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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!
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.
Trade freedom for security, and you'll get neither. If only people would understand.
Bumper sticker suggested by a friend of mine. Says it all, really.
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.
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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
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.
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
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?
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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
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...
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.
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.
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
No, the politicians are keen on their rights. I don't think they're too keen on the rights of every other American citizen. Case in point: anything and everything John Ashcroft has proposed, spoken, or thought, since he was appointed Attorney General.
I didn't read the whole Patriot Act, and it's mostyle faded from memory, but I don't remember seeing "Muslims" spelled out anywhere in there, and if it's not, that means it applies to EVERYBODY for now, until they review it in however many years they decided on. Would you like to spend X years in prison until somebody actually listens to you?
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).
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
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.
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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
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?
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.
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.
Our first amendment rights are already non-absolute, so that's not even the question. It's shades of gray, degrees.
/. in the debates on religion, creationism/evolution, etc., and yet fail to realize that the United States actually is a country based around the religion of the Constitution. Think about it -- a significant number of people demand absolute adherence to the letter of the Constitution, and you will most assuredly be pilloried if you dare critique or lampoon this sacred document.
...oh, what the heck, go ahead -- after all, freedom of speech shouldn't have to apply if you don't like the consequences, now, should it?
And there-in lies the problem: most Americans desperately want the Constitution and the various amendments to be absolute. Why? Because it's the national religion. And no, I'm not being facetious.
It's always seemed ironic to me that people will spit venom on
Fanatics don't like to admit something doesn't answer every conceivable situation and scenario. They don't want gray areas; they want the comfort of knowing their bible (and I'm using the word in a generic sense) answers any and all questions and problems. As remarkable a document as the Constitution is, it can't do that. (That's one of the reasons why you have provision for amendments to the Constitution.)
Absolute freedom of speech is pretty much impossible. You may be legally permitted to say something, but if you fear to speak that particular thought because of potential reprisal, you don't have freedom of speech. Abhorrent as some notions may be (for example, racism), if you cannot freely discuss all opinions on those notions without any fear of adverse reaction, you don't have absolute freedom of speech.
It's called a gray area. And the fact that such a concept exists in relation to the Constitution is a very real and disturbing problem for many, many Americans who have grown up with the belief in the sacred and inviolable nature of that US cornerstone.
By the way...before you abuse me or mark me down as flamebait, consider these points:
1. It's relevant.
2. I respect the Constitution as a very remarkable document.
3. I'm talking about how some people take their fanatacism surrounding the Constitution and produce this mindset.
4.
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 cleverOf 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.
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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."
"Shut up."
Burning his money. It worked for freedom didn't it?
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.
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.
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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
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.
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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
Luckily, I'm atheist. If they try to monitor me, all they'll get is static.
> Would you not grant a group of writers the
> ability to copyright because they aren't
> individuals?
I would not.
If it were up to me, any limited liability entity would have extremely limited copyright priveledges. Creativity is ultimately the result of individual effort and talent. Copyright needs to be balanced to acknowledge that and prevent what the RIAA has managed to get away with.
The constitution likely doesn't mention the distinction between real persons and "corporate persons" because the latter simply didn't exist then.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
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
I believe that things go to far (in the eyes of the law) once you start taking an action to carry out your threats.
Buying a gun, getting the floorplans to the building, etc would be enoughto lock you up under consipirsy charges. Mearly saying you'd like to isn't enough.
Hey, perhaps losing the 1st Am. isn't so bad if we get to throw Ann Coulter in jail!
P.S.: This is a joke. It's not worth it, not even for such a noble cause.
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.
Ironic that if laws were passed to criminalize flag-burning, that you might actually have a legitimate reason for such a protest.
Anyone that values a meaningless symbol more than the thing that the symbol stands for, is at the nadir of shallowness.
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
I haven't given up to this extent yet, though. I agree that there are disgusting abuses of governmental power going on right now, but it's still technically possible to effect change in the system. It'll take some serious effort (certainly more effort that showing up at a foreign consulate and expatriating yourself), but I think there's still a chance to save the US if we can get the metaphorical pendulum to start swinging back in the other direction...
