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Some Countries Want To Ban 'Information Weapons'
DrgnDancer sends in an NPR piece on recent efforts to control so-called "information weapons" on the Internet. What's interesting is that the term "information weapon," as defined by many of the countries trying to limit them, doesn't mean what you would think. It's closer to the old Soviet term "ideological aggression." "At a UN disarmament conference in 2008, Sergei Korotkov of the Russian Defense Ministry argued that anytime a government promotes ideas on the Internet with the goal of subverting another country's government — even in the name of democratic reform — it should qualify as 'aggression.' And that, in turn, would make it illegal under the UN Charter. 'Practically any information operation conducted by a state or a number of states against another state would be qualified as an interference into internal affairs,' Korotkov said through an interpreter. 'So any good cause, like [the] promotion of democracy, cannot be used as a justification for such actions.' The Russians, and a lot of other countries such as Iran and China, apparently consider the free exchange of information to be an information technology threat. One that must be managed by treaty."
Seems like a giant waste of money to me. It certainly didn't accomplish much during the Cold war
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
My mom and other relatives are always giving me shit on Facebook about getting a job, and pointing out how my cousin is doing so much better than me. So while we're making it illegal to criticize governments, can we also make it illegal to criticize individuals? I really feel like a lot of people are being ideologically aggressive towards me, and I would appreciate it if the UN would step in and put a stop to it. Thanks in advance for any protection you can afford me as a sovereign individual.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
ping survives!
... information informs you. Err... wait... Nevermind.
Yeah this story was on NPR this morning - Some countries believe Twitter is an ideological weapon am sure that is just what Biz Stone had in mind........ fricken wackjobs
Countries that do not like freedom of expression will do a lot to prevent it, including going into conflicts or trying to push treaties and international agreements that conflate freedom of expression and terrorism.
They have been doing this since people had ideas to argue over. Look it up.
So saying "The Russian government is wrong on this issue" could be considered an attack. Maybe that is taking it to the extreme, but what if it's "The Russian government is wrong and the Russian people shouldn't stand for it". And then there is the slightly more blunt "...and the Russian people should rise up against it". So at what point does that become aggression? I ask in all honesty, I feel like this could have a major chilling effect on negotiations between nations where legitimate arguments could be construed as aggression.
If you don't want to hear of all the wonderful ideas the rest of the world has, stop using the communications medium they use to spread them. It is not the problem of modern nations to ensure your citizens are not exposed to ideas that you don't like. Be warned that some of them may object rather strongly when their own government rips it away from them.
I'm forced to wonder how much the likes of Jesus, Muhammad, and Gandhi keep these sorts of folks awake at night. Someone wraps up an easily expressed idea about how the world should be in a world that needs changing and all of the sudden you have an immortal on your hands - killing them won't stop the idea.
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Yeah, it's not like they turned into a Democracy when the government finally collapsed.
So Germany isn't reunited, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Russia, Slovakia, the Czech Republic don't have free multiparty elections now?
The pushing of democracy in the Cold War, along with a healthy cultural push from film, tv, radio and music helped spur the end of one party rule in Eastern Europe.
So in effect what the Russian Minister said the VOA and BBC in the 60s through 90s was an act of aggression.
Non-russian citizens should not be allowed to make criticism of the russian government which then has no way to send them to goulags for it!
If that can be illegal under international law, we will slid quickly to ideological and religious islands with physical and idea walls around. It is censorship for sure. Not unlike the laws against circumventing content protection schemes. Thats illegal.. When I saw we had done that then I knew we were going to see more tightening and control of information, for profit and in this case for political control (well that is a different kind of profit that controls profit). Years before there were laws passed that made it illegal to listen in to certain radio frequencies or transmissions. That I think may have been one of the first steps in this control of information slide. They acually passed laws that Short wave radio's in this country could only tune to certain frequencies, but of course the fix to open that up to other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum that bathes us all with its sunsine was easy and provided.
When will it stop, those that want to control and profit? Ya need to vote.
This doesn't need a UN charter or treaty to put such a plan in place. Any country that opposes the free exchange of ideas can just cut themselves off from the free world. Problem solved.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Because no rich companies will lose face or contracts like they do when we fight *for* better software less subject to attacks.
