Slashdot Mirror
Rosenzweig Now Chairman of DHS Privacy Board
An anonymous reader writes "Paul Rosenzweig, a conservative lawyer and prominent proponent of the Pentagon's controversial Total Information Awareness project, has been
appointed the first chairman of the Department of Homeland Security's privacy board. This follows the appointment of an executive of Gator to the board. Lee Tien, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, says that, rather than viewing protection of privacy as priority, Rosenzweig 'tends to view privacy as something to be circumvented.' Are the foxes guarding the henhouse when it comes to government and privacy?"
Are the foxes guarding the henhouse when it comes to government and privacy?
Why no, it seems that the Gator is guarding the henhouse in this case.
Get your Unix fortune now!
lol After reading the title I said, WTH does DHL has to do with slashdot?? and Privacy?
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
Quote Sir Humphrey in Yes Minister:- I need to know everything in order to know what I need to know
The beaurocrat's excuse for invasion of privacy never realy changes.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
I'm sorry, but after the news that a Gator executive was being appointed to the board, did anyone really expect this Privacy board to be anything of the sort? I'm not an American, but if I were, I'd be writing to my government representative now asking for help on this issue.
Personally, I look at this issue like I do with European software patents. If ordinary people don't stand up and lobby their government representative, then nothing will change. If you believe strongly about this, then try to do something about it. Make your views known
I'm not stressed. I'm just terribly, terribly alert.
On the Patriot Act:
The 9/11 Commission has emphasized the importance of the Patriot Act and considers it to be an essential weapon in the global war on terrorism. Prior to September 11, there was a wall of legal and regulatory policies that prevented effective sharing of information between the intelligence and law enforcement communities. Read More
Paul Rosenzweig On Transparency:
After all, why do we seek transparency in the first instance? Not for its own sake. Without need, transparency is little more than voyeurism. Rather, the reason for transparency is oversight - Read More
Nothing to see here
Are the foxes guarding the henhouse when it comes to government
Yes.
They have selected these Patriots to ensure that there is no risk of Privacy invading The United States of America. Over their dead bodies, there will be none of this Privacy in America.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
Oh come on - isn't it obvious?
Privacy is something that is entirely the opposite of the DHS's goal - therefore, isn't it obvious that they will hire experts in how to remove privacy? The DHS's privacy department isn't about protecting privacy (because that would be counter to the DHS's mission) but rather how to remove privacy so the DHS can do its job. Of course they will mask this in doublespeak - just like what was called the department of war half a century ago got renamed to the department of defence.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
The current administration has no respect for laws and the constitution. They've said as much. They say it's all about stopping terrorists. They are trying to build a 'Fortress America' with the borders completely shut. We are already seeing scientists from other countries shunning the States because it is such a pain getting a visa. We are going to see Americans having as much trouble getting back into the States as foreigners do. (ie. you won't be able to get back in from Canada without a passport.) American trade is going to dry up because nobody will want to do business with us.
Basically, this paranoia and disrespect for the law isn't much different than the death of Roman democracy. Add to that the fact that we are bleeding wealth like crazy and you have a the makings of a disaster.
I wonder how hard it is to emigrate to New Zealand?
The way things are going in the western world at the moment I do fear that we are sleep walking towards some kind of Orwellian nightmare. We face a determined foe who are willing to die for what they believe in. Yet we are willing to throw aside our own hard won values of freedom and justice in the interest of "safety".
Freedom is Slavery was a propaganda slogan from the book 1984, designed to keep the masses happy with being oppressed. Every time I hear Tony Blair or George Bush reducing our rights to "protect freedom" I'm reminded of this.
Great! Now Bonzibuddy works for the government
Well, if you're in the U.S., and you're concerned about these events (it's looking more and more like an anti-privacy group), might I suggest contacting the privacy office or going directly to the dept. of homeland security to let them know how you feel as a taxpayer about the appointment of individuals with a less than stellar record when it comes to privacy concerns?
Might be a good idea to contact your senators and representatives too.
Excellent point. Perhaps the entire federal government should be named the Ministry of Truth, which, in true Orwellian fashion, really means "Let's lie to everyone, ha ha ha!"
BDR Gear
Outdoor gear, MREs, and more!
It seems to me that privacy only matters if there is a threat of sanction for the private behavior. Hiding stuff tends to add a layer of unhealthy psych because of the continual threats to the integrity of the cloak.