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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
Of course, this country has never really done it right ever since the "undeclared war" against France and the Alien & Sedition Act
Funny, I seem to recall a speech on 8 December 1941, wherein President Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war against Japan. I seem to recall he got it, too.
Your opener about the definition of war was good, but you dropped the ball later on.
Fascism starts when the efficiency of the government becomes more important than the rights of the people.
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
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.
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.
Bogus. There stated objective is killing off the infidels and leaving the world only for Muslims -- i.e. everybody else has to convert or die. It's rather unlikely they'll "win".
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
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.
Sigh, don't make me get out the Clue by Four on you.
"Polls" are more often than not specifically sponserd by people that want to prove a point and so they specifically choose who to poll to get the results they want. If the poll doesn't come out they way they want, they bury it and try something else. If it turns out the way they want, then they have PROOF that the story is true. (bullshit)
The biggest problem we have today is people that look at a single source and believe everything they hear from it without trying to check up on the stories.
Ahem... *koff* SLASHdot *koff*
Contrary to popular belief, coding is not all free blow-jobs and beer. Those things cost MONEY!
As I understand, the constitution isn't necessarily there to give specific rights to people, but to limit the government's ability to limit those rights.
funny munging
I'm glad someone else got around to reading those amendments that follow the first ten.
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
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..."--
No, they hate you because your CIA and soldiers have been fucking up their region for decades. If you'd just left them the fuck alone they'd probably have done the same. They might have blown each other up, maybe toasted the Israelis and a few neighbors, but they wouldn't have tried to wipe you out.
I asked my mother a few questions:
Me: Should the government be allowed to read suspicous people's email without a warrent?
Her: Yes.
Me: Should the government be allowed to stop media that they view as a threat?
Her: Yes.
Me: Should the government be allowed to hold suspected terrorists without trial?
Her: Yes.
Me: Should the government be allowed to censor the internet?
Her: Yes.
Me: Should the government be allowed to put cameras looking into suspected terrorists houses?
Her: Yes.
Me: Should people give up any liberties to make our country safer?
Her: NO!!!!
exactly.
The masses are the crack whores of religion.
Of course, sometimes people that say that stuff actually live up to their mumbled statements... as seen (or heard) here.
A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing -- Emo Phillips
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
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
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.)
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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
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.
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?
As a professional breakdancer, yes, I would be happier living in 1984.
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.
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.
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 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
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,
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.'"
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?
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
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Right. You see, that's why studies like this are usefull -- they can help you to see what people think -outside your personal circle of friends-.
I tried to calculate the margin of error in your 'study', and my calculator started berating me for attempting to plug the number 7 into the variable representing 'sample size'.
But joking aside, the result doesn't surprise me much. Yeah, I'd like to see exactly what questions they asked -- but then again I'd like to see what question -you- asked precisely.
Though lets assume you're right (boy, I would love to be able to!) and no one wants to give up any rights. Instead of being mad at the media, shouldn't you be mad at the government getting away with doing what no one wants them to do?
The enemies of Democracy are
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
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.
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 !
The civilian casualties from Pearl Harbor numbered, I think, in the 20's or 30's. We did more damage to Panama City in our little adventure against Noriega than the Japanese ever did to the US itself. The US pretty much got out of WW2 unscathed. 40,000 Russian civilians were killed in the first raid on Stalingrad - hundreds of thousands of Russians were killed in that battle alone. In comparison, the US lost 300,000 people - almost entirely combatants - in the entire war. Poland lost 18% of its pre-war population, almost 7 million. Chinese dead totalled over 11 million, the Japanese lost about 2 million, and the German lost 5 million. The USSR lost over 17 million, with incredible devestation to its infrastructure. There is no comparison.
more simplistic thinking.
listen, i'm sorry for being rude, but "leave things local!" is as silly as "less government!"
leaving things local leads to the "lower taxes, less services for the less fortunate" game. if i'm a healthy person who happens to be lucky enough to have a high demand skill i'll probably want to live in area x with the 2% tax rate and poor health and education services.