So you're annoyed that your carefully crafted message on your state owned media is being undercut by the free flow of ideas on the Internet? Yeah, I'm just not seeing what is in this for me. Do you have some treaty concessions you would be willing to make in exchange for keeping your stranglehold on what your populace sees and hears, because I'm not seeing how this is my problem.
I read the internet for the articles.
... the UN charter so that it specifically excludes from its definition of "aggression" the expression of opinions or the communication of ideas between parties that themselves do not advocate or promote the use of any violent act?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
This is a nonsense issue. Last I heard the US and Britain were on the Security counsel and would veto any attempt to get it though. This is just a way for those countries to say "we don't censor people, we protect them from attacks"
By doing this, are other nations indeed not trying to attack the freedom of speech, religion, and press granted by the very founding charter of the US Government? Is that not in itself a form of agression on another countries Government? Do we then get to hear the UN say "Oh dear, I hadn't thought of that" and vanish in puff of logic?
Today is a gift. Save the receipt.
If this passes we'll finally GTFO of the UN.
There is a war going on for your mind.
You can only kill an idea with another idea. Trying to ban an idea won't work. But we all knew that.
It might be helpful though if blatant propaganda attempts could be mandated to be labeled as such. Let people read the information for themselves, but with the understanding that what they are reading may not be entirely true, may be quite biased/opinionated, and likely has a motive (of some external government) behind it to undermine one or more presently-held ideals, facts, etc.
If we could only apply this rule internally as well, as in the case of the U.S., anything coming out of the FOX News corporation (and other similar opinion-and-propaganda-presented-as-fact machines) could be appropriately labeled prior to public release so that even people who don't know or care or have the time to fact-check can know up front that what they are reading is probably bullshit. People like Jon Stewart have made entire careers just out of trying to keep up with the bullshit (and labeling it as such)--the average person can't possible be expected to keep up and fact-check everything. "News" organizations need to be held to proper journalistic principles and integrity by force of law (if not pride), or else be held liable whenever they willfully pass off lies as facts, and/or be re-designated as something other than a legitimate news organization.
But while we're at it, I'd also like world peace, a ton of gold, and a line of super-models out my bedroom door.... :(
Too bad they didn't figure that out before the US encouraged all their citizens to give up (yes, the ideal of) social equality in favor of fancy clothes.
Sorry, but Moms and "other relatives" have an inalienable right to criticize. Moms in particular.
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Actually Georgia and Russia don't. Hungary, Romania and Ukraine are iffy to say the least.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Yeah, it's not like they turned into a Democracy when the government finally collapsed.
Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Georgia, etc did.
The cold war was not waged exclusively against the soviet union. It was also waged against the soviet "client" states throughout eastern europe, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact. Much of the info campaign was directed at these states.
Just because Russia propper isn't the most shining example of a Democracy, it doesn't mean that Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan aren't.
Sure, I'm sure there's corruption in some of those too, but by no means all of them.
for some reason my control-v is broke right now, but looking at wikipedia it's showing a positive outlook on Latvia, Lithuaia and Estonia, and a 'very serious situation' in Turkmenistan.
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
But Russia and Eastern Europe would have become democratic even without the 24 hour Air America broadcasts.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
If you don't want to hear of all the wonderful ideas the rest of the world has
Wrong. Compare this quote from the beginning of the summary:
anytime a government promotes ideas on the Internet with the goal of subverting another country's government
with this one at the end:
The Russians, and a lot of other countries such as Iran and China, apparently consider the free exchange of information to be an information technology threat
Two things immediately wrong with this: First, Korotkov, according to the former quote, is opposing the subversion of another government, not the free exchange of information. He's not talking about blogs and Linux isos, he's talking about propaganda. Second, if he posits that the internet should not be a permitted avenue for propaganda, how is this suddenly a threat to information technology? Pure hyperbole.
