Slashdot Mirror
Patriot Act Game Pokes Fun at Government
The Miami Herald is reporting that a new game based on Monopoly is taking a crack at Patriot Act and what creator Michael Kabbash describes as the curtailed freedom that has resulted. From the article: "The object of the game is not to amass the most money or real estate, but to be the last player to retain civil liberties. 'I've had people complain to me that when they play, nobody wins. They say "We're all in Guantanamo and nobody has any civil liberties left," he said. 'I'm like "Yeah, that's the point."'"
Sure, it's funny...
But if these people would have spent a little more time working with their representatives, or mobilizing petitions, or SOMETHING that actually affected the political systems, they might actually have what they want. Now, they've got a much talked about game, and rights are still just as infringed-upon. Yay for you.
Nothing to see here, move alone.
(or something to the effect) But a quick reload showed that "The Man" did not in fact supress the story.
I'm downloading this right now...looking forward to playing it with the in-laws next Sunday.
Here's one of the 'Homeland Security' cards:
Absolutely priceless.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
Answer me TMM.
The game can be downloaded here.
One of the most troubling things about the current situation is that your average Joe Sixpack has no idea how far the current administration has gone in their efforts to decieve them and strip away their inalienable rights. Once they're properly appraised of the situation, they're usually pretty damned mad about it.
Getting the word out is one of the most important ways we can fight this assault on our liberty. The people in power thrive on ignorance. Anything that deprives them of that is positive.
____
~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
And if more people become aware that there is a brewing problem with attrition of their rights, how is that a waste?
What's more beneficial to the bottom line of a popular movement -- one individual sending a letter, or one individual getting two people to send a letter? Or how about one individual making 1,000 people 0.2% more likely to write a letter?
Few people want to talk about civil liberties at the water cooler during their afternoon break. This game is interesting enough to be water-cooler fodder, which is a good thing -- raise awareness of the issue.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Yeah, we're losing all our civil liberties but some guy is still free to openly criticize the government without fear of the FBI showing up on his doorstep.
What is going on in China is an example of a lack of civil rights. Some guy calling people who criticize the government unpatriotic isn't an example of someone trampling on your rights. It's an example of that person exercising their right to free speech, just like anyone else is free to do. Just because you don't agree with it doesn't mean the guy should be censored.
I'm not necessarily defending what the US government is doing because I myself think some of it is wrong. I just can help but think that people are blowing things out of proportion and there are too many who seem to want free speech provided it's consistent with what they themselves believe.
If the government gets away with things its the fault of the citizens for caring more about crap like American Idol than they do what their politicians are up to. Then again, Europeans generally seem to be better informed and they have even less say over what their governments are doing than Americans, but that's a whole other story.
Have you ever written a representative or senator? Ever gotten anything besides a standard intern-generated-and-stamped form letter? The only people who actually have access to politicians are big donors, and they're generally part of the system and part of the problem in the first place.
Petitions are nice, but the real way to raise awareness is to go to the people, not the politicians. If a game like this can raise awareness, more power to it. At the very least, it made some newspapers, and now Slashdot.
So don't dismiss it so quickly: I would say the creator of this game has already done more than you to bring about change. Awareness is important.
Looks like a diverting way to spend an evening. My question though: I've heard some talk of there being a MMRT/LA* version and I was wondering if anyone had any information on how to opt out?
--MarkusQ
* Massively Multi -Player Real Time / Live Action
It's the "sound bite" media that's really doing us in. And "they", the media, are doing it because that's where the money is. There's no profit in being rational, careful, insightful, and just using common sense. Sensationalism has overtaken the media. Trying to get the issues past that, well, is impossible. Let's face it, folks want the sensationlized version. They want to feel superior to the "stupid" people who have a different opinion from theirs.
Saturday is April 1. Slashdot will be shut down. Sorry for the inconvenience.
And you know for sure this is true? Moreover, you know that they haven't, in fact, petitioned the government? There's nothing that says just because you do one thing you to make an impact can't (or haven't) done another as well. Personally, I think it's a lot better than the usual sit-on-your-@ss-and-take-it method most people have, as it might help spread awareness.
On the other hand, I don't see the game lasting long as it probably infringes on varying aspects of monopoly...
