big gaping holes are found in widely used software. Viruses destroy systems and bring networks to their knees. The CERT sends out advisories. McAfee writes anti-virus software to stop the chaos.
The Reality
What do these two paragraphs have in common? The fact that until something does happen, no one gives a rats butthole. So often we heard the threats, of both acts of terrorism, and of someone having the ability to penetrate our corporate systems. But it's not until it has happened that the people in charge allow themselves to take action. Yes, a knee jerk reaction at that.
Take our rights away! Shut down the network! Monitor all communications of all residents of the country! Do not allow any web surfing to occur any more! Spend whatever it takes to secure our country! Spend whatever it takes to secure our network!
Yes, not everyone is an expert in security, whether it'd be national security, or network/system security. But if your organization is fortunate enough to have a person that knows what they are talking about, do yourself, and your organization a favor. Listen to them! Take their advice and put prophylactic measures in place, so that if/when there is an attack, you are better prepared for it and you don't have to make yourself look like a fool running around like a chicken without it's head when something bad does happen.
Most of all, remember the old cliche "prepare for the worst, but hope for the best". The worst that can happen is that you could be ready for something that never happens.
---
This rant is brought to you by your local chapter of Geeks Against Morons in Power.
They would correctly identify this as one half of a Frank Zappa album title. Congratulations on getting the romanization of djibouti correct. Why are you important enough to be posting on slashdot?
The post intended to illustrate American insularity because we hadn't yet the privilege of your peevish reply as an example.
illegitimii non ingravare
Thats basically what hes proposing we do. His so called pure Capitalism is just slavery, before the cival war, thats what we had, Slavery.
I'm sorry but if pure capitalism worked so well America wouldnt have been founded in the first place considering the founders could have just remained slaves and peasants of Europe.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Capitalism? The US is not even close. Nobody seems to understand that capitalism cannot work (at least not properly, let alone optimally) in parallel with socialism. The two economic systems are hostile toward each other. For every tax dollar collected and put towards socialism, there is one taken away from the private sector. For every dollar invested in the private sector, there is one taken away from socialism. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
That's anarchy with a capitalistic twist. BAD IDEA. Mugging people would be a viable business model, America's biggest companies would be crime syndicates (you might argue that that is already the case though...). Hey, and why not just let poor people starve to death, how would that be? I bet real efficient, and great news for your wallet. Your mistake is not acknowledging that shit happens. No taxes means no justice for poor people, not even the tiny hint thereof we have today. You get driven over by a car? Like who gives a bleep. We're not wasting our precious millions on the likes of you, scum!
That's one of the bigger pieces of bullshit floating around in peoples' heads. Haven't you heard about Nash equilibria yet? You know, the guy they made that movie about? Well, he got a Nobel prize in economics for pointing out that Adam Smith's invisible hand is bullshit. Not always, but more often than not the best result for the group and the individuals is achieved when people cooperate (== opposite of capitalism). Unfortunately, when one side cheats, the other gets screwed big time, and so both sides tend towards non-cooperation, resulting in an inefficient outcome.
Bah, and after that tirade, here's my point: what's wrong with the world, such as it is today, is that people treat each other like shit, without any respect or dignity, and only trying to screw each other over:
Anybody can be a jerk, in America we call that "freedom."
Imagine the Creator as a stand up commedian - and at once the world becomes explicable. -Mencken
While I have nothing against the bible or people reading it, living it or whatever. I DO NOT want people telling me what I can, or can't do based on their 'bible beliefs'. The regression of free speech is a sad tale of repressed morality, and low IQ. When I hear that a book/movie/music is banned, people are being put on 'probably going to be a crimminal' lists and held for no legal reason, and when GWB decides to go to war all by himself, I ask, "Where are the dissenting voices?"
The DMCA, U.S Patent Office, the Patriot act, Carnivore, Echelon, M$ allowed monopoly, the lack of worker rights in the workplace, **AAs, DRM, SSCCA, the isolationism of the USA and our resulting lack of support for the Kyoto treaty, the lack of difference between political parties, Senator Disney and his Club, Campaign Reform (not), CAFE standards, war oil oil war, Alaskan Reserve, Enron, Halburton, Worldcom, The Office of Homeland Security.
Are these things NOT fucked up? Am I missing something?
I don't fear the terrorists. I fear my own well meaning, scared, righteous, incompetent citizens will continue to support a Government that is plainly out of control.
I'm now in the list.
Americans (many, at least) are idiots. And yes, I am an American, born an raised.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
How many laws have actually passed and been challenged in the Supreme Court since 9/11? Our constitution clearly dictates what laws can remain standing--and which ones cannot.
Fear makes us all poor citizens, but it does not change our laws. I have faith in our country, as it has lasted over 200 years now. When the fear that is masquerading as patriotism finally dies out, when the power-hungry men who seek to profit from fear leave office because they must, real patriotism will return. Real patriotism will bring challenges to the laws of fear, and those laws will be destroyed by the courts.
The sig, BTW, is a joke. The above is not.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
I think that whoever said that we don't need freedom should be packed up and sent to china/cuba/etc for a year of being a citizen there.
Congratulations on getting a post on Slashdot!!
:P
Now... how 'bout that dining room floor?
Can an automatic script perhaps :)
post an addition to every YRO
or related story that consists
of appropriate Jefferson, Franklin,
Martin Niemuller(sp?) and others'
appropriate quotes?
Considered harmful.
I'm glad someone else got around to reading those amendments that follow the first ten.
the media shouldn't be allowed to question the government in times of war
Recently Runsfeld (I believe) was quoted as saying that "unanimity in thought does not always promote correctness" or something (in reference to our allies not supporting military action against Iraq).
Why do we not use this quote when other government officials say that any criticism of the government is wrong?
Am I the only one who thinks that the system has stepped over the line a long time ago? This is crazy!
When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty -- to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic].
abraham lincoln
Another prime example is the US and its "war on drugs". By revoking the citizen's freedom to use or sell mind-altering substances for recreational purposes, the US government created a black market which has greatly accelerated the national crime rate. Correct me if I'm wrong, but (1) the US currently has the highest ratio of inmates/population in the world, and (2) at least 50% of US inmates are in jail for non-violent drug offences. Can anyone put 2 and 2 together?
Incidentally, this prohibition directly benefits government in the form of justification for more tax revenue and power over the people. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Martin Luther King once said:
"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
This also applies for a nation.
What amazes me is that people are ready to let go what their ancestors lived and died for at the first sight of horror in their own courtyard. They are ready to apply within their own country what they rightly do not accept other countries to do. And this, for the illusion of security and comfort.
I am afraid that the terrorists did far more than blindly and cowardly destroy thousand of human lives. They touched the very foundation of this country: freedom and tolerance.
Let's hope the shouting and fear of some will not affect the wisdom and determination of others.
The electoral college system was supposed to ensure just that. Landowners (the people smart enough to do well for themselves) would vote on the electoral college members, and the electoral college members would vote on the President, deemed the most powerful man of the nation.
Not trying to write a flamebait or anything, but here goes: We defaced the electoral college system by allowing non-landowners to vote, and now we're looking at getting rid of it entirely.
Most people would consider allowing non-landowners to vote a good thing, since it allowed people less likely to own land at the time (people of nonstandard religion, race and ethnicity) to vote.
I'm not against that, but it did lead to where we are today.
Unless you're a complete lunatic, there's no way you can avoid sitting on two sides of some fence, somewhere.
What's this Submit thingy do?
I am quite disgusted at the apparent lack of education of the general populace of the U.S.
How can ANYONE possibly turn around say the gov't. should have the ability to question religion, and that journalists shouldn't be allowed to question the Gov't.
You would have to be terribly uneducated to say ANY of these things.
I am shocked to see that the United States is quickly turning into any of the dystopian books I have read (Brave New World, 1984, etc)
Maybe if the rest of the country picked up a book once in a while, they would see these things coming....
Also, when did it become a crime to believe in something. So people believe in the same religion as some of the terrorists. That doesnt mean a thing.
I remember when I was in high school, you could say to someone "leave me alone or I will kill you", now, if you say that...its off to jail for conspiring to commit a terrorist act....disgusting...
--"The revolution will be simulcast..."--
They dont ask for IQ tests to be president, do they?
It's not really that 49% of Americans believe Freedom of speech goes to far today that scares me. It's that 39% of Americans felt that way last year
A prof. of mine who studied American political traditions was fond of showing the power of the political elite with such studies. It was always impressive at how true it was. Free speech may not be favored by the majority, but our freedoms arn't going anywhere. There may be a bit of backward movement, but that right isn't going anywhere and the losses will be recovered.
So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
These people disgust me. They know nothing of true Americans. True Americans said "give me liberty or give me death." These self-righteous pussies are whining "take away all our rights, but please, please make us feel safe!"
To quote a friend, "Fuck America! It ain't America anymore."
"Life's fantasy:
To be locked away,
And still to think you're free."
-- Black Sabbath, "Die Young" (Heaven and Hell).
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. (Einstein)
1 year on there are a massive amount of people being held by the US goverment who have no access to the due process of Law. Would those people, who have been charged with no crime, who have been given no legal trial be better off in Argentina...
Hell yes. Are more black americans in prison now than go to college, yes, has this been a marked increase in the last 15 years.. yes. Has the crime rate soared in that period... no.
Freedom is something that many people assume they have, rather than something they have to fight for.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Are rolling over in their grave. People have to realize every good thing comes with sacrifice. I am prepared to be killed by a terrorist or Saddam if it means that freedom will prevail. I would rather live while I am alive than die before I have had a chance to live. What would have happened to America if we weren't prepared for such a sacrifice at the birth of our country? You MUST believe in something more important than yourself, I choose freedom.
ymmv
(NOTE: This might be a troll, but at least it's an intelligent one.) Americans don't really have time between the 500-odd advertisements they see each day to think for themselves. Ultimately, the First Amendment doesn't guarantee any freedom. Freedom of speech is a self-protective mechanism present only to guarantee the status quo. Specifically, if a government allows its people to say anything, then they might as well say nothing at all, because anything revolutionary I say is dismissed offhand as the words of "another crazy." It's like the First Amendment guarantees the government the right to say "Yeah, yeah. Very good." and then send dissenters on their merry ways. Oppression just has more creative roots in this country. So, when I hear about "Americans" voicing their opinions about our First Amendment Rights, I think to myself: Do these people realize that everything they say has (if they're lucky) minimal effect on how this country works? Of course not. All of you believe that you're free, but you're just a different shade of oppressed. To hell with surveys of idiots. :P
Dismantle globally, renew locally.
Go to: http://brutusworks.com/politics/bribe_bazaar.htm , download the "Bribe Bazaar" essay, and read it. We don't have to be victims, there IS something that we can do. There just isn't much time.
I agree, ESPECIALLY since there are, in an indirect way, legal precedents/laws that restrict "desecration of the flag" in certain contexts - look up the legal concept of "fighting words"...
This means that if you "desecrate" a flag in a reasonable manner, it's fine. If you show up at, say, a convention for war veterans and take a dump on a flag, and the veterans beat you senseless, it's your own fault (okay, this is a gross oversimplification, but you get the idea)...and taxpayers don't even need to pay 10's of 1000's of dollars to deal with flinging people in jail over it.
While I think flag-burning is a childish and stupid form of protest, personally, that's still A)my opinion and B) NOT adequate grounds for making the act outright criminal. It still is, and should remain, a form of "protected [by the 1st amendment] political speech".
Going through the effort of a CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT just to permit criminalization of this SPECIFIC form speech seems like a gross abuse of power. What's next, a constitutional amendment to permit federal criminalization of lewd acts with bladed kitchen appliances?....
(On the other hand, though, it should be pointed out that the amendment PERMITS congress to criminalize it, if they want - even if the amendment goes through, 'desecrating' a flag will still be otherwise legal until congress passes a separate law to criminalize it.)
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
...and war is peace, and freedom is slavery, etc.
Greed sure is helping former Enron employees; they must be basking in the glow of it! Greed sure helps those (and their families) that are murdered for money. Let the dead bodies and shattered lives be put on a pedestal for glorification!