So demanding of a retort was this troll summary that I haven't even had a chance to read the article yet :(
I am literally 3000 tokens away from the chaotic crossbow --Stephen
Just goes to show you that some societies (and apparently their "leaders" more so) just can't wrap their minds around the concept of freedom after so many years of oppression and state-sponsored censorship. I even hear some Russian ex-pats speak of how the people there have just come to expect oppressive government and even go so far as to embrace it now. As an American I can't wrap my mind around that, but I guess I understand the underlying reasons for it. Despite what some think about my government and some of it's people, I feel so very fortunate to have been born in the US and I remind myself - and stories like this also remind me - how truly fortunate I am to live in a free society. And dumb comments about how the US isn't really a free society will fall on deaf eyes. I love my country for better or worse, and not just out of blind patriotism, but because the ideals set forth to create this country are the best we've come up with yet. I truly feel for the people of oppressive regimes and hope that one day they get to bask in the warmth that is freedom of thought and expression.
You may have a valid point (the subject line only though). Does any individual, group, or country deserve democracy, free enterprise, self determination, and freedom unless they are willing to earn it themselves? A lot of nations/groups/peoples simply lack the intellectual capacity to appreciate these benefits and the courage to fight for them when necessary.
Countries have complained for years about shortwave radio broadcasts doing the same thing. They just got around to noticing this "internet thing."
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
They do alot better at trying that they did from, oh infinity to 1991.
Seems like this would be a law against propoganda.... which is a great idea, isn't it?
We have libel and anti-defamation laws. How is this any different?
Air America, the radio network, was a left-wing radio network in the US.
It was a CIA fronted aviation company in the 1960s.
I think you are looking for Voice of America.
for some time now. If they can get the internet classified as a weapon, well then they'll HAVE to regulate it!
eh?
What did you think they wanted to control?
Viruses? Spam? Hardly.
It's another attempt to go after Wikileaks.
If you can't take the heat get out of the kitchen (or capital city in this case)
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
will break my bones and words do too?
0- Eamonman Proud member of DNRC
One of the UN's job is to define what is war.
At no point have they ever tried to get the internet classified as a weapon. They are trying to figure out what action a country can do on the internet that may fall under RULAC.
This is a good thing.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
If there is one thing you should have learned from those VoA broadcasts on more frequencies and with greater power than your jammers could muster, the correct method of winning information wars is not to restrict but to drown out with an even louder voice.
The US government has understood for over 200 years that it doesn't really matter what people say as long as you have a handle on the means to speak over them. This is following the British principle on which the US was founded: the best way to keep people in order is to give the appearance of propriety.
The free exchange of information must be preserved because it stops people getting curious about what is hidden. Allow so much noise to flow but make sure the ruling voice is coherent and you have already won.
>>>The pushing of democracy in the Cold War, along with a healthy cultural push from film, tv, radio and music helped spur the end of one party rule in Eastern Europe
More like a bankrupt treasury.
I give zero credit to the 24 hour propaganda radio.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Just because you came up with a new name for it, its still "censorship".
Maybe they should call it "High Fructose Information Sugar" and people won't notice.
The real Sig captains the Northwestern. This one captains
Second, if he posits that the internet should not be a permitted avenue for propaganda, how is this suddenly a threat to information technology?
There are three different ways you can use propaganda to destabilize an opponent:
When one country is trying to destabilize or take down another country's government, the most effective approach is to use a blend of truth, lies, and mixed statements. The government attempting to resist outside propaganda will declare that all incoming propaganda are sheer lies, but the danger there is that the public will realize that at least some of the propaganda is true, which will make them suspicious about government statements about the false information.
But consider recent comments from Iran about America's use of the death penalty. The statement that we are putting a woman to death are completely true, even though the Iranian government is making the statement in order to cast America in a poor light. It would be easy under a system of rules designed to prohibit outside subversion, to classify such a statement as subversive propaganda.
Thus facts, lies, and mixtures of facts and lies can all be considered subversive propaganda. Is there any other form of discourse left after these three are removed?
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
First, there's no evidence that the blood-stirring interpretation of what the Russian said was the least-bit correct. I would understand the posting by "a country" to refer to material commissioned by and paid for by the government of that nation or by agencies under its direct authority. A person is not a country and "a country" (being a geological formation) cannot post, so that's about the only interpretation I can place on it.
I think that postings by a Government on the Internet for the express purpose of attempting to orchestrate a military coup or a civil war in another nation should be treated outside of the framework of free speech for individuals. I'm not saying that such things should be banned altogether (though I can find no value in them - as I've posted before, I believe violence begets only violence and I see no good coming from such a path).