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THE GOOD BOYFRIEND
(Male Gain story)
By fa12345
Mark grabbed his substantial belly with both hands. Since his girlfriend Janey left for college, he'd promised himself to take ten pounds off his 260-pound frame, but it wasn't going so well. In fact, he'd actually put on weight since she left. He missed her, and in her absence found himself eating lots of "comfort food." He now struggled to button his jeans under his gut; he promised himself to go on a diet and lose some weight before he visited Janey at school.
Meanwhile, Janey sighed and looked at a picture of Mark on her bulletin board. How handsome he was, with a head of thick brown hair, intelligent eyes, and a tall frame. And he carried his weight so well, with a delicious belly and the beginnings of a double chin. At 260 pounds, he wasn't a small guy, but she still wished he were bigger, maybe 300...350...did she dare to dream of more?
She'd never told him how much she wanted him to put on even more weight, but she'd tried to get the message across. She gushed over how much she loved his body. She stroked his belly during lovemaking, saying how hot it was. At meals, she'd subtly encourage him to eat more: "Oh, you can't be full *yet*!" She'd say, urging him to clean his plate, or "I bet you can eat a *few* more," with a challenging glint in her eye. She'd talk about her favorite fat actors, emphasizing their sexiness. But he either didn't believe her, or didn't want to gain weight. She tried to give up the dream, but it never disappeared entirely.
Looking at the picture of Mark, Janey had an idea. She scanned it into her computer, then signed online. She found one of her favorite webpages, a gallery of pictures of enormously fat men. She downloaded a favorite shot into her photo program, of a man holding up his shirt to reveal his huge breasts, giant stomach, and love handles. She took the head from the Mark picture, and put it on the fat body. She made Mark's face more jowled, and added a third chin. There!
Janey surveyed the results, and felt herself grow warm. She'd done a good job, and it actually looked like her boyfriend had gained at least a hundred pounds. The idea of making love to *this* Mark, his blubber bouncing against her, made her incredibly hot. She masturbated right then and there, imagining how his rolls of fat would feel under her hands. She put the picture up as the wallpaper on her computer, so she could look at it anytime. Janey could hardly wait for Mark's visit in a couple weeks.
On the day he was to visit, Mark stepped on the scale, wincing. Every time he'd tried to diet, it had only made him hungrier, and his consumption of junk food had actually increased. He looked at the scale and groaned: 275. Gre
Yeah, we're losing all our civil liberties but some guy is still free to openly criticize the government without fear of the FBI showing up on his doorstep.
Your line of reasoning rang a bell. Where did I hear it before? Oh yeah, I remember:
You are confusing "going away" with "gone"; just because at sunset there is still more than enough light to read by, you can not conclude that daylight is not going away, and should not draw comfort from the fact that it isn't as dark as it is somewhere else on the planet.--MarkusQ
Just in case you're wondering, the link to the website is here: http://graphix4change.com/portfolio_PA_game.html Oh, and this is a board game not computer game. You can download and print the board/cards/rules etc and play it. The game is not for sale and it doesn't have a license from Hasbro.
keyboard not found! press any key to continue...
..."the only winning move is not to play" gets smacked.
This game sounds eerily similair to Police State, a game that was developed in the 1960's and inspired by life in the Soviet Union. The goal was a little different - you were trying to become the Soviet Premier (basically, the only person with any rights) while avoiding being denounced by others and sent to Siberia. The game board was even vaguely Monopoly-ish (in appearance, not in play).
If you're curious, you can see the game here.
Must... think up... something... clever!
...could someone PLEASE finally tell me what civil liberties are threatened by the PA?
I've been hearing about this for five years or so now, but it's always this vague "oh no they're taking our civil liberties". No one ever actually states the real problem.
When did it become so difficult to actually inform the people, rather than just spout the equivalent of sensationalist headlines? It's hard to be worried about the PA when I haven't been affected by it at all and no one who tells me I should worry can tell me specifically why.
Preemptive strike against negative mod points: This is NOT a troll, I'm honestly asking for information. In five years of reading stuff like this, no one has ever pointed to specific items from the PA that directly threaten my liberties. I tend not to believe anything I read on the web unless the author can support it.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
Does anyone know of an online monopoly game or even a good download with ai?
