Slashdot Mirror
Democrats Propose Commission To Investigate Spying
metalman writes "Wired has a story on a proposal by House Democrats to 'establish a national commission — similar to the 9/11 Commission... to find out — and publish — what exactly the nation's spies were up to during their five-year warrantless, domestic surveillance program.' The draft bill would also preserve the requirement of court orders and remove 'retroactive immunity for telecom companies.' (We've discussed various government wiretaps, phone companies, and privacy violations before.) But it seems unlikely that such an alternative on phone immunity would pass both the House and Senate, let alone survive a Presidential veto."
You have a two party system because the system is built in a way to favor a two party system, smaller parties have huge barriers of entry and they cannot gain traction.
Of course as ultimately a society is determined by the people composing it, the responsibility belongs to the people for the state of matters, but the current sitation is different than just living in a two party system and most people accepting it.
Consider voter turnout, it is considered very low, even for a (sort-of) democratic country. People would vote for other parties, but those parties never get the chance to gain traction due to the built-in favorism in the system towards major power blocks. Ultimately, this is going to be an uphill battle for you guys, you need to change the way your system works and probably the most success you'd have is by going on a roundabout way on this matter: start from education, from history: do not worship your founding fathers because they established this system (even if it was considered enlightened in their age), teach critical thinking, disrespect for authority, establish independent information channels, inform, inform, inform. Tell people about things they don't want to hear: individual social responsibility, collective action for the individual (but overally positive-sum) good, etc.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
The administration's instinct to strip away our freedoms in the name of desperate fear is misguided. Rather, we should be supportive of people in the middle east who are growing weary of being ruled by fundamentalist Islam. Fundamentalism, whether Islamic, Christian, or otherwise is fine for those folks who self select into it but it is tyranny when it gains the backing of coercive power.
This article is about one Sheikh in Saudi Arabia who is tired of being bullied by fundamentalists in Saudi Arabia. The US should invest 1.0% of its current Iraq war budget in people like him rather than creating converts to funadmentalist Islam with our war in Iraq. Nurture a moderate alternative and fundamentalism will remain small.