And greed sure helps all of us, when that's one of the main causes of government regulations and subsidies! Man, I wish *I* could move between different cubicles of my brain that fast.
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
In today's America, no person born in America has to earn freedom. Its bottled up and given away as a birthday gift the day you are born. Today there is no outward threat to our freedom as a whole. The threats all come from the inside. Yes terrorists will kill Americans, destroy buildings, and provide economic declines, BUT they cannot destroy the "American way of life". Sept 11 proved that Americans will band together like brothers in times of crisis. However many of these same Americans would foolishly cast aside their rights to freedoms that hundreds of thousands of men and women died to provide and safeguard for us over that last 200+ years. It's not possible for most Americans to look through the eyes of a revolutionary American in "the colonies" in 1776, or an American in World War I or World War 2 or through the eyes of a citizen or refugee who live in a totalitarian or communist government. That would require most of us to pick up a book and read about where we came from, how we got here, and what dear costs were payed.
It seems to me that the only saving grace in the past (granted there were still cons) was a focus on American history and traditions (no I don't mean just the American history we took in high school) and a good dose or moralism. Today we tell our youth (or maybe you were told) if it feels good do it, always look out for #1 (you above all else), succeed at your ambitions at whatever the cost, nice guys finish last, the only truth there is what you make up, etc. Kind of spells out the mental ingredients for many peoples interpretation of the "American Dream" in today's America. What can we expect from our youth, when we let them believe America is better off without First Amendment rights, that we all need to be censored and not be allowed to speak our mind in public. Or when we tell them Americans have no right having firearms in their possession and only the government should be allowed to possess them? The more we train our children "Rights? We don't need no stickin rights!" and the less we educate our youth about how we got to where we are today and why being an American is like nothing else on the planet, the more they (and we, as there generation comes into play) will lose.
I cringe at the thought of a person protesting against a body of government in the street and being silenced by that same government (Isn't that what Saddam does????). Or when a reporter is silenced for daring to question our government. Of course we all know that the media is a double edged sword. How many American freedoms are the same way? It is our RESPONSIBILITY to question and monitor our government. Our government is supposed to be for the people and by the people (that's what the Bill of Rights helps us do). Not by the 34% of eligible Americans who show up to vote. Why so low a number? Most of us do not value our rights! If we did why would less than half of us show up to vote? Why do more and more Americans want the government to take over more and more monitoring and decision making? I'm not 100% sure, but I think its because we are lazy, period. As Michael Douglas says in the movie The American President, "America aint easy. You've got to want it...bad." We are starting not to want it and to start pushing more of our responsibilities on the government which could end of being a government of the people by the few elite people.
Lets make a decision today to educate ourselves more about our rich history and pass it on to others so we do not repeat past mistakes and so that we can keep future ones to a minimum. And lets decide to actively participate in our great government!
-An American Revolutionary
Its an internal issue. We shouldn't get involved in enforcing the regimes that countries run under.
After all what have the US, EU et al done about China's oppressive regime, or the military dictator in Pakistan etc etc etc.
Oh but we would sell arms to both sides.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I heard it this morning on Clear Channel or whatever they are calling their monopoly today... Scared me out of bed! The only thing I could think of was Brazil/1984 and how I want to emmigrate to someplace where freedoms are not being crushed every other day.
I want to vote everyone out!
My opinions are just that.
You're so cute!
Consider this flamebait if you will, but I'm sick of all the whiners and naysayers who think this government is evil nasty Big Brother. Sure, it has some faults that piss even me off, (inheritance tax , anyone?) but if you really feared for what you said, you all wouldn't be openly posting in the forum. You'd be too scared to.
The truth is, it's a hell of a lot easier to point the finger and complain about our system, which you know isn't going to do anything about it, than it is to look reality in the face and realize there are tens of thousands of fanatical "muslims" running amuck who want you dead for real. Those who constantly rally to the cry of "oppression" here in the US seem much more worried about being able to steal their warez and mp3z than they are about another 9-11. Just bizarre. Enough of the conspiracy theories already, open your eyes to the real danger.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Government controls the military. If you think our military personnel would be any better at questioning authority than the Nazi military personnel was, I've got some land to sell you.
Maybe you don't quite understand the power of our military; All of us Americans with all our pea-shooters (that weren't busy taking orders from their military superiors to stop the 'bad guys') wouldn't last 10 minutes.
All pass beyond reach of medicine. None pass beyond the reach of love.
From the article Many Americans view these fundamental freedoms as possible obstacles in the war on terrorism," said Ken Paulson, executive director of the First Amendment Center, based in Arlington, Va., which commissioned the survey. Almost half also said the media has been too aggressive in asking the government questions about the war on terrorism.
My Question to these (49 percent! ack!) people is simply the following: Why are we fighting terrorism. Could it be maybe because we believe in our country, and that our way of life is valid?
Scott.
But then, you would be censoring their free speech.
BOO-YAH!
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
I've found patriotism to be quite evil. Patriotism dropped Germany into the hands of a tyrannical mass murderer. I would ask the CIA (criminally incompetent assholes) aka the American Gestapo, to remember the fourth amendment when violating our rights. You would strip them from us, with no benefit. You failed to do your job with enough information that was legally obtained. Now you DARE tell us that somehow with more information to go through you can get the job done? It doesn't matter that you make sense of the data 6 months later. Over three thousand people are dead, and their American blood is on YOUR hands.
I love my country, I'm a pre-September eleventh patriot. I just loathe the poor excuse for a government that we must tolerate. I pity the scared little rabbits that gladly give away the gift of their forefathers. I'll stop short of calling our government, our (lack of) intelligence groups and scared little rabbits un-American. However I will call them poor Americans, for they don't love their rights, nor their history.
Makes us look like wusses, throwing it all away in the face of the relatively very minor threats we face in 2002.
Who you calling "us"?
The bulk of the population was ALWAYS willing to throw this stuff away - even (perhaps especially) during the period where those documents were composed. The revolution was run by a tiny fraction of the population even then.
The rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights were largely put there by a coalition of radical (for the time) pressure groups and state legislators. These people were the "anti-federalist" faction of the Founding Fathers and were concerned that the Federalists were staging a coup and setting up a super-state by hijacking an articles-of-confederation-revision committee of the Continental Congress.
The pressure for the freedom of religion clause came primarily from protestant ministers - concerned that the government might select a state religion - other than theirs - and restart the religious wars that led to the founding of several of the colonies by refugees of various religious factions.
Interestingly, Moslems were common in the former colonies (especially near the seaports - lots of sailors). Islam was the canonical example of a non-Christian religion that produced moral people, used in the debates whenever the question of whether "freedom to chose a Christian religion" was what was meant.
The Bill of Rights exists EXPLICITLY to protect unpopular rights of unpopular minorities from trampling by a hostile-to-indifferent majority. And these days the establishment-of-religion clause of the First Amendment has been used for everything from defending abortionists to blocking the Pledge of Allegiance and moments-of-silence in public schools. And the country is still reeling from an act of war by a political sect attempting to start a religious war. Yet a poll finds less than half of the population polled will say "The First Amendment goes too far".
Seems to me that the current US population is MUCH more understanding of, and in favor of, the ideas behind our freedom than the population at the time of the revolution.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
> giving them Aid and Comfort
Y'know, I've never seen such terms defined. They certainly aren't defined in the US Constitution. I suspect that one of the current administration's interpretations of this is:
If you say something that any "Enemy" likes, you have just given Aid and Comfort to them, so you are a traitor. Presumably all they need is to find one "Enemy" who likes the preceding sentence, in order to classify me as a terrorist and a traitor.
Furthermore, as the John Walker Lindh case shows, this may be applied retroactively. When he joined up with the Taliban, the US government was giving them financial aid, in the amounts of millions of $$ per year. So they obviously weren't an Enemy then. Later, when the Taliban became an Enemy, a citizen who had joined them when they were allies suddenly found himself a traitor.
Lately it has become clear that one can become a traitor and terrorist by contributing to international relief organizations. So don't do that any more, unless you don't mind being tossed in prison for a long time.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Sigh. You have confused freedom with license. They are NOT the same.
Freedom implies the ability to do (or not do) things. Because you are free, you may own the necessary implements to commit murder, and you can commit murder. If you take that last step, you will loose your freedom.
Freedom requires responsible behavior. That's probably a big part of the reason we have lost our freedom in the US: responsible behavior is rare.
You mean the Prez and his Vice-sidekick arranging another WTC? They did it, you know.
Come on people you all know that bad stuff is happening like the Hollings Bill and making it P2P illegal and contracts with fellons. These affect the tech sector and geeks like us. BUT this is scary how Bush and his loons are running with a free hand and no one says anything. Those that could are scared of being labeled a terrorist. America and this adminastration are getting closer to Stalinism than ever before. Not to mention the dash of McCarthyism throwed for shits and giggles. IMHO this country is going down the shitter. I hope enough people can see this. BUT I'm not going down with the ship. So heres a question what are other good progressive countries out there Canda? France? Any opions?
They found that 48 percent of respondents agreed the government should have the freedom to monitor religious groups in the interest of national security - even if that means infringing upon the religious freedom of the group's members. Forty-two percent said the government should have more authority to monitor Muslims
Apparently 6 percent of respondents aren't aware that Islam is a religion. Methinks perhaps this poll is flawed...
. --- If you're looking for free e-mail you won't find it here! http://www.noemailhere.com
As a professional breakdancer, yes, I would be happier living in 1984.
...because the way the Europeans ran things was not to our liking.
Why on earth should we listen to them now? Britons have thrown away their rights to privacy in the name of "safety", and do not appear to have gained any safety.
Dr. Benjamin Franklin was entirely correct, in his belief that (paraphrasing) anyone who would give up liberty for security deserves and will get neither.
The United States dos not need to "change its protections on liberties". That is a concept only valid in other countries. Our government does not define what liberties we can have, and what liberties we cannot have.
Our liberties are natural. They derive from universal, self-evident truths. No government, not our own, not anyone elses, can suppress a peoples universal liberties without ultimately failing and fading away.
Our liberties do not spout from our constitution, or our amendments. It is the other way around.
We will protect our liberties at any cost. We fought the most powerful empire in the world to protect our liberties two and a quarter centuries ago. Do not think we will not fight the whole world, or even our own government, today.
JD
Well the government wants common people to believe this. Not only because they are the majority of the voters but also ignorant. Just think about it. Everyone on here is at least a semi-intelligent being that can get his/her own computer working and on the net. With that being said, do you think an average car mechanic cares if a new Kernel comes out? Or does the postman/woman really care if IIS just sprung a leak? No, and do you think they read into what the government is doing? Hell most T.V. soaked people think the West Wing is a true representation of the White house! And yes you will all ways have people who would rather lose some freedoms in order to feel safe. Kinda like and adult wanting to be a teenager again so they don't have all the responsibility.
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
I think the question should REALLY read something more like "Do you favor a reduction in OTHER peoples first amendment rights?" "Do you favor monitoring of OTHER peoples religions."
These responses are not surprising, and they are reminiscent of the country in other times of conflict. Watch how people change their tune when their own rights (the ones they care about) begin to erode...
The history of American civil politics has always been about this teeter-totter effect between order and freedom. It swings both ways.. at times America has been EXCESSIVELY liberal, then something happens that jerks the majority back to a more conservative (read: fearful) state. As the threat diminishes people begin to settle back into a more freedom friendly posture.
WWII and the following two decades demonstrate this affect quite well. People where willing to give up MANY freedoms (including the utter violation of Japenese-American civil rights, increased police rights, etc..) in support of the "War Effort." The years following the war saw a gradual shift back to a more free society into the 60's.. You can see the ebb and flow of attitudes into the 80's (the apex of the cold war) and the 90's (relative peace)... 9/11 was such a big event it just caused a really large push towards the right.
I for one will remain vigilante and protect my rights as best I can.. but I will not panic or become excessively cynical because history has always been a good indicator of the future.. and I think this case is no different.
Turn s60 photos into awesome videos with mScrapbook for all S60 3rd edition phones!
I notice it differers slightly from the "Nicolay Draft", which omits "under God". Is the addition of "under God" a more modern artifact?
It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
The Library of Congress mentions two drafts, though neither includes the phrase.