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
Anybody notice that the game rules / cards seem to randomly use 'lose' and 'loose'?
Unpleasantries.
You know, like me. I don't want my gov't spying on me with no paper trail...no way to determine in the future if something bad was done.
Bush wants this, because the curent wiretap rules allow him to spy for days before getting the warrant. The only reason I can think of for Bush not using this system is that he doesn't want anyone finding out that he is spying on people who are not a threat.
I smell a filthy no-login Freeper!
Blar.
You know, more games should (no, not kidding) have political leaning and teach people about the political situation of today, and the history of American meddlins in the middle east. Maybe, just maybe, people will become aware of what their tax dollars have done to their fellow man in impoverished countries, and just maybe, with enough people, a few small but key changes could come about.
I always give a great deal of respect and support and love to people who try to keep an eye on the government, and even more when they have a sense of humour about it. The reality of the situation, for all citizens, is kinda like a parent trying to keep an eye on a really mischevious kid who likes to steal your stuff and money and beat up other kids, but instead of an unruly pubescent child, you have an army of secret agents and powermongers to try and keep from running amok.
Ex nihilo nihil fit.
Monopoly isn't privately owned. It was developed as a 'folk' game by Quakers, and was in the public domain. Parker Brothers engaged in fraud in an attempt to get a monopoly on it, ironically enough--but they failed.
http://www.antimonopoly.com/ for the story.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Hasbro don't own Monopoly.
http://www.antimonopoly.com/
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
They haven't come for the Jews.
They haven't come for the Communists.
They haven't come for the trade unionists.
And they haven't come for you.
Maybe you wish that they had, so that your message would have more meaning.
My other first post is car post.
Yea, yea. Blah blah. Go felate Karl Rove some more you overstuffed NASCAR inbred. Bush could be standing in front of you biting off the heads off small children and you'd still get down on your knees and grovel like you were looking at God Himself.
You asked, I answered, you're clearly a child who should be doing his homework, so get back to work. I'd like to think that not everyone from your generation is such an imbecile, otherwise I'm going to starve in my old age.
From now on, I buy only Intel.
"You know, more games should (no, not kidding) have political leaning and teach people about the political situation of today, and the history of American meddlins in the middle east."
I.e., instead of games I should get pure propaganda.
And not even that, but some nerd's unilateral lopsided own One True Way in which everyone should think. Forget about thinking for yourself, let Mr Game Designer tell you exactly what you should think about economics, politics, ecology, etc. Never mind that he isn't actually qualified to talk about any of those subjects, and never got any actual education or training in those fields. He's not any more qualified than your average cabbie or barber talking about how to balance the economy when they can't balance their bank account, but don't mind that. No siree, don't let such things as "education", "expertise" or "reviews by qualified peers" (qualified and peers in that field, that is) get in the way of being taught the One True Way to see a problem. Trust Mr Game Designer. He's read something vaguely on that topic in a blog once, so he's qualified to tell you what to think.
You know what? No, thanks. If I want information, I'll take it from someone who has a Ph.D. in that field, not from cabbies, barbers, game designers, and other completely unqualified people talking out of the ass.
And either way, it's still propaganda. Where have we heard that before? Oh, right, there was this Chinese game discussed right here last week: Learn From Lei Feng Online. Let some propaganda spin-master tell you what to think. E.g., how dangerous the capitalist spies are and how you, as a good Chinese citizen, must unmask them and thwart them at every turn. (I.e., go tell the police when one of your friends says unpatriotic stuff already. They're probably a spy working for those capitalistic pigs.)
Does it sound like disgusting propaganda yet? Well... what makes you think I'm happier to hear _your_ propaganda?
Whatever happened to the idea that a game is just entertainment? If I play a game, it's just to waste some hours unproductively and hopefully in a fun way. If I wanted to spend it taking sides and shouting pro- or anti-government slogans, I'd go to some party's meetings instead. It's that simple.
Being force-fed propaganda isn't a game, and isn't fun. Being preached at isn't fun. Having the game punish me for stuff out of my control, just to illustrate someone's own agenda, isn't great gameplay. It's that simple.