The real need is to roll back the ability of the mob to make your life miserable if you choose to think or do something that is unconventional.
In the long run, which is going to leave us in a better position? Should we be fighting to maintain privacy in the face of increasingly efficient snooping, or fighting for freedom of thought and action?
Not that anyone's really going sacrifice much to achieve either of those goals . . . .
No more cults.
of the 14 defining characteristics of fasiscm
Modern America
...and get a free, all expenses paid trip to sunny Cuba!
Countries don't refuse to do business with other countries because they don't like them much. Money is money, and America is now and will always be a huge market. We import everything, and export cash. It's a fact: we run a huge trade deficit pretty much always.
Additionally, the Bush administration is not trying to shut the borders. The borders are completely porous in virtually every way. More than a million illegals came across the border last year.
Pop-quiz: who was Germany's top trading partner in 1938?
France.
I guess it's like hiring a theif to look at your security system, a cracker to test your firewall or a spammer to test your "rbl"!
Get your Unix fortune now!
... is to fight the threat *of* privacy to this nation, not the threat *to* privacy. As anyone from Gator will tell you, privacy is a threat to the very foundation of this country (i.e., making a profit). The very idea of privacy is subversive at best, and traitorous at worst.
The problem with Orwell (mentioned in this thread before) is that he didn't have the vision to see that technological surveilence would develop to the point of subtlety that it has today. You don't need cameras everywhere to track your every move, as in his book 1984. There are better ways.
Add this to the doublethink slogans from 1984: "Privacy is Terrorism"
"My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right." --Senator Carl Schurz (1872)
That's why they found enough money to add a $521B boondoggle medicare package that not even AARP supported, but when the time came to fund 10,000 new border patrol agents they said they didn't have the money for more than 210, right?
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
Neither "conservatives" nor "liberals" necessarily believe in freedom. Each camp attempts to limit different kinds of freedom to accomplish its objectives.
The political landscape can be dumbed down to a simple Cartesian coordinate system: personal freedom on one axis, economic freedom on another.
Whereas a liberal will tend to deprive you of economic freedom in order redistribute wealth and fund social programs, a conservative will tend to deprive you of personal freedom in order to control your behavior.
Take this test, it's interesting: http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz.html
Are the foxes guarding the henhouse when it comes to government and privacy?
Guarding is a cover story. The foxes are actually impregnating the hens -- breeding strange fox/chicken hybrids -- merging government and privacy into a single organism.
I, for one, do not welcome our privacy-sucking overlords.
-kgj
-kgj
True. You should live somewhere like the UK. Those cameras on street corners will keep you safe. So will those new-fangled ID cards. Oh and don't forget the license-plate scanners they are implementing to follow you around the road and make sure you stay honest. You get all that for free without even a remotely justifiable massive terrorist attack to boot.
It's a fact: we run a huge trade deficit pretty much always.
t tp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_deficit>
r ies/obviousnews-553798.htmlhttp://www.obviousnews. com/breakingnews/stories/obviousnews-553798.html>
Oh really? Cause that is a complete bull-shit statement. We've mainly operated at a deficit since 1960 - but not always. Either way, trade deficit isn't the only way to measure the economy.
ahref=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_deficith
Additionally, the Bush administration is not trying to shut the borders
Sure, the Canadian border.
ahref=http://www.obviousnews.com/breakingnews/sto
Pop-quiz: who was Germany's top trading partner in 1938?
Prescott Bush?
Get your Unix fortune now!
Um....
Duh!
Never play chicken with a passive aggressive.
When will people stop giving their allegiance to labels?
When will people start leaving their parties (Republican or Democrat) when their parties move away from what they believe?
The answer is probably when there is a no longer a two party system. The Republicans can treat their conservative base with contempt, and then still get their support by fear: "look at what the alternative would be!" The Democrats do the same thing on their side of the fence.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I was wondering what the spammers at the Discount Home Shopping "The Club That Spam Built" needed with a privacy board.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Yet we are willing to throw aside our own hard won values of freedom and justice in the interest of "safety".
I'll give you a quote:
"It is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." --Hermann Goering
See, here's the real lie. People believe they are protecting the values, not throwing them away. Of course the original quote was about war, now it is about terror.
"Pacifists" are opponents of the politic. In this context, civil rights activists. They get discredited like dreamers, idealists which will expose the country to danger just like pacifists.