plus it's harder to deal with certain services. let's say the us had a national welfare system. the idea is that when you're born you get two years in a welfare bank. and each year you work contributes a month to the bank or some such formula. now with a national plan that's possible. with welfare adminstered locally by state (or even by county as it is in some states) that becomes an unworkable policy. ever tried to connect two independantly developed databases in either the public or private sector? how about several hundred?
and again, what do you mean by "less government?" less intrusive? less expensive? if you mean the latter, local government is not going to get it. just look at private industry - is it more efficient when it's smaller or when it's larger? as for local government being less intrusive, that's also silly. i live in a rural area in the west of ireland - everyone here knows everyone's business. if i have a complaint about a neighbor that requires me to contact my government (the planning board or the department of the environment for instance), i want to contact a nameless official with no local connection - not my neighbor's cousin.
US Citizen living abroad? Register to vote!
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,
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?
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,
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,
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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?
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'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,
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"
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.
>> 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"
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.
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
You really mean that?
Come on up.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
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)?
Now you're comparing Bush to Hitler.
I feel sorry for you.
It's the way we balance your rights as an individual with mine. Like, my right not to be trampled to death when you yell "theatre" in a crowded fire. You really are an alarmist here. Your right to shout "faggot" versus my right to not be called "faggot" in my workplace. How much simpler can this be?
Ceci n'est pas un post
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.
Many government-mandated history books interpret the amendment for "government has the right to use tax dollars for military purposes"
This is going too far. This excuse is not
needed. The constitution already states that
gov't has the right to use tax monies
for the military: Article I, Section 8,
Clauses 1, 12-14.
Clauses 15 and 16 (calling up and
regulating militias) may be thought of
as pertaining to Second Amendment, and inasmuch
as you interpret the amendment
as "the militia being necessary to the
security of free state" as satisfied by
the National Guard, then there's something
to the spin you describe.
However, I've never seen things such as
you describe in the textbooks.
As far as always questioning gov't -
I'm 100% behind you.
Considered harmful.
Hey genius - Americans put Bin Laden in charge in the first place. I'm not saying things would be better without American intervention - I'm just saying "They hate Americans 'cause they're jealous" is a crock.
I invoke Godwin's Law.
I think the fact that all the anthrax attacks were aimed at liberals and democrats pretty much points the finger at some US based right wing ractionary groups. Just last week a woman was arrested in montana for sending soda laced with arsenic to sen kennedy and a few other democrats. It's no secret that the republican reactionary crowd is actively trying to assassinate democrats and members of the "liberal media".
War is necrophilia.
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.
But then, you would be censoring their free speech.
Nope. Telling them to "shut up" is merely exercising your own right to free speech. In no way does it censor their speech.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
> 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.
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
This is only valid if you make the specious argument that money == speech
No, it is only valid if I make the valid argument that money is often necessary in order to make effective speech. You can babble all you want to those you can buttonhole, but that isn't going to change many minds.
You can post on the internet, but... hey... usually that takes at least some money. I suppose you wouldn't mind if we, say, prevented anyone from paying money for posting comments related to political candidates in the 60 days prior to an election, would you? After all, money != speech according to you!
But wait... maybe you just want to remove free speech from corporations... What *is* a corporation? It is a voluntary association of people (shareholders and employees). You are going to prevent these people from spending *their* money to make political speech? Does this apply to Greenpeace, the NRA or the ACLU? Do they have to shut up also?
Or maybe you object only to profit making corporations spending money on politics. Okay, so lets ban that... of course, what if they give *charitable* donations to groups that advertise political positions (like,say, the Sierra Club or the US Chamber of Commerce)? Oops... looks like a big loophole to me!
Oh... you object that they have more money than you to spend? Well, I object to the fact that the newspapers and network television shows have more audience than I do when *they* present their own political views. So I guess we should issue rules to prevent them from expressing political views also. Hey... it's all about evening out the power so the little guy is okay, right? Of course, freedom of the press can be interpreted to mean freedom to do anything other than use your power to influence politics, right?
Could it be that you just don't like the outcome of what our constitution protects, so you want to remove those protections? But only from those you dislike? Welcome to fascism!