Even the idiot discussed in his article, what did his friends tell him? Right. "I've had people complain to me that when they play, nobody wins" Ah-ha. They complained. I.e., they weren't finding it fun to play.
What's his answer? "I'm like "Yeah, that's the point."" I.e., his goal wasn't to make a fun game, his goal was just to shove his personal ideology and agenda down people's throats. No, that's _not_ the whole point of game design.
In a nutshell, no, I don't think we need more games like that. I think that what game designers should be doing is design a good _game_ and devote more time to _gameplay_. If you need to sacrifice gameplay for any other agenda points, then that's your clue that that point doesn't belong in the game.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Because while it may seem great when 1 nerd reaches 200 people with his propaganda, it's a two-way road. The shafting that's the mainstream media can extend just as well to games.
And for what? Chances are that anyone who actually plays something this monumentally stupid and non-fun is already doing it for the preaching part, so it's all just preaching to the choir. You won't get too many _normal_ people playing an idiotically designed game where every step is a 50% "game over, you got sent to prison" chance.
But it just starts a slippery slope that can lead to some big money muscling into this kind of territory and out-shouting the lone millitant nerd by orders of magnitude. And:
1. Let's be honest and start with the selfish reason: in my playing time, I don't give a flying fuck about it all. That's the time when I relax, forget about it all, and only care about shooting the next bear in WoW, not about politics, economics, whatever. It's the time where I _lower_ my stress levels, not the time to get someone to try to get me more frenzied about some point on their personal agenda.
There are already too many people competing for time to tell me what to think. All over the TV, radio, newspapers, billboards on the way to work, etc, I'm bombarded by basically being told what to think. Heck, even at work, the memos come around telling me again, what to think. I quite like having some time to myself when I actually get entertainment, not propaganda. I'm _not_ looking forward to games becoming yet another battle-ground for lobby groups, special interests, and PR spin-doctors competing to spoon-feed me their own version of The One True Way.
2. Because I find it all insulting. There's something inherently insulting in an attitude saying basically, "I know you're too retarded to use your own brain. Here, forget about using that stupid little brain of yours, let me tell you exactly what to think and how to view this problem." That's the underlying attitude of all these busibodies and zealots -- ranging from Jack Thompson, to religious zealots, to the local "back in my day the grass was greener" nostalgiac, to whatever -- trying to tell you what to think: they think everyone else is just too stupid to evaluate a problem on their own, or to have a list of priorities of their own. And I find that insulting.
Doubly so when it's from people who aren't qualified to discuss it anyway. People who can't balance their grocery expenses tell me exactly how I should view balancing the economy. People who can't even fucking find France or Iraq on a map, tell me exactly what I should think about them or about the US presence there. People who can't even deal with a new guy at work, tell me about how whole countries should deal with each other. Etc. Hello? So someone utterly incompetent and unqualified is trying to call me even more stupid than that?
3. Because it's just not fun to play such idiocies. Look at the description in the very summary here. Everyone who actually expected a game and gameplay -- as opposed to pre-existing zealots looking for something to reinforce their zealotry -- _complained_ about it. Unsurprisingly, because it violates several principles of good game design, starting with: don't create "bang! you're dead!" situations where the player suddenly loses for no fault of his own and without any chance to react. The thing doesn't just give gameplay a secondary role, after preaching, it outright deliberately tries to not be fun to illustrate a point.
4. Because I quite like choosing games purely on gameplay reasons, and not on which side did the publisher align with. I can just see a future in which MS games just serve to preach that outsourcing is good and monopolies are good for the economy, Vivendi games just preach that the USA sucks, EA Games got paid by some lobby group and preaches a third thing, Sony games a fourth, and Nintedo gets yet another party's or lobby's money to carry their message. And where you end up choosing games and companies based on whose message
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
How long until someone writes a client and a server, turning it into an online computer game? I bet it won't be long.
You know, REDACTED had a chance to look over REDACTED, and it looks to be a pretty REDACTED REDACTED about the problems us REDACTEDs are facing with the increase in REDACTED's REDACTED, even as REDACTED's support wanes here in REDACTED. But REDACTED wouldn't worry, since REDACTED sure REDACTED will REDACTED before REDACTED's too REDACTED. Then again, REDACTED just a bleeding-REDACTED REDACTED, so what do REDACTED know about REDACTED?