"Lack of patriotism" is of course a good mix of nationalism (American/Non-american), racism (Caucasian/Arab) and religion (Christian/Muslim). It plays on basic "Principles are fine, but now we have to protect our own" self-preservation.
Finally, "exposing the country to danger" is no longer about war, it is even "better". With war, you always know roughly who, where and how it will play out. With terror, the "danger" is everywhere, all the time and invisible. How can you argue that you are NOT exposing it to danger?
Noone dares speaks of such things. It is not "politically correct" to quote Nazi leaders, Machiavelli, Sun Tzu and other examples of people that have manipulated great crowds. Naturally, we don't want to inspire more. But it also means people are oblivious to the fact that they are being manipulated. It cuts both ways.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Quit preaching to the choir and get out there do something about it.
Prescott Bush - Prescott Bush - Prescott Bush
and?
Prescott Bush!!!
Whenever I post and that name is included I get labeled a troll! Must be a filter or something? A perl script?
Get your Unix fortune now!
Eh...some of this "speak" isn't so new.
"more privacy in the form of total surveillance" --> HUAC, McCarthy et al.?
"government transparency in the form of increased classification of documents, and high moral standards in the form of flagrant House ethics rule violations" --> Nixon?
"smaller government in the form of increased federal spending" AND "isolationist foreign policy in the form of overseas force projection" --> Reagan?
American conservatives have this wonderful way of completely ignoring their own philosophy.
The political definitions has become so muddled that people tend to mix one with another,
Just like I would describe myself as a classical liberal as opposed to conservative.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
You really shouldn't get so upset over a literary allusion. I honestly think you ought to sit down calmly, take a stress pill, and think things over.
Good point. Indeed, it's worse than that -- much worse.
Who funded the Nazi war machine? Prescott Bush, among others. Prescott and his partners made a ton of money banking for the Nazis -- investing in the Wermacht -- throughout the 1930s. Not illegal at the time. A brutal demonstration of man's inhumanity to man, perhaps; but not illegal at the time.
Herr Bush, of course, is father and grandfather, respectively, to two generations of American Presidents (and one generation of CIA Director).
See also From Hitler to MX, documenting other examples of 1930's American investment in the Nazi war machine (and how, after the war, American-back ventures survived unbombed, while their competitors where destroyed). Companies involved include General Electric (sold advanced submarine tech for U-boats), and one or more (I forget which) of the big oil firms.
War is -- dammit -- good for business.
-kgj
-kgj
You might want to read some more about Rosenzweig. Shady characters like that should not ever be considered as candidates for a higher government position. Our country seems to become increasingly corrupt. What is going on here?
Has anyone else noticed that at every chance, Bush has sent the worst possible person to run the government agency that's supposed to protect our rights? It's not just incompetence anymore - this guy hates America.
--
make install -not war
The reason we can run a huge trade deficit is that other countries (The Saudis and asians in particular) are willing to lend us money. The minute they think there is a safer place to keep their money there will be a 'run on the bank'. The economy will be bankrupted and living standards will go into the toilet. Let's see now; China's coming up, India is progressing nicely, the Europeans are getting their act together. I don't think we can borrow our way to prosperity much longer.
you're too moronic to ever get it.
"Homeland Security" has NOTHING whatever to do with either the "homeland" or YOUR security.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Meh! I posted the above, but apparently the great Slashdot didn't see fit to log me on even though I told it to. I'm certainly not afraid to criticize dead conservatives.
Anyway, one more observation on this topic: conservatives tried to excuse all of the above inconsistencies by saying thay they were for the sake of fighting communism. What are we doing today to keep the charade going? Fighting terrorism! That's really the most relevant parallel between 1984 and today's situation: just like Ingsoc, the U.S. always needs an enemy.
The 1984 references are getting very, very tired. Not every bleak occurance is an appropriate occasion to invoke Orwell (or Huxley, or whoever else). Having read a classic book does not make you clever. Lamenting over our tragically totalitarian Amerikan state is not political activism, it's melodramatic whinging. Don't get me wrong; this kind of news gets me as mad as any of you, if not more so. I'm quite a rabid, volatile little libertarian. But please, your radical ideas about life imitating art have already occured to others. Get over yourselves.
I feel compelled to suggest that, in the examples you mention, art was representing life, in which case, it is strange to say that in our current circumstance, life is imitating art. Rather, life is becoming similar to former life.