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/gadd/gatr1.html
"the best safety of the frontier...will be secured by total annihilation of the few remaining indians" L Frank Baum 1890
I think that since terrorist Timothy McVeigh was a Christian, that the government should suspend the rights of Christian foreigners and natives, and monitor the activities of Christians. Also, there are a lot of Christians in government posts - they should be monitored especially closely.
No one wants another 9-11, so what can be done about that? More freedoms taken away so we have the feeling of security?
Here's a novel idea: why doesn't our government just stop pissing everybody off and start acting like a "Government, noun" - to serve and protect it's citizens rather than police the world and topple governments. The scope of the government just has been overreached, that's all.
I find it surprising and depressing that many who will complain bitterly about any infringement upon their or anybody else's First amendment rights will support trampling on the rights granted under the Second Amendment (our own beloved Cmdr. Taco being a prime example).
Free Speech is just as dangerous as a gun - anybody who has seen a riot (or a lynch mob) being incited will attest to that.
The Founding Fathers held the right to free expression and the right to self defense as inalienable rights (as in, you cannot be forced to surrender those rights under any circumstances). This was because they knew that without the ability to defend them, by force if necessary, we would lose them.
And look at what is happening. Little by little we are deprived of our freedom of expression, and denied any peaceful means to oppose this.
I don't want to see violence be the only alternative. I don't want to see violence be used. But if we lose the option, and then we lose all other alternatives....
www.eFax.com are spammers
What exactly are we supposed to do to dispose of old flags then? Dump them in the trash?
Morons.
Murphy was an optimist.
It seems it may be coming to that. John Aschcroft has started building the first camp for US citizens Bush and him label "enemy combatants," where their constitutional rights are revoked.
LA Times: Camps for Citizens: Ashcroft's Hellish Vision, which can also be found in the LA Times archive (for money).
Ashcroft Following Nazi Example.
Bush presses ahead with "enemy combatant".
In May, Bush unsigned the International Criminal Court (ICC) treaty which was a treaty opposing crimes against humanity. Why would Bush unsign such a treaty unless he had plans on committing crimes against humanity?
This administration truly scares me.
There is tons of evidence that the Bush administration has been heavily involved with those funding terrorism. Al Queda is a CIA trained military operation. The person funding the September 11th bombings was in Washington, DC meeting with the Bush administration starting on September 4th and was sitting down with Colin Powell discussing "terrorism" when the attacks occurred.
See Global Research or searches on Google for more information. Global research does present many different articles, some authors more credible than others in an effort to present many views. Keep that in mind when perusing their site.
Plans for an oil pipeline through Afghanistan were started by the oil industry in 1996. It is interesting that the majority of the Bush administration has oil interests. It is interesting that the people Bush proposes to put in power in Afghanistan are former employees of oil companies. It is clear that attacking Afghanistan does nothing against terrorism, but I will be very surprised if the oil industries are not heavily involved after we are done killing people there.
It is amazing how self-serving this administration is and how the mainstream media is just starting to catch up with some of this. I find it sad that most Americans are not following what is really going on; otherwise, we could impeach the Bush administration out of office. I bet most Republicans still support this bloody administration, all hail Hitler Bush!
This message is encrypted with Quad ROT-13 to protect the author's copyright under the DMCA.
These americans have been held without trials.
Jose Padilla
John Walker Lindh
Lindh plead guilty, without trial, and is serving 20 years. Last time I checked, Padilla was still being held without trial.
Both are American citizens. Lindh was captured in Afghanistan, but had not fought or in any way threatened American lives.
(tho is presence there, under the circumstances, may have warranted a treason trial).
Padilla was caught in the USA and has clear terrorist links.
None the less, the handling of both cases as been blatantly unconstitutional and unlawful.
Paranoid? I think not.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Network Solutions competes for this business with its NetDiscovery service. "The VeriSign NetDiscovery Service is the premier choice in the marketplace for a full turn-key solution for provisioning, access, and delivery of call information from carriers to law enforcement agencies (LEAs)." This is built on Verisign's control of the inter-carrier SS7 network that controls the phone system. Verisign acquired Illuminet and took over that business several years ago.
None of this is a secret, and you can even read the technical specs about how it's done. What's striking, though, is how much easier wiretapping is today. It used to be inefficient and expensive for law enforcement to wiretap. (New York Telephone was at one point back in the 1980s billing the FBI about a million a year for wiretaps, each one charged as a leased line.) Now, it's easy, and the carriers have to eat the costs. This encourages far broader wiretapping.
I had a very interesting thread on here a while back about free speech requiring anonymity to really be free.
Someone told me I was full of it, and the conversation ensued.
His point was actually a semantic one, but he didn't clarify it at first.
Freedom of speech is predicated by the ability to say things anonymously (I had said, inadvertantly that they needed to be said anonymously).
If I say an al Quida member said something, you will discard it unless it was a threat. If I say muslim said something, you will discard it almost as quickly. If I was to say a WASP said something, you'd probably listen to what they had to say.
With the narrow mindedness of today's society, if I wanted to try to make the point that we should be able to forgive those involved with the 9/11 attacks, because that was my religious beliefs, I might be singled out by other christians (by Sunday morning) and beaten.
I wouldn't be particularly ashamed of what I had said, but I don't want to take a beating for it. And this is just a very basic example of the pressures that can be applied agregiously based on an attribution of a quote. For a truly free flow of ideas, anonymity has to be allowed for.
I see lots of quotes of other people and a few complaints about a few specific cases.
How many of y'all intend to vote this November?
Your game rocks!
If this is not a skewed servey, as some might suggest, it is very scary. It would be scary to me if 1/10 or 2/10 would support any restriction to the first ammendment.
It is very scary to me that even more people in this survey think that government criticism should be prohibited.
It also sickens me that there are plenty of people who think that the government should be able to spy on religious practices. People think that their religion will be safe because they aren't muslim. They think: "Only muslims are terrorists, after all."
I have news for these ignorant people. Every major religion has terrorist groups associated with it. This includes ultra-right-wing psuedo-christian groups who think it is okay blow up abortion clinics. This includes the IRA. This even includes some fringe Jewish groups who plan mosque bombings.
The government WILL eventually use groups like these as an excuse to spy on everybody's church if given the opportunity.
You have to stand up for our rights, period. When the government starts raiding mosques routinely, don't just think "Oh, they're just going after the muslims. Everyone knows that only muslims are terrorists, so won't affect me." It will.
It would also help to get your ass up on election day and go vote.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
America: Land of the Free; Home of the Brave
the question is; if we are so brave why are we giving up all out freedom?
A blog about stuff.
It appears there never were any camps. The entire thing got started when people looked at a "Request for Bids" type document for "emergency housing" made by some outfit like FEMA (can't quite remember the details).
Embarrased retractions
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Sixty-three percent rated the job the American educational system does in teaching students about First Amendment freedoms as either "fair" or "poor."
... did the 49% who think the First Amendment goes too far learn about it in the American educational system? If so, would they assess their knowledge of the amendment as "fair" or "poor"?
So
The number of Americans who are stupid has increased to 49 percent, up 10 percent from last year.
While I'd usually agree, I'd say not in this case. I thnk the responses to the survey are motivated by fear due to 9/11, not a desire for more beer.
I think 12 months ago, indefinite anonymous imprisonment with no lawyer or day in court would have been politically impossible
Either that, or treat churches as simple corporations, and subject them to all the same restrictions. Otherwise we lack a separation of church and state. Belief should not be a business. If they are truly using their funds for charitable purposes, then this will not hurt them at all, and if they are not, then they are lying.
Other than that, our freedoms are being infringed on more than enough. Especially the most maligned, the right to keep and bear arms. Now we must realize that we have even more of a need for protection; Now I need guns to protect me not only from my government, but also from terrorists. Especially on planes!
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Government intervention in business is the only reason why you have low prices on things like petroleum products, telephone service, and most of the commodity goods you buy every day. Monopolies hurt everyone but the monopolist, and a completely free market only ends up sustaining the monopolists, not fostering competition. I say, thank goodness our government gets involved in business sometimes. We'd still be stuck, technologically, back around the time of the industrial revolution if it didn't.
While you may have a grain of truth in the "protects friendly businesses" bit, it's misleading because by and large the American government works to protect American businesses against being shut down or harmed by foreign business interests. Isn't that what it's supposed to do? Mistakes are made, but overall the government has traditionally done pretty well at looking out for Americans. That is the government's job!
The thing they're slipping up on as of late is protecting the interests and rights of individual citizens. The government has a responsibility to make sure one person or one group of people (including themselves!) doesn't take away the rights and freedoms of another person or persons unfairly, just as it has a responsibility to make sure businesses play fair and remain competitive, thus fostering a strong, healthy, resilient economy. The government should also work to foster a strong, healthy, resilient society.
And don't forget, in America, the government means you. Use your vote and use your brain. Introduce bills to Congress, petition your senators and representatives, write letters to newspapers, start a website. Do whatever it takes to make the changes you want to see start happening. You still can, you know. That might sound a lot like rah-rah bullshit, but if you get enough people together over a common cause, your elected representatives will listen.
What the *, you say? Let us step through it, shall we...
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...
Uh, yeah, ok. Beginning with the Warren Court ( which heard Roe vs. Wade), the Federal Courts, led by liberal judges, have virtually made hanging your head for a moment of silence on public property s crime. Even the relatively harmless Pledge has been eviscerated.
Sure. That's why we have college speech codes and political correctness. Have you been to your sensitivity sessions yet? Your right to free speech is pretty much a joke, and has been for years.
Whatever. While the Fairness In Broadcasting Regulations existed, JFK, RFK, LBJ, Nixon, and Carter regularly threatened to have the licenses of 'hostile' radio broadcasters pulled for 'unfair coverage'. When they were trashed, Congress, with Al Gore and Ted Kennedy leading the charge, tried to have them brought back. Why? Well, the Senate did nickname the bill the 'Hush Rush' law.
; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Sure, you can assemble. So long as you have a permit. And as for a redress of grievances... whatever. The Federal Government, in particular, has been trying damned hard to make to sue them. Hell, they are more likely to sue you.
Of course, no one bitches about any of this. When they hear about any of these, or a hundred other things relating to the First Amendment, they hear about 'religious freedom', 'diversity', 'hate speech', etc. Given the number of devisive issues tied to the First Amemdment, why shouldn't people think that it needs some trimming?
Some amendments are interpretted to be binding on states, and same aren't. Those amendments that are binding on states as well as the federal government are "incorporated".
For example, the 4th Amendment is incorporated. No state can conduct an unreasaonble search and seizure, just like no branch of the federal government can.
The 1st Amendment is incorporated also. Look them up, there's some good discussion of this.
I do tend to agree otherwise, we've put a lot of interpretation into a not-so-short sentence. But then, that *is* the job of the Supreme Court, to interpret the Constitution.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
"51% of Americans support the curtailing of First Amendment rights... of course 98% of Americans are complete and total fucking morons..."
http://starboard.flowtheory.net/
I admit that I do not share the more extremist views that Libertarians think, however, I do wish that people would realize we can have all the benefits of the current government at the local level. This is much better as opposed to a national government with overlapping duties and waste as far as anyone can see. Leave things local, and everyone wins! Well, everyone except hardcore liberals and extreme conservatives.
Ps. - if one more person complains about grammar and spelling, I'll start to throw expletives!
| - | - |
I don't much like the current executive administration myself - I do think they are likely to commit abuses of the powers they have been given.
However, while everyone has GWB under a metaphorical microscope, Congress is getting away with it...
Brief review of basic US federal government structure: There are 3 branches. The fun-to-hate President is in charge of the Executive branch. As a single individual, he's an easy target to take scrutiny off of the other two branches, the legislature, and the judicial branch.
The legislature is the branch that decides what powers the government has, not the executive. Everything the executive branch is allowed to do, has had the power given to it by rules written and agreed on by the legislature (with the exception of a few that the Judicial branch has overruled.). The legislature has the power to declare limitations on what the government can do at any time, to revoke existing powers, and even to COMPLETELY REMOVE the fun-to-hate president from office if they so choose.