*****
Dear Mary,
I yearn for you tragically,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, U.S. Army.
When did Civil Rights become Civil Liberties?
When they become Civil Priviledges, I'm running for the hills.
Jake
Dating: while( 1 ){ call_girl(); get_rejected(); drink_40(); } return 0;
God damn these terrorist-lovers making fun of our necessary, liberty-protecting, brilliant legislation.
[thought]Ought to keep me safe for at least a weak.[/thought]
A block of code, sufficiently well-written, is indistinguishable from magick.
I have a lot of American-Arab in-laws and they are regularly mistreated as they go from airport to airport. The only time that my wife did not recieve a "random" security check was after she married me and got my American last name.
My brother in law, who couldnt hurt a fly, has been checked every time and treated rudely and even interrogted. His high school band went on a trip to Washington DC and a tough-looking Secret Service agent asked him if his last name was "some kind of joke."
My father-in-law regularly runs into the same kind of problems.
These are merely anecdotal, but this shows that those in official positions sometimes rely on predujices to decide who is "suspicious." This has been true even before the Patriot Act. It just makes me worry that these officials will label someone as suspicious just because of their last name. Why arent they looking for better evidence instead of wasting their time strip searching everyone whose name last name ends with Al- ?
http://archive.salon.com/comics/tomo/2002/04/01/to mo/index.html
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
While it seems like most of us slashdotters are in agreement of how the Patriot Act is dangerous and unconstitutional, it seems as if the majority of the American people support it. Their mentality seems to be this, "Well there's no reason for ME to worry". We need to change this viewpoint in order for change to occur. This game is a step in the right direction.
Sure hope there are wacked out protest cards too. I'd especially like to see the people getting duped into protests organized by the Communist party, under the guise of "peace protests".
I laugh my ass off when I see people with stunned looks on their faces when they realize what the rest of the protesters are saying. "Chavez? War for Oil? CIndy Sheehan?"
LOL!
Well that's really clever. Next I'll be making the game Nuance, where if you're an individual or a labor union or an activist of any type, you automatically win, and if you're a corporation or the government or a capitalist then you automatically lose.
At least games will be shorter than his droning crap.
Two things are very predictable here:
/. is only now getting around to posting it.
1. This story has been out for a while, but
2. This story trashes the Patriot Act, thus it gets an automatic berth.
Here's an idea: instead of making board games, why don't you vote out your Senators and Congressmen? While you were busy making funny little downloadable games, they re-authorized it.
I'm not a fan of the Patriot Act myself, but for christ's sake - quit acting like little bitches and do something productive with your discontent!
Most of the cards read "You loose one civil liberty".
Can't a professional designer learn to spell?
But honestly, how many people griping about Bush/Ashcroft today thought that Clinton/Reno were A-OK?
I for one, dislike them both (see here and here for just a few recent posts predating this thread, to substantiate my claim...google should turn up more, back to the Clinton years, when Marc Rich and the Gubernatorial pardons of attractive women roused my ire). But whenever you attempt to level a rational criticism of a politician you discover that you will be instantly labeled a partisan, and the substance of your point dismissed.
Which leads me to a conclusion: attacks on politicians are frequently non-partisan (especially during primaries, when the parties eat their own to impress the masses) but defenses of them are almost always partisan. This includes the sort of "why don't you criticize this guy instead" defense going on here. It's my firm belief that reasonable people of both parties (for what it's worth, I happen to be a Republican) are appalled at the sort of shenanigans that get pulled by the leaders of both parties, but that the highly partisan yahoos always jump to the defense when their side's in power.
What Bush is doing is wrong, and frankly he should be in jail. The fact that Clinton may well deserve the next cell over is not an excuse, it's an example of how bad the problem realy is.
--MarkusQ
Wait, it's not a computer game, but something I have to download, print out, and then cut out in order to play? And it's gonna be all monochrome on my laser printer, and I wouldn't waste ink on it. Heh, my apathy gets the better of me, ironically - its more work than I want to invest, political statement or not.