The current situation is simply a case of well known political tactics being used again as they have at times in the past. However, more people are familiar with the literary works representing those tactics than with the history of their use. Thus, the references to the literature are not really inappropriate.
It is becoming imperative that Classic Liberals, and Classic Conservatives join forces to stop the wholesale destruction of our Republic.
I think both camps are beginning to realize this.
Check this out Both sides coming together against the Patriot Act.
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
"tends to view privacy as something to be circumvented"
I don't remember, but I think when I was a kid (20 years ago) didn't we have the right to privacy here in America. In fact wasn't this always one of the key items that made America so great?
TruePunk | Games
Any money has _no_ intrinsic value. What matters is what you can buy with that money.
If a country sells you ore for 1 million dollars, the value of that million dollars is _only_ what they can buy in return with it. No more, no less. If they can't buy much, then they're giving away their ore to you for free.
So I wouldn't put much hope in an economy that _only_ exports cash. That's an economy that in reality exports _nothing_.
If all you export is printed bits of paper, expect the value of those to plummet very very fast.
The dollar until now did have the saving grace of being perceived as _the_ international standard, and as something worth having reserves of. But again, on the assumption that they can at some point buy stuff with those dollars.
As that perception starts to fade, well, you're already seeing the effects. A huge trade deficit == a fast drop in currency value, until the value of _real_ exports matches that in imports. If you ever wondered why the dollar took a nose dive recently, now you know why: because of that trade defficit.
Want to export even more money? Well, then be prepared for the dollar value to fall even more.
Just keep it up. By the time your salary will be worth a tenth of what it's worth today, well, maybe you'll see what was wrong with that policy.
"Countries don't refuse to do business with other countries because they don't like them much."
True. But they might limit how much they're willing to sell you, based on how much you can actually afford to buy. And by "afford", I mean the value of your _exports_.
"Money is money"
Precisely because of that. What they're interested is what you can get for that money, not how fast you can print bits of paper.
"America is now and will always be a huge market"
China and India are both even bigger markets, and you don't see them being able to afford the same level of imports as you do.
A huge market that can't pay is not much of a market.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The summary quotes Lee Tien (attorney for the EFF), but doesn't include a link (Google's not very helpful here, either). I'd like to read more about the context of what Tien was saying... I don't suppose anybody has a link to the entire quote? I'm curious if Tien includes any examples.
Proud neuron in the Slashdot hivemind since 2002.
Currently $20/year (or more) with a credit card.
-_-
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Ben Franklin
As someone who considered themselves conservative before the religious right got involved, these people are an affront to true conservatives. Changing the ethics rules to favor one of their own crooked leadership, labeling someone who volunteered for service in Viet Nam "Hanoi John" because he later protested a loser war while promoting a dope-smoking, draft-dodging, Conneticut Yankee pretending to be a Texan, running up record federal deficits, and passing legislation to try and override state courts are all actions real conservatives should find hugely revolting.
Conservatives are not your enemy. The Republican party pays lip service to its conservative roots the same way it pays lip service to the religious right. The Republicans are all about money and power at a time the Democrats have gone completely nutless. A lot of times these days you're picking the party that sickens you the least.
And what's with the religious right? Why aren't all those right wing protestants having a fit about Bush kneeling in front of the Pope's body? Hello, McFly! All the world wondering after the beast...any of that ringing any bells? Or are you just all up about gays getting married these days?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
And your bashing of Bush may have gotten you mod points, but the Democrats are no slouches in the corporate malfeasance department. Terry McAuliff was up to his neck in Global Crossing, and the first person Ken DeLay called when the shit hit the fan at Enron was the Clinton administration's Treasury Secretary.
And let's not forget Jamie Gorelick of 9/11 Commission fame ("What memo directing no use of intelligence in criminal cases? Oh, thaaat memo."). She used to get mentioned as a possible Democrat Attorney General. No more. She was General Counsel at Fannie Mae when they did their 11+ billion dollar cookings of the books, and signed off on doing it. You don't see that mentioned in the Washington Post or NY Times.
DHS (Department of Homeland Security) is already
an oxymoron. They are in charge of the non-
existent seaport security (w/ recent incursions
by Chinese stowaways in container cargo), with
nearly non-existent border security (w/ 1-1/2
million illegal aliens entering the USA each year,
up by 50% from before 9-11-2001), and with nearly
non-existent enforcement of immigration laws (28
million illegal aliens in the USA hired illegally
by USA employers).