For example, it was recently reported that the current executive administration, after much consultation with its lawyers [YIKES! The laws in this country are so screwed up even OUR OWN GOVERNMENT isn't sure what they mean!] has decided that it doesn't need congress' permission to wage war on Iraq. They may even be correct...but congress can fix this at ANY TIME by creating a new law that A)explicitly declares the "war powers act" of 1991(?) no longer in force and B)firmly declares that the president MUST obtain approval from congress to wage war...and if the president gives them too much grief over it, they can impeach him if they want.
Government spending in the tech sector? The budget is CONGRESS' job, not GWB's. He can make suggestions and requests, and he can even veto, but congress can do whatever they want with his suggestions and requests, and can override his veto if they choose to.
The "Patriot" act? Congress. Amendment to allow federal criminalization of 'flag desecration?' Congress. The RIAA/MPAA taking away our rights? That's CONGRESS' job. Fritz Hollings (Disneycrat - SC) is not on the presidents cabinet. He's in Congress. The people who approved the DMCA were not on the president's cabinet. They are Congress. Sonny Bono was not acting on behalf of the President (Clinton at the time, remember) when he passed the 'Mickey Mouse Copyright Extension Act', he was in CONGRESS....and as frighteningly eager as Ashcroft and company seem to be about heavy-handed interpretation and enforcement of all of these laws, it is still not his fault if "Eldred vs. Ashcroft" finds in his favor - that's up to the judicial branch to decide (and, of course, Congress has the power to REPEAL or amend [i.e. they could, for example, at least remove the 'retroactive' portion of the extension] at any time, regardless of the outcome of Eldred vs. Ashcroft). If Ashcroft starts flinging kids in jail for trading Metallica songs in violation of copyright, it's CONGRESS' fault for saying "Go get 'em!"
The point is, everyone busy yelling and screaming and pointing at the convenient target of GWB as the cause of all of our problems is only making the problems worse, by perpetuating the lack of focus on Congress. The executive branches job is to ENFORCE the laws - in other words, "to do what Congress says."
I sometimes wonder if the "Hate George Bush" craze is itself a conspiracy to perpetuate the problem....
Hacker Public Radio is our Friend
Why is it that there seem to be many Americans that believe that the USA invented the concepts of democracy, freedom and liberty? The issue comes up time and time again. Is it something that is taught in schools in the USA?
Yes, that's about how it's taught in the government-operated schools here. Or at least those of them that still teach it at all, rather than prattling about "Dead White Men who owned Slaves".
What they actually did is perhaps much better: They ENGINEERED an ideology that led to a governmental system that has driven toward increasing freedom for two centuries - putting over things (like abolition of slavery) that were impossible at the time.
Some of the theory was already around. Republics were known from history -and used as a canonical example of a self-destroying system proving that you needed a king. Until the colonists found the Iroquois Confederacy operating quite well in North America, across language barriers, religious differences, and land areas comparable to the whole of Europe.
What they built is now one of the oldest governments around (most of Europe got re-organized during WW II).
With an ideological framework that says "all (hu)men are equal" it has evolved from election by landowners-and-artisans to all men, to women also, add non-whites, add 18-to-20 year olds.
"Can not be compelled to testify against onself" led to miranda warnings, "fruit of the poisoned tree" conviction-overturns, and near-complete extinction of tortured-confessions.
And so on for a multitude of facets of freedom.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If so, it was one of the most effective moves The Conspiracy ever made to set us firmly on the path to becoming a complete police state. A couple buildings full of civilians and a few planes in exchange for a 10X increase in police powers (and finally getting rid of that pesky Bill of Rights). The "Federal Police" in shiny new SUVs patrol the streets of my town (NO KIDDING), how about yours?
"Bob"
what do you think the rest of the world would do?
Well, we Canadians would be happy to take any of you who managed to smuggle yourselves over your northern border to freedom. We might even come up with a catchy name like "the Underground Railroad".
Many people in the past came to Canada because they were fleeing oppression in the United States. We are happy to have them.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
I suspect you are having a problem here with activities that happen at the same time, but are not dependent on each other.
Richer societies also are safer.
Societies based on industry and factories are also safer, in general, than agricultural societies.
Do either of these directly result in safer societies? Probably not. Richer, maybe.
This is correlation, not causation.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
I think the saddest aspect of 9/11 is how disproportionate public attention is towards it relative to other things. For example, I genuinely fear a naturally-occurring Flu epidemic more than anything some religious whackos can dish out.
Could the billions of dollars spent arbitrarily in the intrest of homeland security be better spent on improving the very foundations of our country? Good examples include finding ways of building a truly sustainable health care system or performing safety audits of our nation's highways. It seems there are hundreds of causes more significant to our day-to-day lives than Osama and his cronies.
Certainly, the FBI and CIA should continue investigating, but doing so at the expense of so much else is simply not justified.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
The thing is with this article, the veiws of the general populace are all worried about other people. If it was themselves (eg their church or religous orginization) who were being monitored things would be slightley different.
My little Universe is cool for the people who can fit inside it (being 250 6'4" there aren't that many who can)
Aside from Pearl Harbor which was perpetuated on a U.S. territory, Japan also threatened the borders of Alaska's Aleutian Islands. More than 6,000 military personnel were on the Aleutian Islands to repel Japanese forces.
Please read about history before you attempt to profess it.
c.
It's a right given by the Constitution of the United States.
A lot of people don't like the reading of the Miranda rights. Ernesto Miranda was a scummy rapist that I think most people didn't particularly like. They didn't read him his rights when he was arrested. He gave a confession and it was thrown out of court. Since then his last name, Miranda, is used to inform citizens of their civil right to be silent and say nothing to the police.
Should Miranda have been incarcerated for his confession? Probably. Was he? No, because his civil rights were violated. (He was later convicted for another rape and then stabbed to death in a fight.) And we can't have a totalitarian government where people accused aren't informed of their rights or tortured into confessions...where would it end?
We live in a free society and the price of a free society is civil rights, freedom of the press, freedom of speech and artistic freedom. You don't have to agree, and in fact, it's your right, but you have no legal grounds to silence anyone's voice simply because you dislike it.
c.
may not be impinged by the perceived right of the majority.
Although we are told that "most" (WTF does that mean?) Americans are willing to sacrifice their rights, it does not automatically transfer to those in objection being pulled along like lemmings. Our Constitution (Bill of Rights in particular) specifically mentions that the rights of the Majority may not supercede the rights of the minority.
As long as the majority decisions lie in the realm of constitutionally acceptable laws, they can choose whatever thay want (to a degree).
No law removing our Constitutional rights will be allowed to stand.
Stop the damn fearmongering on SlashCorp!!!
No comment on the majority of your post but I would like to clarify one thing:
The fact that 49% (or even, hypothetically, 51%) of its citizens "think the First Amendment goes too far" does not mean that there is sufficient political will to repeal it. The Constitution has safeguards such as a supermajority requirement for precisely such a reason. They work. Deal with it.
If even this country become a dejure plutocracy rather than the defacto one it is now, they wouldn't bother trying to repeal the First Amendment. Instead a cumulative barrage of Executive Orders and court precedents are slowly reducing the scope of the Amendment. It's like you technically have the right to make a copy of any media you've purchased but the DMCA takes it away even if nothing more than ROT-13 protects it. They start with reasonable even necessary limitations like "Don't falsely shout 'Fire!' in a crowded theatre." and work their way up to things like COINTELPRO. By the time they're done, the First Amendment (and the others) are buried in legal cruft that totally negate their original design principles.
They also don't need to go after everyone who says bad things about Shrub. Some 20 year old know-nothing on Slashdot? Fuhgeddabout it! Someone making real trouble? Let's just have a surprise IRS audit or a little FBI surveillance. With enough laws on the books, EVERYONE is a potential criminal. With intense enough scrutiny, anyone can be destroyed. It isn't necessary to imprison them in a gulag either. Financial and character assassination works just fine. Our so-called leaders learned a long time ago that a frontal assualt on those pesky civil liberties is not necessary.
I mean.. freedom of religion.
This means that you cannot be prosecuted BECAUSE you are of a different religion, as happened in many countries in the past. Denied voting because you are a jew, say, or put in jail because you are a muslim.
It should NOT mean that religion can be used as an excuse for conspiracy. If it turns out that there are a great many muslims who are involved in a conspiracy, and it is believed the muslim community is heavily involved, then it is NOT a violation of freedom of religion to focus on muslims in an investigation.
The problem with guaranteed freedoms is we try to treat them as black and white, and they simply are not.
Freedom of religion can be taken so far as to say that ANYTHING I DO is part of my religion, my way of life, and therefore, cannot be acted upon by the government.
Can someone tell me why a moderator wasted a point on something everyone would ignore anyway? Can someone tell me why I'm wasting 1 minute of my life typing this?
That's all they want......
Oh, and (of course) cable TV...with HBO.
I have posted this premise before - the logic is undeniable. Nobody has ever gave reasoned argument against it:
Ask Security Services in the US or UK to deny this:
Internet surveillance, using Echelon, Carnivore or back doors in encryption, will not stop terrorists communicating by other means - most especially face to face or personal courier.
Terrorists will have to do that, or they will be caught.
Perhaps using mobile when absolutely essential, saying - Meet you in the pub Monday (human bomb to target A), or Tuesday (target B) or Sunday (abort).
The Internet has become a tool for government to snoop on their people - 24/7.
The terrorism argument is a dummy - bull*.
SURVEILLANCE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO STOP TERRORISTS - IT IS SPIN AND PROPAGANDA
This propaganda is for several reasons, including: a) making you feel safer b) that the government are doing something and c) the more malicious motive of privacy invasion.
Government say about surveillance - you've nothing to fear - if you are not breaking the law
This argument is made to pressure people into acquiescence - else appear guilty of hiding something.
It does not address the real reason why they want this information - they want a surveillance society.
They wish to invade your basic human right to privacy.This is like having somebody watching everything you do - all your thoughts, hopes and fears will be open to them.
All your finances for them to scrutinize - heaven help you if you cannot account for every cent when they check on your taxes.
Do not believe the lies of Government - even more money spent on these measures will not protect you from terrorists.
P.S. On the Domain Name System, big business steal words that belong to everybody - abridging what words you can use - violating the First Amendment. Corporations illegally abuse and expand their brand using domain names - above all smaller businesses who use similar words - violating Competition Law.
The authorities LIE - they know how to make these trademark domains unique and totally distinctive, as the LAW requires trademarks to be. They are aiding and abetting the pervertion of Law. Please visit the World Intellectual Piracy Organization - not connected with United Nations WIPO.org !
For the historically inept, like BurritoWarrior here, check out the early machinations of Chancellor Hitler - a democratically elected leader (puts him one up on Bush) with a Rather Special Agenda (world domination through force, rather than securing our oil supply).
The burning of the Reichstag
Faking terrorism and creating national emergencies is not a new political trick, fake Caesar quotes notwithstanding.
We do not know, for sure, that BushCo had any foreknowledge of 9/11, but there is ample evidence that they have not told the full truth to us about the various and sundry procedural problems of the defense response to 9/11.
There are unanswered questions.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
mod that sumbitch up.
Those statements like "Congress shall make no law ... religion.. blah... speech.. blah blah"
What they really mean is, as Congress is representative of the poeple, that no matter HOW MUCH PEOPLE WHINE AND SCREAM AND BEG, it is simply NOT POSSIBLE to make certain laws.
IMHO, people in Congress or any other branch of government who support a law that is later struck down as unconstitutional should be removed from office immediately, or imprisoned, or both. It is thier JOB to uphold the constitution. it should NOT be their job to get away with as much as they can until the supreme court strikes it down, only to try again, with no punishment in sight.
What are the 1,000,000+ active duty soldiers in the U.S. (and whichever of their commanding officers were on bases unassailable by your three man teams) doing while your plan is being executed?
"We're different, now. Different from the guys who founded this country. You know, if you ever get around to reading about the actual events that led up to the Revolutionary War, the things that led farmers to take to the heights of Bunker Hill to fight the British and which eventually led to the Declaration of Independence and the War itself, they will seem, by today's standards, to be almost nothing. It was just a few unfair taxes, curtailment of some of our natural rights, and an unresponsive government. Americans today bear oppression hundreds of times worse with nary a protest. We've gotten used to it. And as we become accustomed to the abuses and incursions into our rights, what may be outrageous and unbearable today will become the norm tomorrow and new incursions will be made."