They're coming for the pedophiles
They're coming for the necrophiliacs
They're coming for the zoophiles
They're coming for the murderers
They're coming for the rapists
your moral compass isn't the only one and isn't the standard by which morals should be judged for "Them" "coming".
All this Patriot Act stuff is just a Yale political science research project to determine which rights actually are inalienable.
So far, they're getting lots of good data; indeed, it may be that the Declaration of Independence needs to be reworded, with phrases such as "conditionally inalienable"; "all men, equally, are created"; "That for security, Men are institutionalized by Government", "deriving their just powers from the labors of the governed," and so on.
However, this research project doesn't extend that far. Its purpose is succinct and well defined -- the question of which rights are actually inalienable. Future research projects will test out other aspects of the Declaration
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
I dunno if it's exactly what you're looking for, but have you tried out NationStates? It's free and all that...
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
I have to answer this question with another question. How many people would have been all for Clinton or Janet Reno having the same powers under the "Patriot" Act? I for one would not!!! Personally, I have very conservative values. Being a conservative does not necessarily make me a supporter of the Republican party. When it comes to choosing to keep the protection of our rights or giving them up in the name of a war against a tactic, I will choose to keep the protection of our rights. The media propagandizes a "War on Terrorism." Terrorism is NOT an ENEMY. It is a tactic used by an enemy.
I am not even questioning the intention of Bush, Congress, or the court system. Only the Almighty knows the true intentions of one's heart. I'm just questioning how politicians will use these powers in the future. History shows that just about ANY country that has created a Ministry of Internal Security became a police state. I already believe that police and government officials already have way too much power. The more a government does, the less power people have.
We are already told how and where we can build our homes, what equipment we can have in our homes, when we have to sell our homes and to whom (eniment domain abuse), when and if we can add to our homes, what evidence we can use in our defense, what types of code we can write, and the list goes on and on. I would rather see a terrorist get a fair trial in a local court and be hanged from the oak tree out in front of the court house (if he is found guilty) than I would for this nation's freedoms to be held hostage by runaway government.
There are several things that can be done that will protect Americans against those who would harm us from both within and without. Having the governemnt do a good job of monitoring and regulating the border is one of these things. If this was done the P.S.A. government could stop letting in people from countries which have high concentrations of enemy personnel. The U.S. government could also stop screwing over its citizens. A citizen which has been screwed over or feels that he or she has been sufficiently screwed over will make a prime candidate for recruitment by enemy personnel.
When a nation has freedom and the people feel that the government works to serve them, the nation will have a massive army (the people) that will willingly fight to the death to protect that nation. Most American will be still willing fight to the death to protect this nation, however will we be willing to fight to the death to prop up the powers of the political cartel? I don't think so. If even 5% of the people of thi nation rose up and guarded the borders and coastlines, I guarantee that the courts and government would rise up against that 5%.
A nation that has a government that ignores, puts off the concerns of, or runs roughshod over citizens rights will grow a cancer from within. This is where the P.S.A. is heading. It is hard for a common man who works for a living to be able to get a fair day in court without almost depleting his savings. (It is extremely hard for any of us to get a fair day in traffic court on any day). Find a family who has had everything stolen from them by the I.R.S., or a family that has had their home stolen from them by a city council and given to a corporation, and I will show a family that is a prime candidate for recuitment by enemy personnel.
The last declared war on something other than an enemy was declared by President Reagan. This war was declared against various chemical compounds called drugs. What has happened since? Crystal meth, crack, and many others continue to be sold around this nation allowing drug dealers to wreak havoc on this nation while just about every working man, women, and child are forced to piss in cups in order to obtain even menial employment. In the Police State of Florida, there is a law (Unconstitutional) against publishing information about how to beat a drug test. Drug tests are almost as widespread as drugs, and yet the drug pro
FWIW, I can run Tropico nicely under wine-0.9.10-1.fc4.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Bush got re-elected.
That is democracy for you. Very few people can accept it when democracy results in laws they do not approve off. The left of the patriot act and similar stuff. The right of abortion and social security systems.