We have illegal aliens working for the TSA (Trans-
potation Security Agency) as screeners and baggage
handlers, and illegal aliens working construction
on US military bases, and even illegal aliens
working as maintenence contractors at our nuclear
power plants.
But privacy and privacy laws are there to be
circumvented, the Federal government has gotten
(way big time) into the public propaganda "hearts
and minds" battle, and former WH legal counsel,
now our US AG, who proposed and promulgated the
use of torture (and abandoning the Geneva Accords).
The USA Patriot Act (I) does more to undermine
and destroy the USA's Constitution and Bill of
Rights than any other legislation since
the "Alien & Sedition Act" in the early 1800s.
When they finally get around to renaming the
Department of Defense as the Department of Peace,
the conversion will have been complete.
Apparently, science fiction from the mid-20th
century has become the playbook for the neo-cons
currently in power. So I know that they do read
something other than the KJ edition of the Bible,
but only in the comic book versions (with plenty
of pictures).
Speaking of 1984 ministries, the US tried to implement a Ministry of Truth, they called it the Office of Strategic Information. This was my first clue that this administration was run by idiots. I mean, maybe it's a good idea, maybe not, but either way, WHY oh WHY would you announce that you are going to be feeding disinformation to the public?
Bah... do you honestly think that the DHS is going to listen to you?
And you know this because of all the letters you've written that they've ignored?
Not trying to defend DHS, but the idea that we say nothing because they will ignore it anyway is pretty pathetic.
when he says
I think he's right.A little less privacy at the highest levels of government and in the corporate ranks would do wonders for increasing their dismal reputations for hiding incompetance and fraudulent behavior.
Perhaps this new found penetration of privacy could be applied to the Vice President's meetings with business officials to come up with an energy policy. God knows we're ready for one.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
Many political columnists and major newspapers would disagree with you. The test has been called "brilliant."
With regard to Pournelle's Axes,
a) there's no fun test to take
b) you "think" you know where you stand already, so "finding" yourself on Pournelle's coordinate system isn't very interesting
c) And may I say, Pournelle pisses me off, and so does his militaristic fiction. Anyone who can "solve" a planet-wide social problem by killing an entire stadium full of malcontents, even in a work of fiction, should be placed in his own "Nazi" designation. But I guess that proves Pournelle belongs in the Baen stable, along with Weber, who routinely kills off millions of intelligent sapiens, human and non-human, in the Honor Harrington series (and elsewhere) without an eyeblink.
I had to snort at that ridiculous statement. Remember the IRA during its "glory days"? They may not have killed as many people in total, but given the attacks over many years it's no wonder there's surveillance everywhere (not that it's been necessarily effective--change in political landscape has far more to do with the lack of attacks these days).
Yeah ignore this but you can't deny it.
give me a break, we're talking the Department of Homeland Insecurity here, the chief fear-mongers of the world ...
heck, they don't even use warrants or talk to judges or let you talk to lawyers in our modern police state.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Hey, I just happen to vote Democrat. Really though I'm a liberal. Hell, call me a NeoLib or whatever, but I'm not a Democrat anymore. Not after the refusal to push the real liberal philosophy up front. In the last presidential election, the Democrat's actually ran a real liberal. If you don't believe me, look at his anti-war and pro-environmental record - even Bush called him a liberal. However he meant it as a smear.
I think, and this has been said, that the word liberal needs to be re0wned. Labels help - people need them. It's the parties who have failed us, it's not the labels. The Republican party has looked at the liberal philosophy and hated it for years - they have made liberal a bad word. Democrats meanwhile have run from that term. In fact, I'd argue most of the country is really "liberal" even though elections have showed us something else.
I think most people, normal folk, think with the liberal philosophy. The reason the media seems so liberal is because they have been writing with the majority in mind. Sure, the O'Reilly Factor gets a lot of buzz - but actually doesn't do as good in the ratings as you'd think (someone told me a number, but it's an unreliable source. But this is slashdot, back it up or debunk it.)
This is why I'm working on (the GNU FDL) a document "What It Takes To Be A Liberal In America". It's only in pre-Alpha stage, but I hope it will help people feel better when they are called a liberal.
Wear the label!
Get your Unix fortune now!