. html
"And anyone who complains, or points out that our federal government is illegal by the terms of the Constitution, is stereotyped and branded as a right wing extremist, a carper, or a complainer."
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/silveira77
mod it up! people say that modding ACs up is wasted karma, but when somebody spends all that time posting a VERY INFORMATIVE and true post, it deserves moderation points. Moderation on slashdot was meant to show which posts were good/bad... not who gets Karma and who donsn't...
A government that can't tariff, regulate, control or tax is not a government. In fact, it isn't anything, since without revenues it can't exist. Anyway, there's nothing about capitalism that precludes taxes, tariffs, etc. As long as you have private ownership of capital and a relatively free market, it's capitalism. (Note: a free market doesn't preclude taxes, some regulation or tariff's either.)
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one "makes" them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted -- and you create a nation of law-breakers -- and then you cash in on the guilt."
I agree with you.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Christ. I'm *SO* sick of hearing references to 1984 everytime this topic comes up. Make a statement about information gathering, criminal investigations, and whatnot, and count the freakin' milliseconds before everyone start crying "Big Brother" and "1984".
The post WTC terrorization of the People by the US government is exactly like Tailgunner Joe and Tricky Dicky Nixon's reign of terror in the 1950's.
It makes me want to vomit when I think of all the progress in the 1960's and early 1970's being swept away by short sighted power hungry assholes like Asscroft, Bush and our incompetant, sold at auction Legislate.
About the only thing I have hope for from these dirtbags is that the protections built into the law against discrimation based on race and sex don't get knocked down.
Really?
You really mean that?
W00t! Cool! Vancouver here I come!
Save me a seat in one of those Special Vancouver Coffee Shops, ok?
"But you've already got a DVD. It lasts forever....In the digital world, we don't need back-ups..."
-- Jack Valenti
Huxley had that great line attributed to him, to the effect of "liberties can only be taken by force, they are never given". I don't think that the book "Brave New World" is more relevant than Orwell's opus, but Huxley does provide a wealth of valid observations and criticisms on propaganda and political idealogies. Unfortunately, these sources of knowledge are either suppressed or marginalized in most educational indoctrination programs (at least in the USofA).
Moving forward to the present though, you can't get a better vision of what's actually going on than paying attention to Noam Chomsky. Could be the most important education you will ever pick up. Now, if only he was required reading...
This just in. Catholics (and the Orthodox crowd) have been Christians for the last 2000 years. Protestants have only been Christians for the last 500 years.
Why did you even bother with distinguishing between Protestants and Catholics?:)
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
...is, as usual, Americans.
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance," as Jefferson said. Buddy, can you spare a dime?
The Freedom license fee is to be bombed back to the stone age, just ask the serbs, afgans and vietnamese.
For Latin America, there is an special EULA that states that latinos will enjoy freedom only under the goverment of proamerican puppet presidents or benign military dictators, trained in the School of Americas.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
Kirsanow, who was appointed by Bush and finally took his seat in May after a heated legal fight with the commission chairwoman, said if there was another attack by Arabs on U.S. soil, ``not too many people will be crying in their beer if there are more detentions, more stops and more profiling.''
``There will be a groundswell of public opinion to banish civil rights,'' Kirsanow added. ``So the best thing we can do to preserve them is by keeping the country safe.''
Source
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
The press is not above the law. Constitutional Law clearly delinates that the government must allow a free press.
Actually, for a long time, the government had tried to put a stop to pioneers ("squatters.") They surrendered with the passage of the Homestead Act, which marked the beginning of legal prosperity for the general populace in the U.S.
"Socialism is all that works for information"
... fair ... this means forcing companies to raise the minimum wage they pay their workers along with the amount of money the company brings in, meaning ... equal salary for everyone in the company this means the CEO shouldnt make billions and everyone else thousands unless the CEO actually is working the hardest and has been working there the longest."
Then how is Microsoft (software), Red Hat (software), Motley Fool (investing), etc., able to make money? They sell information; they are capitalists. If only socialism works for information, then those companies can't exist.
"Without public schools, police, government, etc we'd have complete chaos because the people in this country arent intelligent enough, arent responsible enough, and they arent mature enough to successfully govern themselves."
And politicians are? If this were true, then democracy/republic government wouldn't work. But it does, and fairly well, too.
"Capitalism if it was pure,
This is not (pure) capitalism. This is (partial) socialism. Beside, "Equal salary for everyone" would be a disaster. There is a *reason* different jobs come with different salaries: the numer of people who want a job depends partly on the salary, so a "too low" salary will mean the company can't hire enough people and a "too high" salary will mean nobody wants the other jobs.
-Tim
They must have found all the illiterate Americans for this study, no thinking man, woman or child would give up the rights we've fought for all these years. Of course, it could all be in how the phrased the questions. Leading questions make for known answers. Let's no lose sight of exactly what we're fighting for, our way of life, which includes those very freedoms only the stupid want to toss away. Remember people vote, and don't vote Republican.
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
Excuse the caps.
I wholeheartedly agree with what you say.
However, you are making the assumptions that there will be free elections in 2004.
There won't be: pure and simple, Bush came to power through electoral fraud, and he's going to attempt to stay in the Whitehaus using every trick in the book.
Expect carefully scheduled wars, PR events and more of the kinds of tricks (stripping black democrats off the voter's rolls) that were pulled in Florida.
We're in deep trouble, IMHO.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
I came to the same conclusion today while sitting in my 10004 level introduction to Law and Society class. When my professor asked if we would trade freedom for safety, I was in the vast minority when I said, "hell no". I hate to say it, but most of my fellow American students seem to be lazy and complacent children who are unwilling and unable to bring themselves to think even for the hour they are forced to sit in class and earn their LERs. I was sickened, unnerved, angered, and disheartened at how plausible and inevitable my classmates made 1984 seem to me.
No one wants to think anymore. They want their food in five minutes or less, their entertainment at their fingertips, and everyone else to bear the consequences of their own choices.
Two days ago, Nightline featured an interivew with an older gentleman and his wife (damn, I forgot his name already). This gentleman had recently been released after serving a 30-year prison term, and was one of four men that were wrongfully convicted of a murder they did not commit. They were framed with the full knowledge of the FBI as to the actual killer. Two of these four men died while serving their sentences. This happened under Hoover's presidency- and some even speculate that Hoover himself was aware that this was happening.
Do we trust the government so much that we'd be willing to forego the vigilance necessary to keep this kind of abuse from recurring? It is our government, and the individual representatives who stood to gain personally that brought us Enron and Worldcom. There were attempts to prevent this meltdown by enacting proper legislation, but they were resisted for fear of losing significant brib^H^H^H^Hcontributions from certain (crooked) industry leaders.
If you've never wondered by 1sr4e1 receives a $3 billion welfare check from the U.S. every year, maybe you should.
Are we constantly leaving our children a fucked up world. No one really cares about their kids, now we are going to leave them a world were they are going to have to fight and die to get their freedoms back that we took away. Stop using them to play out your own fears and start worrying about the important things like, What kind of world am I going to leave to them. Why do humans love their misery so much????????
You don't miss something till it's gone.
He was the one that inspired; no, more accurately, draw the best path that the founding fathers of America followed after creating their new nation. In the process they put flowers and signal posts at the sides of the road.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I was about 3 blocks away from the WTC on September 11th and I go to College 4 blocks away (Pace University)! In the year that has now followed after that nightmare I can safely say that I feel no less free than I did before. What rights exactly has Ashcroft and Bush taken away? As a Political Science Major I can tell you that in terms of U.S laws not much has changed. Sure the Patriot Act is now law, but even here not much has changed. So what if the government can get wire taps and bank records easier now. They could have gotten them before. All thats changed is the number of judges and red tape they have to go through. Military courts are no big deal either. Ever watch JAG. Military courts have tried military personnel for centuries in this country. No U.S citizen can be tried by a military court, so unless your an emigrant I dont think you should care. Emigrants have NEVER had the same rights as U.S citizens and I dont think they should! Secret courts have also been around for decades and they arent really secret since its not hard to figure out what Senate appointed judges sit on them. These are also the same courts that have criticized some of Ashcrofts wire tap requests and have even accused him of lieing. I dont like Ashcroft since Im a liberal democrat and have spent my two summers in the employ of a Mr. Gore and Mr. Cuomo, but give the man a break he is no J. Edgar Hoover and no KGB Chekist he isn't looking to turn America into a totalitarian state and anybody who would suggest otherwise has been reading a bit to much Karl Marx. The problem in this country is a uneducated populace that doesnt know its own history well enough to talk. Or for that matter the history of other countries many of whom have gone through similiar times. Russia in 1999 went through a series of terrorist attacks before the second Chechen war, nobody really lost any civil rights (if you believe Russians ever had any) but Chechens and other groups from the Caucuses have been persecuted. The handling of the Chechen war has also been a huge fiasco because their is no civilian oversight of the military and they have no money! Even Russian journalists (even those working for state owned media) have been kept out of the region. Yet there have been no more large scale attacks against Russian civilians. Is the war over? Yes and no. The rebels cant defeat the Russian army and have no hope of ever defeating the 2 million+ men Russia can throw at them, the rebels resistance is growing weaker and weaker. They have resorted to shooting what few SA-7 missiles they still have at Russian transport helicopters because that is the only way they can hope of killing the Russians who have taken mostly to the air, sending in ground units only after leveling any known rebel positions. The rebels fight with horses! The Russians with relatively modern Mi-24 helicopters and Su-25 bombers. The Russians kill 50 Chechens for every 1 dead Russian! The numbers of Russian dead have fallen, but peace is probably years away since the Chechens have no plans of surrendering. Is that the kind of bloody war we want to get into if we invade Iraq? Thats the question we should be asking.
is some really far out left wing shit bro.
He joined them and knew damn well they wanted to kill infidels. He supported this and he damn well knew about the prison uprising and said jack shit to Mike Spann, who ended up dead because of Walker's silence. It is your right to defned the little bastard, but it is my right to tell you you are a fucking moron for doing so.
good day
How many people want to give up their rights? Who cares? (I'm speaking in the abstract, politics trumps truth frequently) It's worth remembering that, in theory, it doesn't matter wether absolutely every American wanted our government to do something anti-Constitutional, without changing the Constitution, any judge should prevent it. Individuals can not 'give up' their human rights, we can only temporarily ingnore them.
Speaking of politics, please excuse my partisan observation: in the US we will be (slightly) better off with Democrats elected than Republicans. There is a major struggle going on - Republicans are fighting hard to keep judges who care about civil rights off our benches, Democrats are fighting to keep/improve a judiciary that recognizes these rights. (Neither party is exclusively good/bad, but there are strong trends) Particularly with our pitiful voter turnouts, your vote counts - remember that this November! (and future elections - President Ashcroft, anyone?)
Ironic, isn't it that the 'anti-big-government' party wants a more intrusive, less limited government and bigger prisons?
Expect carefully scheduled wars, PR events and more of the kinds of tricks (stripping black democrats off the voter's rolls) that were pulled in Florida
With Bush's approval ratings dipping as much as this. I would expect war, or some other stunt very soon.
"Tell the current Iranian regime that they will be next unless they turn over anyone involved in or planning attacks against the U.S. or its citizens."
I think they know this already. Nobody thinks dubyas war against the infidels (muslims) is going to stop in iraq. Iran. syria, somalia, libya, yemen, saudi arabia all know they are "next".
---------
I'd sure like to see Dubya try that. Iran has said if the US makes any moves against it, Iran will destroy all the oil fields in the Middle East. I just wish the rest of the Middle East would just say FUCK YOU to the US and close up the oil fields. That would be awesome. Regardless, Dubya is a stupid clown that bows down to the Israelis.
My favorite bumper sticker that I've seen recently (also apropos in today's society):
"Why don't closed minds ever come with closed mouths?"
"Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos!"
I read the first few pages of links and unless I missed something I could not find any retraction.