Some even go so far as thinking that democracy is right and good and would result in good goverment if it ever really was allowed a chance and not corrupted by rightwing and/or leftwing extremists who have hidden agenda's and god knows what else the paranoid come up with.
Sadly in the real world even if you had a pure democracy where people would vote for ideas not people you would still be faced with the fact that it is people doing the voting.
Normal average people you meet everyday on the street.
The difference between a dictatorship and a democracy is ultimately the size of the group that does the telling. It don't much matter to the group that is being supressed. Ghandi had a saying that went something like, "what does it matter to the person wether they were killed in the name of freedom or oppression".
Oh, and as for the people who protest against it? Well take this board game. The maker is an Arab civil rights activist. Not Human rights. Very important. Name one arab/muslim who has every fought for someone elses rights.
Then there is: U.S. citizens get 5; non-citizens 1. Whites and Asians get 5; Arabs 1. Ultra right-wingers get 6; Democrats 3 or 4.
Where are the blacks, the jews, the hispanics?
No, this again is democracy. Everyone votes for himself. Wake me when we get a real Civil rights activists who is for EVERY human being. Not just his own group.
You can also wake me when a single arab/muslim run country has even a sliver of the human rights that the evil west has, even the west under Bush. It is no excuse for westerners but it certainly means that arabs should first fix their own affairs. Just check resent developments in indonesia where muslims are suprresing the other religions for being to erotic.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I downloaded it ... does that mean the NSA is now surveilling me, scanning my email and planning my trip to tropical isles?
Hey, the Dept of Education (and several of the others, Labor and Energy being at the top of my list) certainly *ought* to go; Reagan didn't fulfull that promise well enough.
;) If you're in a Borders or similar bookstore, I think the relevant segment starts on page 177.
Speaking of small government and superflous departments -- check out the book The Undercover Economist, by Tim Harford; he makes some IMO quite funny jabs at the Cameroonian Department of Tourism, whose chief job seems to be discouraging tourism
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
what else can i say.
one way or another, via changes in government or through other strictures that come into place, any time ANY organism alive on this planet gets out of control, it comes under restraint by other organisms or forces. i lament this loss as much as anyone, but then i'm careful not to take part in the lawlessness and excess. i don't like the current atmosphere, i'm merely saying that it's obvious why we have this tendency at this time.
free speech? do we merit it when criticism has ceased to be constructive, and debate is carried out on a level of one-liners and insults? how about RESPONSIBLE free speech?
then there are any number of other freedoms which are warped into rationalizations for criminality. the "free" market was the cover for Enron and Worldcom. "free" expression became a cover for gangsta hip-hop with its love of guns and abuse of women. how about RESPONSIBLE free expression?
folks, stop blaming the government and the one-world conspiracy and Bush/Blair. it's time to grow up, meet responsibilities, engage in issues seriously, not in a mode of Saturday Night Live comedy or cynicism. maybe in ten years or so, assuming changes in our conduct, the pendulum will move in the other direction and society can again function on trust and consensus. it's not only foreign "enemies" but us, out of control, that causes the pendulum to swing toward control. our excess is partly responsible for the increased stringency of "policing" in areas of life. i need not point out that the same excess is practiced in the government itself as it tries to police the excess.
You just do a little better each time.
sic transit gloria mundi
The 4th amendment is undermined by the Patriot Act in the sense that there is not sufficient oversight by the judiciary over searches and siezures. The rest of your post has very little to do with the USAPATRIOT act.
However, the real issue is that this is part of a much larger trend including (as you mention) extraordinary rendition, warrantless and widespread wiretaps, and so forth. This pattern has been gaining steam since at least 1997, so it is not just a reaction to 9/11 nor is it fully to be blamed on the current Administration.
These are scary times in which we live, but in the end our greatest foreign enemies may have miscalculated and given us a chance to preserve our great republic.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
On a related note: I plan on leaving the country. Permanently.
Do not collect $200. Lose citizenship for a turn.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
This is NOT a troll, I'm honestly asking for information. [...] I tend not to believe anything I read on the web unless the author can support it.
So, you aren't trolling, you're just trying to... get someone to argue with you?
You can't take the sky from me...
FYI
--- widget evolution: enhanced, plus, super, ultra, extreme, exxxtreme, ultra-extreme,
It would be great if they combined this with something like http://www.bushspeech.org/ .