Warmongers -- secret police -- monopolists -- spammers -- malware writers.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
After the findings of the commission on the 9/11 attacks were revealed, it became more than a little obvious that their biggest problem wasn't a lack of information, it was the lack of COMPETENCE.
...whether a monarchy where the mob is unleashed by a king or a democracy where the mob unleashes itself. No matter what, you're at the mercy of everyone around you.
Sad to say, our open and freestyle way of life has a lot of huge cracks in it you could drive a passenger jet through (and they did on 9/11/1) and these terrorist scumbags are as close to a perfect marriage of willful evil and compulsory insane as you get. There is no arguing with them, their POV is about as rational as any bunch of Neo Nazis, UFO conspiracy buffs, or the crackpots who go on about the Tri Lateral Commission, and they stick to it.
Should we tighten things? Yes. Should we give up freedoms altogether? No. But should we be surprised when the same government that tries to kill flies with shotguns goes after larger game with everything in the arsenal? Government runs on maximum overkill precisely because it is a function of human mob dynamics.
I don't know what the answer is. I don't think we're headed for anything like 1984. I do think we're just going to be doing a lot of things to ourselves that we're going to find we should roll back later on. Might as well calmly talk about it and cut to the chase and avoid the problems in the first place.
Being only human, you know we won't.
If my grammar and spelling are off, I am [distracted/tired/careless] (take your pick)
The other post did not claim that anyone would stop trading with us because of politics. Its point was that trading with the USofA was going to become such a royal pain that it wouldn't be worth the effort.
That won't affect commodities but it sure will affect small companies who have to send sales people and service people across the border. It's already affecting visits by scientists and is the reason that conferences will be hosted elsewhere. Security regulations are also why some businesses have already left the States. If we make it sufficiently hard to do business with us then doing business with us will become unprofitable.
After I became a member, I felt like I was constantly being harassed for money. Every single piece of mail I got from them was begging me for money. Not only that, they sold my name and address to all sorts of environmental and special interest groups. I was bombarded with all sorts of crap - "Protect us! We're Oppressed!" I'm in college... I HAVE NO FUCKING MONEY TO GIVE! I cut my expenses for a little while so I could help contribute to my country, and I feel like they sold me out. This, more than anything, made me decide not to continue my membership with them.
Another thing which made me angry was when Anthony D. Romero (ACLU's Executive Director) allowed private companies to research and collect data from its donors. He did this behind the ACLU boards' back, and it goes completely against what they stand for. I believe Romero should have resigned for this.
Now with all that said, please understand that I am not criticizing the hard-working unpaid attorneys of the ACLU or its volunteers. What you are doing is wonderful. What I am complaining about is the poor leadership qualities and the bureaucracy the ACLU has become. When I'm told the government is out to get me with every piss ant bill congress passes because it "undermines liberty", "erodes personal freedom" and goes against the "fundamental principles" of the United States, it makes it no better when the government tells me they're protecting freedom. Somebody's sig used to say something like "The extreme left and extreme right are both equally dangerous." Anyone with power is dangerous.
"I, for one, welcome our Judeocratic overlords;" thank god people are waking up to the Jewish problem, and the sequelae of said tryanny.
I don't fit into any of the political schools of thought that dominate the scene. Maybe I am closer to Libertarian but maybe not. I don't identify with any group so I look to descriptive workds to communicate the structure of my political views.
I have spent many years studying a discipline (philology) where the term conservative has a specific can descriptive meaning. Conservative traditions are slowly changing, often formuleic traditions which look to tried and true methods. This means that a conservative looks to past values and methods in determining how to solve current problems. To this I also add that small changes over time are preferred over drastic changes.
The opposite of conservative is innovative. An innovative tradition (like the New Deal) is characterized by its attempt to diverge from the status quo. The innovative tradition wants to build something new. Innovative and progressive may be seen as similar.
So I consider myself to be conservative, but not in the way you describe. I see the Founding Fathers as being bastions of tolerance, plurality, unintrusive government (on social issues), and even conservatism. People like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson who even acknowledged that slavery was wrong (Jefferson in his writings, and Washington by specifying that all his slaves should be freed on his death), understood that legislation to this effect would to too drastic at the time, and that it would be too dangerous to the country to risk a schism on this basis.
Even 100 years later, when Abraham Lincoln picked up their torch during a time when slavery was globally coming to an end, this very controversy which factored into his very election also played a key role (though perhaps not as the direct cause) of the Civil War. Abraham Lincoln was acting in a conservative capacity by following in the tradition of the Founding Fathers and helping to force the issue, albeit largely in retrospect, at a time when a real economic change could now occur.