The only good weather is bad weather.
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.
The biggest problem with campaign finance reform is its limitations on using money to buy ads on behalf of candidates. But notice that in terms of influence and corruption, buying ads on behalf of candidates is no different from giving money TO candidates. Either way, the candidates know whom they are beholden to.
:-) Actually, I did indeed think you were for the whole nine yards of campaign reform, not just prohibitions on giving money to candidates. This colored my response... so consider my previous post a response to that position. I think I showed pretty well that the overall campaign reform we just put in place is a serious violation of the meaning and intent of the first amendment.
The system actually worked better in the past, and the politicians spent more time working on policy and much less on raising money, *before* campaign reform. Current campaign laws force them to be in continual campaign mode in order to get enough money to run for reelection.
As far as government funds given to candidates, as you say, there are a lot of problems with it. And we already have the system you propose - in the presidential elections splinter candidates now qualify for lots of money - with the result making a mess out of every presidential election since 1988: Perot, Buchanan, and Nader were enough to pull votes from the candidates closest to their own political views, allowing the opposition to win. This is IMHO a very dumb way for things to turn out! Gore would have won in 2002 without Nader. Clinton never came close to an electoral majority because of votes pulled off by third party candidates (Bush-II had a much higher percentage of voters than Clinton ever got). Bush-I lost due to Ross Perot. Elections with spoilers just don't work right. And government funding leads to this sort of sillinness.
But back to the issue of First Amendment. I don't think it protects giving money to candidates (but there are lots of things, such as pr0n, that I don't think it protects either). I am sure it protects anyone spending as much money as they can to say anything (non slanderous) in any media they want about any political issue. And it is *that* right which McCain-Feingold finance reform has trampled.
As far as corporations go, legally they are indeed people in many ways (they can be fined or convicted, they can hold bank accounts, etc, etc). They do not enjoy all the rights of people, but the people that comprise them *do* have those rights. Prohibiting those people from buying political speech just because they do it through a corporation is IMHO a violation of either their free speech rights or their freedom of association rights - take you pick! And there is no reason at all that the Sierra Club should be allowed to do anything politically that Exxon is prohibited from! Both have their own political agendas and both should have equal rights in advancing them.
As far as twisting your arguments... thanks for the complement
As far as giving money to politicians, I think this post shows pretty well that unless you prohibit "in kind" contributions, it doesn't do any good; and those in kind contributions include your and my free speech rights.
The logical issue is that anything I do on behalf of a candidate can help his reelection and make him endebted to me. Whether that is working on his staff, flying him around on my private airplane, or just buying my own personal advertising space and publishing views that aid his campaign and hurt his opponents. So if you block the giving of money and the flying around on jets, those who wnat influence will just start buying ads instead. And if you block those, as McCain-Feingold does, you are censoring political speech.
In other words, for practical reasons, you cannot put on more restrictions ("reforms") of the sort you and others propose without either violating constitutional rights or failing to curb influence buying. It comes down to that stark choice!
The best campaign reform IMHO would be the following (and they have done this in the state of Virginia):
1) remove all restrictions on campaign financing, in-kind campaign help, etc, except
2) require all contributions to be posted on the internet within (say) 24 hours, with the amount and who gave the contribution listed.
If we cannot trust the citizenry to use the best information available (which consists of all the ads, the news, and the information about who gave what to whom), why trust them to vote at all!
The only good weather is bad weather.
Pfft, I'm not talking about conspiracy theories involving the stone masons and black stealth helicopters piloted by alien-human hybrids. I'm talking about public scrutiny. Public figures are subjected to public scrutiny but the CEO of a powerful company is relatively unregulated.
The CEO can order a 1000 people out of a job by shutting down a factory, leading to misery and poverty for 10s of 1000s. The president is always fully aware his actions are scrutinised by people who'd like nothing better than to publicise his faults.
I don't think I quite buy this, but I do agree that there's nothing stopping the people who make up a corporation from getting together with money that they, as the corporation, have agreed to set aside, and buying an ad without the company's official sponsorship.
Sounds like a big loophole to me!