For someone to equate government pressure to bring down a rival government with, say, a critical posting by an individual on a blog - that's suspect at best and a shame on any who would use that kind of illogic to put forward their arguments. If you have no case with reasoning, then you can have no case without reasoning. Hyperbole and politically-charged speech adds nothing but hot air and bluster.
If you honestly do believe that the Russian referred to ANY posting by ANY person, feel free to reply with the evidence for this. I've backed down before when shown I was wrong. When I don't back down, it's because nothing has been shown and I don't retreat from shadows.
Having got that out of the way, I do believe that government-orchestrated disinformation campaigns and government-orchestrated coup attempts SHOULD be restricted at the very least, in an effective way. It's that last bit that is important. If any government - including the permanent members of the security council - is caught breaking International Law, they should be subject to penalties accordingly. At present, International Law has no teeth, it is merely a way to window-dress acts against another nation that the guilty country could never have got away with otherwise. That is not acceptable.
Now, this isn't to say I think the Russians should be allowed to get away with such statements without putting their own house in order. For example, the Russian Federation is just that - a federation of nations. If the Kremlin interferes in the affairs of any nation within that federation (other than Russia itself), it should be subject to those self-same laws and should be penalized accordingly. The same with Russia trying to manipulate Poland over what Poland can and cannot have on its territory by exerting fear and doubt into the Polish citizenry. Under such a law, this would have to stop and the UN would have to be willing to take the necessary action. No matter what. (Were this line to actually be taken by the UN, Russia would be the first to veto the law. The US would be second. Nobody else really matters in this.)
Interference in a society that is not ready to progress is rarely helpful to either those interfering or those interfered with. It can set both back a long way. In the case of the Middle East, persistent interference over the last 2,500 years is the main reason most nations there are an unhealthy mix of the Bronze Age with the Information Age. They will never develop unless they're allowed to.
I strongly suspect that those who claim to want to impose such-and-such a political or religious system on another nation actually have no such intent at all. It has never worked, in all of recorded history, and it is unlikely to start doing so soon. In the days of the Roman Empire, they didn't pretend it was for the good of the other nation. They were honest enough it was to keep Rome top-dog, with all other societies too fractured to rebel. Again, feel free to provide hard-and-fast evidence if you think I'm wrong. Appeals to my humanity won't cut it.
Now, again, this is interference on a large-scale as can only be done by a huge organization. We're not tal
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
they would just have to ban the keyboard, and reduce the internet to multiple choice questions, with either check boxes or radio buttons,
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Go through the list and count how many are stable, secure democracies. Not Belarus, not Uzbekistan (where they do charming things like boil people to death - read Murder in Samarkand by former British ambassador Craig Murray,), not most of the rest.
the deep-seated Russian desire for an iron-heeled boot on the back of their neck. FFS, Solzhenitsyn seemed to despise 'The West' (even while exiled in New Hampshire).
The US does it to foment "color revolutions", which have succeeded in bringing in pro-US governments in Georgia and Ukraine (though it failed in Iran).
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
So in effect what the Russian Minister said the VOA and BBC in the 60s through 90s was an act of aggression.
Good or bad, it was, and quite deliberately so, but don't give them too much credit. The internal forces were present from the beginning and would have been sufficient without Scorpions and Billy Joel concerts.
Let's have a closer look at them one by one:
Estonia and Latvia have fascist apartheid laws, denying citizenship rights to one quarter and one third of their respective population.
Lithuania has democratically voted back the commies right after they got a taste of democacy.
Belarus is Europe's Last Dictatorship
Moldova's main export is white babies, prostitutes, slaves and human organs. A European country with a GDP per capita of Sudan.
Ukraine is marginally richer than Moldova, with a similar export profile. The worlds busiest slave port is Odessa, Ukraine.
Armenia is slightly poorer than Moldova (after being one of the most prosperous republics of the USSR).
Azerbaijan is a hereditary absolute monarchy with no democracy in sight. Also, an oil- and gas-emirate.
Georgia is a Stalinist dictatorship with a largely impoverished population (after being THE most prosperous republic of the USSR). A police officer makes about five to ten times as much as a university professor. Nuff said.
Kazakhstan is happily ruled on by the same dude that was the first secretary of the Communist Party. Without interruption, mind you.