Yet with abortion, gay marriage, and other issues, we are not dealing with the same sort issues of human liberty that we were dealing with in slavery. Indeed, the traditional values of personal liberty, pluralism, unintrusive government, and structural soundness tend to favor a lack of intervention on these issues until there is a reasonably broad concensus about them. So real conservatives should be against bans on these issues, understanding that undermining our plurality as a country is a damage we can ill afford to take on.
Also let me say one thing about ten commandments monuments. I personally I think that in general public places (not schools where they conflict with parents' constitutional rights, though IANAL), I have very little problem with them. After all our national largest monuments are of a pagan nature, from the Capitol building, to the Statue of Liberty. As long as people have no problem with a statue fo Buddha, Tyr, Jupiter, etc. at a courthouse, I see no reason why I should object if this is there. It is part of the pluralism.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Because you've got some good ideas, but the Texas Mafia stole your old name, and you're not going to get it back.
Not all "sex predators" are into kids.
Republicans won't raise your taxes, they will just raise your prices and cut your government services (except those that are on no-bid contracts or pork specials for well connected friends/aka pioneers).
But then yours is not to question why, yours is but to pay and die. If you don't get with the program, I'll have to report you to the Department of Homeland Security.
I'm a conservative.
Where do I stand in line to have my social security benefits slashed by 40% so I can get one of those new personal savings accounts?
I'm a conservative. I try to use as little of my forebrain as possible.
"Why aren't all those right wing protestants having a fit about Bush kneeling in front of the Pope's body?"
Hey as Karl Rove keenly observed, given the stench the current administration is starting to give off, Bush would come out his visit to Rome smelling better if he stood next to a rotting corpse. This was a must do trip.
Your philosophy sounds like political roadkill to me.
You haven't got a chance on the highway of life, with the new republican 301 wheelers running amok ferrying their lobbist cargo.
You've got to learn to climb in the cabin and sleep with the driver, if you want to make it in the brave new world of neoconservatism. Forget christianity. Jesus was a liberal who taugh that the rich would never enter the kingdom of heaven.
The new watchword is republicanism.
Report this guy to the Deparment of Homeland security.
True, nobody forces anybody to read or view anything, but you have to admit that stadium scene was really grim.
m edndangerous_archive.html
Quoting Eric Raymond,
"The difference between Heinlein and Pournelle starts with the fact that Pournelle could write about a cold-blooded mass murder of human beings by human beings, performed in the name of political order, approvingly -- and did.
But the massacre was only possible because Falkenberg's Legion and Heinlein's Mobile Infantry have very different relationships with the society around them. Heinlein's troops are integrated with the society in which they live. They study history and moral philosophy; they are citizen-soldiers. Johnnie Rico has doubts, hesitations, humanity. One can't imagine giving him orders to open fire on a stadium-full of civilians as does Falkenberg.
Pournelle's soldiers, on the other hand, have no society but their unit and no moral direction other than that of the men on horseback who lead them. Falkenberg is a perfect embodiment of military Fuhrerprinzip, remote even from his own men, a creepy and opaque character who is not successfully humanized by an implausible romance near the end of the sequence. The Falkenberg books end with his men elevating an emperor, Prince Lysander who we are all supposed to trust because he is such a beau ideal. Two thousand years of hard-won lessons about the maintainance of liberty are thrown away like so much trash.
In fact, the underlying message here is pretty close to that of classical fascism. It, too, responds to social decay with a cult of the redeeming absolute leader. To be fair, the Falkenberg novels probably do not depict Pournelle's idea of an ideal society, but they are hardly less damning if we consider them as a cautionary tale. "Straighten up, kids, or the hero-soldiers in Nemourlon are going to have to get medieval on your buttocks and install a Glorious Leader." Pournelle's values are revealed by the way that he repeatedly posits situations in which the truncheon of authority is the only solution. All tyrants plead necessity."
Full text at http://armedndangerous.blogspot.com/2002_11_10_ar
As far as the quickie test goes, yeah, sure, they have a Libertarian axe to grind. However, the site really did get some rave reviews from some big political wonks. The two axis idea is interesting.
Of course, are there only TWO axes? I rather doubt it. Let's see an N-space version with a more elaborate questionnaire, minus the Libertarian commentary.