>i> That said, however, I believe that if the people (ie, the stockholders) were asked about it, they wouldn't want their money (as it is partly their money) being spent on campaign ads. It isn't the people who get to decide what money gets spent on campaign contributions, and it wouldn't be the people who got to decide what money got spent on campaign ads: it is, and would be, the C*Os & various upper management--the ones who really benefit from the legislation they buy. I think that if the shareholders got a say, there wouldn't be so much of such corruption now.
I think you have an incorrect view of who benefits for what in corporate governance. Although we have distortions at time - such as the invalid use of stock options for CEO's - the job of the board of directors and major stockholders is to make sure the CEO's run the company for the benefit of the stockholders! If the CEO's happen to benefit from that - that should be the choice of the board and stockholders. A big piece of the current bear market is the market self-adjusting to the fact that CEO's were improperly "incented" to pump up prices, sell their options, and bail. It is also trying to figure out what to do with all the MBA's who were educated in modern liberal institutions where character and values are no longer important. There has been a significant shift in the ethical views of executives as a result of the devaluation of individual responsibility in business schools - a direct result of that devaluation, by the postmodernists and other leftist movements - in the overall university environment.
Anyway... people are disinvesting from those sorts of companies and being more careful about where they invest. In other words, other than the recent short-term mess, corporation officers generally operate on behalf of their shareholders, or they get kicked out! So unless they are using political contributions to change those rules, they are in general contributing with the benefit of the company (read: stockholders) in mind.
Thus a law restricting corporations from contributing does reduces the ability of the company to act on behalf of its owners - who are mostly individuals directly or through their retirement funds (the biggest stock market player is the California Personnel retirement fund - CALPERS). And again, I think you are thus infringing on the free speech of those individuals by prohibiting their fiduciaries from adequately representing their economic interests in the political debate!
Me thinks you have been taking in by the modern anti-corporatist rhetoric, which assumes that corporations are run for CEO's, and the little guy gets no benefits. In fact, there are forces pushing in both directions. The corruption of wall street in the '90s is temporary. It was cam about through consolidated firms where stock analysts had to keep the firm's corporate customers happy; through the suspension of skeptical analysis as a result of the bubble - any idiot could win for a while; through the now-discredited theory that stock option grants alone were enough to get CEO's to act for the benefit of the stockholders; through the lack of ethics of accountants and lawyers who were willing to allow devious tricks such as WorldCom and Enron accounting - tricks that might have been technically correct (in some cases - in others they were outright fruad) - but were ethically unjustifiable; through the foolishness of individuals and their mutual fund fiduciaries in investing in companies where the board of directors was controlled by the CEO instead of the reverse.
But the countervailing forces including the now awakened stockholders and their fiduciaries (not how many anaylsis and fund holders are suddenly not employed, for example). They are punishing badly any company in which the slightest conflict of interest or accounting trick is possible. They will probably go too far, in fact, and hobble startup technology companies which *need* stock options to attract and hold people.
So the fact that corporations occasionally screw their stockholders should not be construed as a general characteristic of corporations nor a reason to deny them the ability to represent the interests of their shareholders. It is simply a result of human nature and temporal concentration of power... the same sort of power that exists in government bureaucracies that likewise screw people for their own perverse reasons.
Personal note: I have benefited greatly from stock options several times in companies which I was involved in founding, and in which I contributed a lot as a technical person. Those stock options certainly kept me from seeking greener pastures. They worked in that case!
The only good weather is bad weather.
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)
I notice it differers slightly from the "Nicolay Draft", which omits "under God". Is the addition of "under God" a more modern artifact?
Most likely, considering that the US government started rubber stamping "god" onto anything they could as part of the "cold war".
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.
If you read a little more history you'd discover that the US fleet had no business being there in the first place.
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.
I didn't state that LLC's should not be ABLE to copyright. I merely stated that their priveledges should be lessened and that their copyright period should be shorter.
Under "my regime", a Lennon and McCartney copyright would extend for the longest period of time available. This might even extend beyond the death of one of the partners and be inheritable once (by Yoko or Julian). Whereas a "Beatles Inc" copyright might have a maximum term of 14 years.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.