Kyrgyzstan is on the brink of civil war and would be by far the poorest post-Soviet state, were it not for
Tajikistan, which is already in the state of civil war.
Turkmenistan is a shining democracy and has always been, no doubt. Google for Turkmenbashi, if you need any proof.
In Uzbekistan, the situation is largely the same as in Kazakhstan, minus mineral wealth plus a huge impoverished population.
So?
The next step: if non-state actors use so-called "information weapons", they will be labeled "terrorists". Extraordinary rendition (kidnapping), harsh interrogation techniques (torture), targeted killings by drone (assassination), the whole works.
Yeah, though it's very hard to discuss this with people because they pull the racist card at once. But the point is very valid and I too will post this as AC for the same reasons as you.
The thing is both sets of countries are in a kind of bind.
Russians and Chinese don't want their citizens to know about foreign economic or political systems.
But the US doesn't want stuff like WikiLeaks getting out. The Administration's statements on WikiLeaks pretty much confirmed that they considered it a kind of "infowar".
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Actually I think he means Radio Free Europe.
So, it will be illegal for governments to make propaganda and put in on the internet with the intention of affecting political change in a country other than their own. In the US, where propaganda is perfectly legal, we could argue all day about what is and is not propaganda. So, how does a foreign government make a serious attempt to catch other governments doing it? (spies, perhaps?)
Or will this just be a pretense for unjustified wars? The UN equivalent of yelling "it's coming right for us"?
Sadly, the government will probably jump at this opportunity. "yes, the constitution gives you the right to free speech, however if you choose to use it we will have to extradite you to China to face trial there"
The Russians were interfering the VOA transmissions during the cold war, among others. They have been considering western media as a weapon against them for decades already.
I have friends in Kazakhstan and it is no shining example of Democracy. In one case a friend's parents had to vote for the last president or the university they worked for would have fired them.
But what about Kingdom Come, Guns and Roses and Michael Shanker Group?
Don't discount them!
Germany is more the West propping up the East than reunited. Economically speaking.
"weapons" are things which are intended to do physical harm. "information" is something that exists purely in abstract.
It is a deliberate attempt for a governement to try to subvert the message of another governement toward its own citizen, and bring them to revolt against that governement. Whether you don't like it, it is an ideological aggression, or better named ideological propaganda. Because the message is one *we* like , does not make it less propaganda/aggression. The same way that hacking into a system to remove a virus is hacking, jsut as much is hacking a system to put a virus in it. Now that said, for all those for which free discourse even from other governement is a threat : go fuck yourself three side. It is the sort of aggression I support. Naturally the russian guy is free to try its own propaganda and win a few useful idiot in he west.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
So in effect what the Russian Minister said the VOA and BBC in the 60s through 90s was an act of aggression.
Damn right. It was aggression against people who hate freedom, who want to rule, who sent tanks in Poland and quite a few other places as well over the years.
It was non-violent aggression, which is the kind that actually works.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
>>>Germany is more the West propping up the East than reunited. Economically speaking.
We have the same problem in the US, but opposite (the East props-up the west). Just look at the flow of the US Government's money (from the blue states to the rural red states).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Woodie Guthrie's guitar read "This Machine Kills Fascists". And indeed, every musical instrument, poet's pen, comedian's voice, do also.
(Photo of Guthrie and his facist-killing machine)
"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright #154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin' it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."
This painting was credited by an art historian who taught a class I took as starting the French revolution. The arts and information (e.g., The Federalist Papers which contributed to starting the American revolution) have always been political weapons.
Free Martian Whores!
The UN is nothing more than an international debate club for the world's wealthiest and most powerful citizens. In the conflicts where their presence was needed most, they have utterly failed. Instead of "Never again," their motto should be "Again and again." UN members are mostly tin pot despots looking for ways to tax citizens of the west and shift western private wealth to themselves. None of them have individual liberties in their interests, and their goals are mostly antithetical to western principles of self-determination. Screw them.
The 24 hour propaganda radio was highly effective. Same with the 24 hour propaganda movies and satellite TV broadcasts.
Wait, you're not talking about Warner, MGM, Michael Jackson, and Levi Jeans?
The ______ Agenda
What's interesting is that the term "information weapon," as defined by many of the countries trying to limit them, doesn't mean what you would think. It's closer to the old Soviet term "ideological aggression."