But surely deviation from the good truth is deviant and should be punished?
"Anyway, to summarize, what I'm proposing is like an educational game, only not in mathematics, but political science."
Oh please. One party's/lobby's/etc one-sided half of the story isn't political science, it's just dogma. I hate to break this news to you but "science" is a bit more impartial a _process_, and make no mistake it's all about "process" and "method", not about ultimate truths, and _not_ about "you're the ones to blame unless you join preaching on our side." So slapping a "political science" label on your pet dogma or conspiracy/slippery-slope/whatever theory does not make it education.
"Unless you're one of those folk that run around screaming that liberals are ruining america by, say, doing some real fucking research, or that the left made us lose the Vietnam war by protesting against it and decrying its stupidity (in which case, you're just an idiot)"
Ah, how refreshing, the fallback to "you're probably one of the enemies, and an idiot to boot." Was wondering when that would be scheduled. So if I don't join your preaching choir I'm against you liberals. Right?
Did I mention one-sided dogma and propaganda yet? Good, because it looks more and more like that to me.
How about that, plain and simple, I'm just a _gamer_ in my gaming time? I'm not either a Republican, nor a Democrat, I'm not either liberal or conservative, not left wing and not right wing. In my gaming time, I just care about gameplay, not about your preaching agenda. I'm just there to collect golden rings, shoot NPCs, or whatever the game is about, and have a fun time, not to get a dose of "liberals = good, conservatives = idiots ruining the country" (or viceversa) propaganda.
You want to discuss politics? Good. Then do it in the rest of the time. Then I'll be happy to tell you what I think about both the Republicans and Democrats. It might involve some graphic metaphors. It might also involve some pointing at Europe, where we still keep our politicians in check and they at least try to look like they're not bending over for the highest corporate bidder. It might also involve some suggestion to go vote instead of just whining about how everyone else is an idiot. Etc.
But when I'm gaming, I just want _gameplay_. That's all. The purpose there is to be entertained, not to be a medium for your political propaganda.
And yeah, that's exactly what I'm proposing: when I want to know something, involve "doing some real fucking research", as you aptly put it. I don't need some wannabe politics zealots telling me what I should think, and how I'm an idiot if I don't join in preaching their One True Faith.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
This is frightening real. Consider the potential here. BinLaden has won the war against freedom ! Mystery
MYSTERY
1. Senators and congressmen of the US government cannot be voted out by non-americans. Many victims of the patriot act are not american civilians.
2. Senators and congressmen make massive use of television and newspapers. Most of their opponents do not have the same acces to mass-media. So they look for other, creative ways to get their message through. Like board games.
Trust me, I work for the government.
I have fond memories of trying to avoid a global nuclear war while trying to become the sole super power in the world. Fascinating game from way back in 1985! Balance of Power
I call the turban for this round! (I hate being the shoe)
I guess I'd be more concerned about my rights of dissent if there weren't so many awards going around for famous people performing in big movies about how the government stifles dissent.
#-#
Ad Astra Per Aspera
A rough road leads to the stars
He's not the only one to do this:
Search eBay for Patriot Act Game. I was expecting to find people packaging and selling his game, but it turns out it's a completely different game....also based on Monopoly, also poking fun at the Patriot act, civil liberties, and the terrorist threat.
I like the free one better, though, it seems more thought out.
...you are playing the game mean that you still have civil liberities?
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
You can find it to if you're actually interested in reasearching what really happened.
Now, you tell me: Find an example of a steel-framed building that has collapsed from fire. Ever. In all history.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
The summary mentions a Michael "Kabbash".
What is he trying to put himself on?????
"The more you watch the footage of 9/11, the more obvious the lies become. But don't take my word for it...do your own research."
I had two very close friends who were in visual range of the towers when this happened. I trust them with my life. They told me what happened and I beleive them.
You, on the other hand, are a notorious conspircay theorist and general shit talker, with absolutely ZERO credibility.
Frankly, sir, you're a liar, and the testimony of my friends is all the proof of that I need.
"The government grants you rights, not the other way around."-- beav007. Yes, these people really exist...