I did a few alternate searches to look for any retractions or anyone saying that the article was phony. I searched the LA Times site for any retraction.
The latest statement from the Bush administration on the matter is that they promise not to put Arabs in concentration camps.
This message is encrypted with Quad ROT-13 to protect the author's copyright under the DMCA.
I'm not american and have no idea more than that it's some legal term.
In the civil war the US government was at war with half it's population, so it's not surprising that it would curtail the right of said population. Today is a very different situation.
Tom Tomorrow spells it out
Saturday, August 24, 2002
Fair and balanced
A little while back, I linked to this LA Times op-ed by Jonathan Turley discussing John Ashcroft's plans to build internment camps for American citizens, a plan which, according to Turley, had been "disclosed...but little publicized."
Well, this blogging thing is kind of hit and run, and of course I don't have the resources to fact check the LA Times. But a few readers wrote in puzzled at their inability to find anything further on the topic via Google. I have occasional access to Lexis and I've had it in the back of my mind to do more research, but as it turns out, a conservative blogger whose site is named, straightforwardly, Right Wing News, is on the case (found via Instapundit). And leaving aside ideological differences, this one does appear to be, well, pretty much nonsense. (Afterthought: I mean the concentration camp rhetoric here, not Turley's larger point about unconstitutionally detaining American citizens, which any regular reader of this blog knows I've been ranting about for quite some time.)
This writer, John Hawkins, contacted Turley directly, and as it turns out, Turley's entire op-ed was based on this paragraph from an article in the Wall Street Journal:
The White House is considering creating a high-level committee to decide which prisoners should be denied access to federal courts. The Goose Creek, S.C., facility that houses Mr. Padilla -- mostly empty since it was designated in January to hold foreigners captured in the U.S. and facing military tribunals -- now has a special wing that could be used to jail about 20 U.S. citizens if the government were to deem them enemy combatants, a senior administration official said."
Hawkins goes on to note, I think correctly:
First off, whatever you may think of possibly jailing 20 "enemy combatants" without trial, doing so certainly does not in any way, shape, or form mean you've created a "camp." Furthermore, how does imprisoning 20 men in one Navy brig somehow constitute creating "camps", much less having a "camp plan?" Worse yet, to compare jailing less than two dozen people believed to be connected to terrorist organizations to putting 120,000+ Americans in camps based on their ethnicity goes beyond gross exaggeration into what many people would call deliberate deception.
It seems to me that there's enough really troubling stuff going on right now to keep us all busy wailing and weeping and gnashing our teeth twenty-four-goddamn-seven, without resorting to these kinds of tactics. The Padilla case is horrifying on its own merits, particularly now that it's been revealed that the government has no real evidence against him. An American citizen has been arbitrarily stripped of his rights, on little more than John Ashcroft's say-so. There's no need to gild this particular lilly--the case speaks for itself. (Or at least it should. I don't follow the right-leaning blogosphere closely, so as always I could be wrong(TM), but I haven't seen a lot of outrage over this. In fact, what I see far more often are snarky dismissive put-downs directed toward people who are worried about these self-evident threats to civil liberties. But that's probably another rant.)
At any rate, I don't think it does anyone any good to, basically, make shit up out of thin air. It only undermines your case, gives people cause to write you off as a goofball. If anyone has any actual information here, any real evidence of Ashcroft's plans to start building concentration camps, please feel free to let me know. But I'm not interested in paranoid fantasies with no basis in reality. Reality is scary enough by itself these days.
posted by Tom Tomorrow at 10:26 AM| link
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
And the whole of the US is not up-in-arms about these situations. They're sitting back and taking it with comfort.
YES! I'm talking to you! The world is warring, people are dying. But that doesn't matter. Does it? Because you've got a widescreen HDTV. Or a new SUV. Or that new Jacko CD.
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
When you have a Bush in office, there is a 100% chance that there will be a war in the middle east.
The system has failed you, don't fail yourself. --Billy Bragg
The turmoil that Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America have confronted throughout their history was, and often still is, rooted in the fundamentally undemocratic nature of states in those areas, and in the inability or unwillingness of those populations to act to change the status quo.
The United States is a fundamentally different kind of nation, because security and national identity are rooted in its diverse citizenry's allegiance to the principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and similar cornerstone documents, as well as the citizenry's mutual adherence to the civil constructs outlined in those documents. Contrast this to the linkages in traditional states between national identity and race, religion, ethnicity, family status, and accident of birth, and the linkage of security to the military and police powers held by the governing elite and that elite's safety and preservation. We can find in those nations ample evidence of the willingness of a few to curtail the freedom, or lives, of many others for their own self-interest and comfort.
The current fears and apprehension in the U.S. have led to a number of racist acts targeting Islamic facilities and followers of Islam, as well as a considerable amount of ill-informed and bigoted expression in the media. This ugly turn of events parallels reprisals against Americans of German ancestry in both World Wars, and, of course, the forced internal exile to internment camps of Americans of Japanese ancestry in World War Two.
When Americans voice a willingness to sacrifice freedom
for personal security, they forget that security without freedom is impossible.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
don't got no church they can spy on. ha!
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Seriously, just give up. I decided to stop giving a fuck. I'm only likely to live to 75 and I'm already a third of my way there. It's obvious that the way this country has been heading for the last 80 years, we're aiming to make europe look like the symbol of freedom, despite all of their inherent socialistic/big-brother gilding.
I'm tired of fighting a fight that the intellectuals can't win. There are too many stupid people in all of the parties and religions and social groups. Just trying to have conversations with any of them make my brain hurt. Either they're jilted Gore supports who will never recover from their nervous breakdown when he lost or they're goofy right-wingers who thing Ashcroft is the greatest thing since the KKK came out with purple robes or they're tree-hugging wimps who cry "global warming" and "love the animals" while driving their SUVs and wearing leather shoes or they're intellectual gits who thing that a fascist government is alright as long as it gets to be their brand of fascism.
I'll just enjoy my next few decades before I die. Sure, I'll have to fork over a huge chunk of my money to the government for those who can't/won't/wouldn't work and haven't left the sofa since 1976, but it isn't like that's going to change. And sure there's a chance freedom of speach will be a thing of the past during my life time... but I'll just watch what I say and keep my thoughts to myself. And since I don't plan on having children, I don't really care what happens fifty years from now. Even if I did have kids, I doubt I would care.
Whether we give up the ship in ten years, fifty or a hundred, it's only a matter of buying time. This or the next generation might as well eat our dogfood and put on our zap-control collors and bow to mother government just as well as five generations from now. Life is too short to give a fuck anymore. Especially when the dice are loaded in favor of ignorance and stupidity. Today's 12 year old boy-band girls are tomorrows brainwashed voters. God bless them all.
What other reference do you suggest people make that would resonate with familiarity and convey the intended point so well?
I tend to think this is because people are stupid enough to equate "self sacrifice" for the betterment of society as "sacrifice your freedom" rather than personal sacrifices of time, effort or even life.
It's easier to give up the right to say bad things about your country than it is to go out and fight or give your time to a worthy goal.
You were wrong. Now cloud the subject with statistics that have nothing to do with your incorrect assumption.
Don't lecture me when you don't even know your own facts.
c.
I agree that we are a Republic, not a Democracy. Many people don't get that distinction.
However, it is the insane elected minority running roughshod over an ignorant majority aggravating the hell out of the disenfancised informed people.
Good luck with the idiots in Illinois (I escaped Flatland for SoCal years ago) -- Is Governor Ryan in jail yet? Has Henry Hyde officially changed his political affilation to Nazi yet?
Libertaian is ok, but I have my reservations. A small government and a smaller tax bite for everyone (not just the rich) is an admirable goal, but in the zeal to reign in governmental autorcratic excess I'm afraid the Libertarians are going to unleash the Corporations moreso than they are now.
Also, I worry that any tax cuts are going to end up cutting necessary social programs instead of boondoggles like the War on Drugs. I don't see the Libertarians having any distinction in what will be cut from government (I admit, I could be mistaken here).
I will say this about Libertaians, they aren't trying to tighten the screws on the populace like the current Republocrats. I respect their non-hypocritical for the people stance.
However, the Green party is a closer fit for me. They want to end the War on Drugs (huge cash savings), guarentee economic rights and lock down what corporations can do. They want to promote sex education, as well as general education, without all the braindamage the Religious Right inflicts and they supprort a woman's right to choose what to do about a pregnancy. (I don't know the Libertarian abortion position, I but assume it's pro-choice).
The staunch anti-capital punishment stance is a strong plank in their program and one I wholly endorse, not because of the cruelty of capital punishment, but because of human fallibilty in the judiciary. Innocent people have been executed in the past and as long as we have a death penalty, innocent people will be executed in the future. Of course this anti-capital punishment Green plank doesn't perclude a similar plank from the Liberatians (I don't know the Libertarian stance on capital punishment).
About the only things I don't like about the Greens are the gun control and the maximum wage planks. However the NRA and ACLU have the gun control issue in hand and maximum wage will never get out of commitee in this reality.
I've said it before, but I feel this is still true: The Green Party is an idealized Democratic Party and the Libertarian Party is an idealized Republican Party. By idealized, I mean without all of the hypocracy, lies, greed, ignorance (both willful and genuine) and corporatist pandering of the Democrats and Republicans.
For those of you who currently vote Democratic or Republican, give the Green or Libertarian parties your vote intead. And when in doubt, vote against the incumbant jerkoff (Rep Boucher excluded).
There remains a difference between the Barbary Pirates and Al Quaeda. Perhaps the Barbary Pirates weren't a nation, but in many ways they acted as such. For instance, you speek of "broke all of the agreements" and "diplomatic measures". Those are nation-like things, even if there is no formal status. If I understand correctly, the Barbary Pirates were not physically hosted by other nations, though there may well have been port visits.
Al Qaeda has no nation-like aspects. It takes guerilla warfare to a new urban level, and depends on hidden hosting in other nations. I suspect Afghanistan will be the last formal hosting of Al Qaeda that will ever be seen, and even Iraq will probably never admit to it, even if they are.
Another poster is right. The scariest thing about this "War on terrorism" is that there is absolutely no way to know when peace breaks out.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Whoa there Nelly! Cuban missile "crisis"... now that you mentioned it (and answered yourself in a smug self assuring way) there is no argument to be made that the public knowledge of the fact that USSR was trying to even the balance (US had missiles in West Germany at the time) would cause pandemonium. Unless of course you assume that all the various right-wing assholes and head-up-the ass McCarthy wannabes would scream "apocalypse" at the top of their lungs into whatever microphones they could stick their foul mouths in front of. They always think the world is ending when they are threatened with the possiblity that they wont hold all the cards and wont have all the advantages possible (being at the top is their God-given right, dont you know..). But then again these brainiacs were part of the government then. We are all lucky that Chrustchev had the sense to back off when seeing the rabid foam at the mouth and the red vains of maddness in the eyes of all those crucifix clutching maniacs.
let me present to you Mullah Ashcroft, yes, you read it correctly, Mullah Ashcroft indeed. Lets do a side by side comparison of Taliban rule and Mullah Ashcroft:
:)
Taliban:
** Religious Profiling: "Its the Christian conspiracy, lets go M$ on them infidels"
Mullah Ashcroft:
** Religious Profiling: "Its an Islamic conspiracy!, lets go M$ on them infidels"
Taliban:
** Not big fans of Due process: "Lets jail the poor and the hapless"
Mullah Ashcroft:
** Not a big fan of due process: "Lets jail the poor and the hapless and pretend they don't exist, cuz they COULD be really really bad people"
Taliban:
** All statues are immoral
Mullah Ashcroft:
** Naked statues are immoral
Striking similarities huh??
I personally think that Bushies are dragging this country of ours into secret police days of the occupied (well puppet communist regimes at least) Eastern European Bloc, where citizens spied against fellow citizens... and the sad thing is that not a single publicaly elected lawmaker has had the courage to stand up to these patriotic bullies... Luckily, the recent court decisions against the secrecy of the trails has been of some consolation...
SIG ALERT
[The Text of this message has been Redacted By your Local Office Of Homeland Security Representative due to Upatriotic Remarks.]
"The Office of Homeland Security, Making Today a Better Place Tomorrow!"
Become an OHS member Today by Joining TIPS!
Simply call 1-555-FASCIST and Join NOW!
Why do we have such heavy media intervention in our national war decisions? Remember Vietnam - when our trust-worthy government kept reassuring us that we were winning and that the war was worth fighting? Give me the media overkill and citizen involvement over secrecy any day.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
>> Problem with this as a policy is that the Govt. simply declares a war without end (cold war, drug war, war on terrorism) and then can never be questioned...
The U.S. Constitution vests the power to declare war only in the Congress. If Congress votes to take the nation into war -- issue a formal declaration of war -- the President and the rest of the Executive Department may exercise certain wartime powers and responsibilities.
The last time the Congress issued a declaration of war was in December, 1941, i.e., the beginning of U.S. involvement in World War Two. All military actions of the U.S. since then have been conducted under the considerable powers vested in the President as commander-in-chief. The Bush adminstration's assertion that it is not Constitutionally obligated to seek Congressional approval for military action in Iraq may lead to political and legal action that modifies the Presidency's independent ability to initiate military action.
"Wars" on drugs, etc., are simply public relations devices intended to foster public support, and funds, for some declared purposes.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I couldn't agree with you more.
Would you take it from CNN?
Here's the CNN story entitled "Bush Won".
However, the article says:
The newspapers' review also discovered that canvassing boards in Palm Beach and Broward counties threw out hundreds of ballots that had marks that were no different from ballots deemed to be valid.
The papers concluded that Gore would be in the White House today if those ballots had been counted.
In a nutshell, if you count all the votes, Gore won. Plain and simple, and possibly the most under-reported story of the year.
Things get even clearer if you broaden the questions somewhat. Some general background on the Gore victory.
A lot of the links to the primary sources have rotted - it's been a year. However, here is Votes aren't sacred which is pretty much the whole story.
Now on to the interments.
The american who's been grabbed and held without access to a lawyer or even a military tribunal is Jose Padilla. And you can read all about him in places like Time.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
I said no such thing. Try reading again, and then shut up.
Could this situation turn into another vietnam?
I don't care what the politics of the time was or who was trying to even what score. The point was, there are times when freedom of speech is not guarenteed. Infact, the supreme court rulling was there is no absolute freedom to speech.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
"First they came for the unions, but I didn't speak up because I wasn't union.
Then they came for the communists, but I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the Jews, but I didn't speak up because I was Protestant.
And then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up."
- Reverend Martin Niemoller
German Lutheran monk arrested by the Gestapo in 1937
--- Always remember. 99.36% of all statistics are inaccurate.
You really mean that?
Come on up.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
was that really meant to be humour???
sorry, sounds like you read a little too much r. a. wilson
So, are the ~50% of 'Americans' who think that the first amendment goes to far the same ~50% who don't know how long it takes the Earth to go around the Sun? Can't they just move to a country with a more opressive government (or a planet with a different length year)?
a son in his father's footsteps. too bad i can't remember how the situation in the US was back in 91. can you?
Now you're comparing Bush to Hitler.
I feel sorry for you.
I don't believe in Beatles; I just believe in me
What precisely is a Sacremento Bee American ?
As far as i can tell, the USA is filled with allot of stupid people. Unfortunately, they make up the majority of the voting public, so the rest of the population has to suffer. I have an idea to solve that that:
:)
In the next presidential election, a dummy candidate is planted. The dummy will have outrageous policies that are totally unconstitutional. for example "electronically tagging all Muslims" and removing the right to free speech for some people. The policies have to be the right balance here - not to far, but definitely not legal.
This way, you can identify the 'dumb' people who vote for this candidate. What you do next is the tricky part. You could remove their right to vote, claiming that their vote was in fact unconstitutional (its pushing it i know) or, the dummy candidate could just drop out or disappear, hopefully leaving the good one to win.
As you can see, its a work in progress, but it has potential?
its hard to define stupid..
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
"I'm tired of you people thinking you can just go to war with anything you dislike"
Junior, I'm tired of you in general.
You're...just... an insect. I imagine wiping my ass with your face after a good, long, runny dump. And you saying "thank you sir, may I have another".
I won't do it though, because it turns you on a little too much.
Signed,
Pope John Paul
Actually, the only thing in the Brave New World society that I had a problem with was the aversion therapy.
Otherwise, they all seemed to be happy individuals. I didn't notice any lack of freedom...just a lack of desire.
Perhaps some books such as 1984 and Brave New World should be made into required reading for students nationwide... just a thought.
Unfortunately, there are a great many short-sighted people who think it's just dandy that there are more searches, who want to unleash the FBI/CIA/NSA to spy on U.S. citizens, and who think there's really no problem with indefinite detentions without trials or public disclosure at any time.
Why? Because they assume they'd never be targeted.
So many of them don't remember how Christian and Jewish organizations, especially those involved in the anti-war movements of the 1960s in the U.S. were habitually spied-upon by various governmental agencies. They don't remember how Hoover would've made Ashcroft look like an amateur. How the IRS oddly seemed to go and audit "certain kinds of people".
These folks all seem to think, "hey, I'm a white, heterosexual, upstanding Christian family man/woman, they'd never come after me!"
They don't realize that all it takes is one pissed off neighbor who's just joined TIPS to phone in with the 'tip', "That next door guy was talkin' to a buncha dark-skinned people, speakin' some kinda jibjab feruhn language!"
What really gets me is we keep seeing these silly polls about how a majority of people don't mind more security measures. Or how they're cool with the U.S. going to war with Iraq. Or how they think it's fine to pass laws saying this is a Christian nation, English only, and don't you dare even look at the flag cross-eyed.
Every damned one of them forget that the Founders, who were wiser men than we knew, passed those Amendments and wrote the Constitution knowing full well that someday, people would be stupid enough to throw away their rights because someone else said it was "necessary."
I do dearly hope that one day we'll look back upon this and be able to laugh... but I've a feeling there's going to be a lot more injustice, a lot more people imprisoned on nothing more than an Attorney General's say-so, and probably a lot of bodybags coming home from overseas before we're able to reverse and clean up this mess.
Yeah, maybe they'll go after the foreigners, and the Muslims, and the antiwar protestors first.
But, as always, that's just the beginning...
Typical euro. Can't handle the truth.
Or perhaps you would like to refute exactly what was wrong with the post? Thought not.
In spite of Clinton appointees at the umm, X-Files still attempting to try to pin anything on Clinton's political opponents, the nature of the weaponized anthrax used in the concurrent with 9/11 attacks were specifically that of Iraqi manufactured anthrax, originally purchased as a sample from Iowa State in earlier years when Iraq was a co-belligerant against Iran. The Iraqis use Bentonite (IIRC from news articles) to weaponize the anthrax spores, and no other nation does this.
So, yeah, there is a smoking gun linking the Ba'athist regime with the attacks on these united States.
Of course then there is the House of Saud, which financed al-Qa'eda and supplied the vast majority of the kamikazees.
Your higher brain functions appear to be impaired.
I invoke Godwin's Law.
There is no such thing as "willingly paying with taxes." No one is, or would be, *forcing* you to do anything. Education is not a right.
Come on, you are going to tell a 5 year old kid, to EARN his education? How? Child Labor? Slave Labor? What?
How exactly can a child "Earn" an Education? What the hell?
Taxes ARE robbery... at the point of a gun. You've just hired government thugs to do the dirty work for you and you can be assured they're taking a (very substantial) cut.
Would you prefer the government rob you of your money, or me? Because if education werent free I'd rob you to "Earn" my education so i can get a proper job.
Incidentally, there is far more poverty since the government started its "War on Poverty" in the 60's than there ever was before. Government is the primary *cause* of poverty.
Lack of education is the #1 cause of poverty. Show me a homeless harvard graduate and I'll show you 20 homeless people who never got their highschool dimploma, I'll then show you 20 people in prison without highschool diplomas, you blame the government? No you cant blame the government for them not being educated enough to get a job.
I would *prefer* that you rob me yourself if you're going to do it. At least that way, you would be as clear as I am about what's happening and you would get the full "take" instead of paying the overhead of having someone else commit the crime for you.
If this is the case, the price of success = being robbed by the failures therefore the failures would keep everyone down and no one would be successful. Look when the government robs you, you get to keep your life, when a poor person robs you, they might and might not have morals, you might not survive it.
Oh and by the way while I'm smart enough to hack into your bank account and rob you painlessly, not everyone is as smart, alot of people might just stab you in a dark alley, hell you could have riots where thousands of people decide to loot all the rich neighborhoods.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
You've got a lot to learn. Keep studying...
most of these freedoms we take for granted were never intended to be freedoms at the level they are, but rather issues left to the individual states!
That may have been true when the Bill of Rights was written, but as others have pointed out, the 14th amendment overturned that intent. The 14th amendment ensures that state governments may not infringe constitutional rights.
it has been inferred that any kind of prayer in public schools is unconstitutional,
The high-profile cases which bandied about that myth all involved school officials either telling students to pray, or school officials handing students a microphone and encouraging them to pray. Those cases were not about freedom of religion, but rather separation of church and state (you may have noticed that the first amendment has two parts regarding religion, the establishment clause, and the exercise clause).
Despite what you may have read in religious-right propaganda, students still have the right to pray all they want, it's just that public schools may not encourage it. Interestingly, if a student's actions interferes with the learning environment, the school may stop that student from praying, or speaking, etc.
that putting the 10 Commandments on public property is unconstitutional,
Again, this involves the establishment clause. It is unconstitutional for the government to use public resources to promote Christianity (or any other religion). This protects popular religions just as much as unpopular religions. You do not want the government holding power over churches. How far would many of our nation's major social changes (civil rights movement, women's sufferage, end of slavery) have gotten if the government could pull the purse strings of churches that offered support for those changes?
Churches may still hold an occasional service in public parks, display the ten commandments for public presentations, etc. There has been some conflict when the government attempts to run around the first amendment by allowing churches to build religious monuments on public land (essentially giving the church a monopoly on that plot of land), or by selling land to a specific church so that they can build a religious monument. Since no one else was given the same opportunity, I believe those issues were resolved by addressing the 14th amendment's equal protection clause.
that pr0n is legal,
The Supreme Court has ruled that most forms of pornography are protected by the first amendment. If pornography bothers you, you should ask your congresscritters why they promote pornography with copyrights.
that a woman has the right to privacy and, consequently, the right to terminate pregnancy,
This has nothing to do with the first amendment.
that public libraries may not filter web sites,
Quite to the contrary, the Supreme Court has simply ruled that congress may not require libraries to filter web sites. The court noted that every available filter censored a great deal of speech that the law never intended to censor. Libraries still have the right to filter web sites if they choose to.
How is this going to help? Most people go to the polls and vote for the most popular (according to polls) candidate running against their most hated political party. These people aren't helping at all. They are simply reinforcing the two-party status quo. These people won't make a difference until they:
As long as people vote blind, they are devaluing the influence of educated voters.
Civilization is a fragile thing that starts from a high place, then falls and shatters. It's rebuilt higher than before, and then shatters with greater force each time.
What causes the falls? When the people who maintain the machinery of society discover their stewardship can be used for self enrichment. Like the organs of a dying man, shutting down one by one, the compartments of government stop serving the body of society, since their efforts are now consumed towards enriching their corrupt stewards.
The shattered remains can then join the other failed societies in the history books, so future generations can have a detailed map of what is in store for them as well.
> Others won't be able to communicate, and their plans will not succeed.
How will they not be able to communicate?
Read post again - you have not digested it.
I see you do not deny the Truth - unlike the corrupt governments:
Terrorists will have to do that, or they will be caught.
How many of them are homosexuals, bisexuals, heterosexuals, black, white, jewish, arab, hispanics, asians, native Americans, Romans, Sicilians, French, communist, socialist, capitalist, hippies, democrats, libertarians, librarians, barbarians, fascists, racists, fundamentalists, objectivists, moral relavivists, secular humanists, scientists, teachers, janitors, police officers, criminals, zoologists, ad executives, superheros, college students, rich, poor, sick, healthy, male, female, hermaphrodites, circus clowns, goat-herders, farmers, assembly-line workers, web designers, programmers, artists, scuba divers, pyrotechnicians, Moonies, Mormons, Scientologists, Satanists, cultists, Wiccans, Pagans, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Amish, Quakers, Discordians, Feynman-worshippers, Star Wars fans, porn-hounds, sexists, mob bosses, drug lords, straight edge, pop-culture sheeple, ravers, indie rawk kids, rappers, gangsters, photographers, entertainment execs, government workers, employees of a multinational conglomerate, self-employed, unemployed, homeless, construction workers, demolition experts, Navy SEALs, Army Special Forces, paratroopers, illegal aliens, cab drivers, bus drivers, space shuttle pilots, rocket scientists, surgeons, pharmacists, heroin addicts, piano players, animal trainers, dentists, sadists, masochists, humorists, political science majors, helicopter pilots, spies, snipers, second gunmen, "magic bullet" theorists, "no bullet" theorists, paranoid, schizophrenic, autistic, Aspergerers, snake charmers, crocodile hunters, fools, idealists, cynics, lookalikes, soundalikes, surrealists, musicians, savage beasts, mutants, hijackers, terrorists, little old ladies who meet after church every Sunday to drink tea and discuss their gardens, priests, pedophiles, porn stars, spy camera manufacturers, sneaky bastards, Ninjas, swordsmiths, goldsmiths, jewelers, little plastic egg makers, midgets, tall bastards, talk-show hosts, talk-show guests, celebrities, plastic surgeons, evil overlords, trusted lieutenants, inept subordinates, Darwin Award nominees, Academy Award winners, actors, directors, producers, sound effects men, voice actors, game designers, reverse-engineers, makers of extremely long lists, and/or people who are going to stop now?
Protecting 'Freedom of Speech' is not really about having the right to go to your favorite church and listen to what your preacher/pastor/cleric/minister/etc has to say.Most people just expect that. Fighting for freedom of speech is hearing someone say the most vile and disgusting thing that you ever heard and standing op for his/her right to say it - not necessarily agreeing with it. Just defending their right to say what they want.
That means if your black standing up for the rights of the KKK to speak their mind. If your American standing up for the rights of others throughout the world to call us tyrants and other kinds of vile crap!!
Restore America: Dr. Ron Paul for President!
When "under god" was declared unconstitutional I cheered and then when the president acted like a jerk about it and all the christians rushed out to burn the judge at the stake I was outraged and confused. When I expressed my opinion to people I found out something: everyone either thought that the judge was a moron and disagreed or they thought the whole thing didn't matter one bit. After all, what does it matter if you're forced to say two little extra words in the pledge of allegiance to your country?
I cared because I feel that if we ever start backing down on even the simplest questions of freedom, we'll eventually start losing the bigger challenges and in the end we'll no longer have any freedom left.
My point, is that people a: don't understand how this freedom stuff really works and b: don't really care about their freedom. (and c: won't until they really start losing it)
It's funny how I just read a book that dealt with this type of subject: Faith of the Fallen (sword of truth book 6 by terry goodkind)
He was stabbed after his parole and when the police picked up a suspect he exercised his Miranda Rights and was released.
Read about it.
Restore America: Dr. Ron Paul for President!
Good thing I don't live is the US... but if this happened.. I'd start blowing shit up... better than being trapped, told what to do, how to think, and what to say.
Everyone with open eyes and mind must have seen this coming. Sorry if you're not one of them.
In my opinion, Scientology is a cult you should avoid.
(dada21) Your Friendly Lake County, IL Libertarian
Wonderful! Perhaps you can answer a question that's been burning in my mind. Unfortunately if you can't, I can't allow you to continue to use the Internet anymore.
How exactly would Libertarianism have ever created the Internet?
Don't worry, I won't hold my breath for the answer.
No, I'm not. I'm trying to teach idiots some history.
It's a thankless, although not always pointless task.
After all, Buritto boy, you now have an exposure to the idea of "Reichstag fire" - if you didn't know about it already, at least you'll know it happened, that it's something to do with faking attacks on the nation to stir sentiment up and grab power.
And, if at some point evidence of collusion or criminal incompetence arises, and people begin to make the comparison more widely, you might know what it means.
Mission accomplished, dimwit.
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
Watch how fast you get censored.
Capitalism comes before freedom of the press.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Just a P.S. -- I forgot to address the Padilla thing. Once again, it was a very unique situation where there was abundant evidence that he was conducting planning with enemy forces. He has not been charged with a crime, because it's not even legally clear that a "crime" has been committed. However, it is quite clear that he was conspiring with known terrorists to harm Americans. If he had been handed over to the DoJ, they would have been mostly helpless. Since he is being handled as an enemy combatant (not a big stretch, since he trained with and offered his services to Al Qaeda), the DoD can hold him as a war prisoner, without so much as the intention of charging him with a crime (which apparently they don't intend to do). Thus, he can be prevented from hurting anybody (I'm sorry, but you probably wouldn't be so concerned about his rights if your neighborhood were the one he bombed) or hindering American war efforts. That's the kind of thing that happens during periods of war. It warrants special circumstances that are necessary to the successful prosecution of the war, but they go away once the war has been concluded. Don't believe me? Ask your granparents about war-time rations. I'm pretty sure you don't remember them personally because they're not around anymore. When you can point me to an example of somebody who is arrested simply for being a muslim or speaking Arabic, then I will be alarmed with you. As for Padilla, if it bothers you so much, write your representative and encourage him to pressure the DoJ to give Padilla a constitutional trial for High Treason. In that case, I would definitely be on your side, but I don't know if Padilla would.
Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Dan Aris
Fun. Free. Online. RPG. BattleMaster.
governments should have no secrets at all
governments should be completely transparent
for governments to have secrets
is the direct path to tyrrany
this also applies to corporations
never trust any organisation
that is not happy to be completely transparent
in all their dealings
Oooh, name calling. How impressive!
Bush knew about 9-11 before the attacks!
He let millions of people die for oil and money and power!!
He knows about the aliens in Roswell too!!!!
Put away the tinfoil hat.
Grow up.
Get out of the basement a little more often.
Conveniently leaving out the one that kept us from remaining a British colony :)
The problem, tho, is this: *NEITHER* party gives a rats ass about citizen privacy.
BOTH sides will spy on you and sell your personal info for political/economic/social gain.
nuclear presidential echelon assassination encryption virulent strain
Whizzmo
To be Jewish, all you need is for your mother to have been Jewish. You can be an athiest and Jewish in that context. I know I am...
I will give you benefit of doubt - take your statement as informed opinion and say, "He's someone who knows what he is talking about"
Your post does not alter my premise one bit - does it?
If anything it shows surveillance to be a waste of time and money.
My premise:
Internet surveillance is for several reasons, including: a) making you feel safer b) that the government are doing something and c) the more malicious motive of privacy invasion.
Again - ask Security Services in the US or UK to deny this:
Internet surveillance, using Echelon, Carnivore or back doors in encryption, will not stop terrorists communicating by other means - most especially face to face or personal courier.
Terrorists will have to do that, or they will be caught.
Not so long ago, the practice of "duelling" was perfectly legal. Nowadays this would be considered murder.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
And a total lack of all creative forces. I'd say that if we do not create things such as art, knowledge or ethics, we're reducing ourselves to mere animals. High-tech animals perhaps, but animals nonetheless. *That* is the big problem with the 'brave new world'. It's just eating and shitting and fucking and sleeping. Nothing more. You could do those things just as well without most of the human mind.
The dilemma presented is that only a sufficient amount of discomfort provides humans with a drive to create. It would be great for humanity to live in comfort without degenerating into pure consumers, though.
All generalizations are false, including this one. (Mark Twain)
Then tell us how do we find causation ?
If coupled events happen always together, one first, the other following, how the hell do you call that?
Jeez.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Creating widespread pandimonium is not bennificial to anyone except your enemies.
Really? Then why has the Bush administration been trying so hard? ("There may be terrorist activities on July 4th"... well, duh, but there may be any day, and unless you have fairly concrete details, it doesn't do much good, does it?)
In any case, the government should not be hiding stuff like the Cuban Missile crisis. Widespread pandimonium beats a public that has no idea what the government is doing. It's a democratic government; the people must know what's going on so they can make their opinion known, and made good choices about who keeps their jobs and who doesn't.
the people must know what's going on so they can make their opinion known, and made good choices about who keeps their jobs and who doesn't.
Look how much having widely availible information did for us before y2k. No matter how many times those of us that knew what we were talking abou tsaid that there was nothing to worry about, people still paniced, and still stocked up. Not a vastly large number of people mind you, but a good majority. And that was just a simple "loss of power and communication" senario. Imagin what the public reaction would be to an "End of the world via nuke" senario. People may be able to make rational decisions on their own, but in groups, people get exponentialy dumber.
As for why Bush is doing what he's doing. Because the public asked him to. Remember after Sept 11, when it was revealed that there was the potential for the government to know about this all before hand (ask me my opinion on that another time)? The press and the public screamed bloddy murder that people weren't warned and no body was made aware of the possibility of a terrorist attack, so Bush is just doing what he was asked to do. If you don't like it, try educating your fellow americans.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
No matter how many times those of us that knew what we were talking abou tsaid that there was nothing to worry about,
And many other people, also seemingly authoritive, said there was stuff to worry about.
people still paniced, and still stocked up. Not a vastly large number of people mind you, but a good majority
A good majority would be a vastly large number of people. And honestly, people may have stocked up, but I don't remember any runs on the supermarket or bank. Sure, some people may have bought a few extra batteries, flashlights and cans of creamed corn (which are never bad to have a few extra of), but all in all, most people were calm and rational about it.
Imagin what the public reaction would be to an "End of the world via nuke" senario.
And? Frankly, if someone plans on playing a game of brinkmanship, I'd like the chance to get away from ground zero, and go back to Nowhere, Oklahoma until the issue calms down. I think that's an eminently rational approach.
after Sept 11, when it was revealed that there was the potential for the government to know about this all before hand [...]? The press and the public screamed bloddy murder that people weren't warned
I don't remember anyone complaining that the press wasn't notified. I do remember complaints that the left hand of the government didn't know what the right hand was doing, and that if they had assembled what they had, they would have known what was going on.
Why is it that no one (or very few) asks the question that's basic to this issue. Why do so many societies on this earth hate the USA in the first place? The "they hate freedom" excuse is so ludicrous that it doesn't even deserve being mentioned. The answer is far too simple for most to see - it's sitting right in front of their noses. It's the classic "can't see the forest for the trees", syndrome.
They hate the USA because our elected politicians and government, have for decades been both interfering in the affairs of sovereign nations, and supporting evil regimes, the choice of which depends on the "gift du jour" . The elitist notion that we should, or must be the world's policeman is at the root of this. Unfortunately, too many have been brainwashed into treating our governments actions as some football game, where the "players" must be supported - right or wrong. They wave the flag and scream the battle cry, and the spectators yell , "yeah - go team" !
Now we see the consequences of such policies, coming home to roost, while the very ones who caused these problems have built , an almost impenetrable shell of false innocence around themselves and their policies.
As to 9-11, we had no choice but respond, but wouldn't it have been better to have not gotten into that situation to begin with? What have we gained by trying to police the world and create a universal NWO uniformity? The answer is "a lot", but most of it's been a disaster for the ordinary person, around the world - including us. Big business/money and politicians have been the only constant beneficiaries, and still are.
Examine history with an open mind , and it suddenly becomes crystal clear. The actions of our elected government, over decades, has brought us to the point of paying for their meddling, with our freedom. This wouldn't even be an issue, if they hadn't lured us into this situation in the first place, with grandiose rhetoric about our duty to act as some kind of "anointed keepers of the planet".
What will the loss of our freedom buy? More of the same, but in larger and larger doses, as it becomes the chosen potion of "cure".
The answer is not found in arguing over how much freedom we should give up, while allowing the perpetrators to remain in power and continue their dirty work.
It's time to see past the failed 2 party system, or continue paying, until there's nothing left to give.
Yes, I'm a recently converted, ex , 2-party-stooge, who finally gained enough sense to vote and think Libertarian - until there's something better available. THINK is the operative word.