Well here on the English speaking internet, we call them trolls.
And I think you'll find banning a dedicated jerk is a lot harder than you think. Good luck with that!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Except in the US the rural states are the ones the East and South keep poor by controlling large percentages of land through the BLM, National Forest Service, National Park Service and DoD.
Oh and we get the American Indian Reservations, you know the people the Blue States of the East and South kicked out 180 years ago, but the Red States feed, provide fuel and natural resources.
Look at Presidential Red States
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Red_state,_blue_state.svg
They have the bulk of the military bases, Indian Reservations/Alaska Natives, food production and energy.
The Blue States are powered by the Red States, were the US to splinter along those lines, the Red States are in better strategic shape to remain a country. California, Oregon-Washington would be fine, but the North East is boned.
Twitter is an extremely potent ideological weapon. If I tweet "I just ate a tuna sandwich", people in countries who don't have a tuna sandwich will be dissatisfied. They will wonder how their government has failed them and this may lead to civil unrest or even revolution. Now, if I tweeted "I just ate a tuna sandwich and an apple" ...
[Insert pithy quote here]
Certainly the CIA/US color revolutions are much better organized (and relatively peaceful) relative to the older methods of getting a regime changed (usually to secure rights to mineral and other natural resources, like the previous Congo/Lumumba reference or many others you could choose from.
What makes the CIA organized "color revolution" overthrow of the old Georgia government interesting is that without Georgia "we" (as in our oil companies) may not have been interested in Afghanistan - and if we were, Europe would not be interested in participating. Europe and the US are "investing" (money, lives, you name it) in the Afghan war so that the US can sell the oil through Afghan/Georgia pipeline into Europe. Profit!
lot of other countries such as Iran and China, apparently consider the free exchange of information to be an information technology threat.
WTF are they going on about - have they been living under a rock?! The greatest current threats to the free exchange of information via the internet are coming from the US, UK, Canada and Australia. All China, Iran etc can do is limit their own population - much less threaten the wider internet like these "Spreading Democracy" countries are.
If you had any idea on what you are talking about, you'd know that the UN couldn't pass a resolution doing anything to the US people. Only the US government can choose to take party on a treatry, forcing it upon their citizens.
Rethinking email
In one case a friend's parents had to vote for the last president or the university they worked for would have fired them.
Everybody might want to keep this example in mind the next time somebody tells us that we need voter verification built into our electoral system.....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
You know what, this is a good subject for me to propose my plan for world peace, yes really.
I feel like we should give cameras with video to everyone we can along with making internet connections available, maybe via satellite. Then people could video tape and post all the BS that goes on in the World. While I know this isn't a magic bullet, I can't help but think that people everywhere will think twice about shooting kids if they know for a fact their actions are likely to be recorded along with their face!
Cameras haven't ended violence in the US, but I know people are learning that they may end up on "candid camera".
Lets see, in the decades after the US became a democracy, it had no votes for women. Had legal slavery based on color of the skin. Denied citizenship to asians and the natives. Slaughtered millions of the natives and deported the survivors to concentration camps where they were expected to slowly die with no natural or mineral resources.
The former USSR nations are not doing great, but most have NOT yet slipped as low as the past of the US of A.
Why do you compare the US after 2 centuries of freedom with newly freed states?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Stop repeating this lie. The US does not have a "two party" system. You are perfectly free to vote for any third party candidate you want. Don't think third party candidates can have an impact on the electoral system? Just ask Al Gore....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
True, but thanks to them, NATO rocked them like a hurricane.
THL phish sticks
So will this prevent the likes of Glen Beck and Ann Coulter from broadcasting outside of the USA?
To answer your question, no I didn't RTFA, I couldn't even be bothered to read past the headline.
I think there were problems between Colombia and Venezuela some months/years ago because Chavez tried to promote "his" candidate for colombian elections. US isnt exactly free of blame in that field, trying to influence foreign countries elections thru more or less "official" press, specially the international ones like CNN. What makes one being right and the others wrong?
Is ok that international, somewhat objective organizations promote the freedom of information, that should be known all, nothing hidden or censored, wikileaks, eff and others are doing good work there. But if you have a government that actively pushes some partial, rigged or just plain wrong information trying to damage the ability of self determination of other countries, there you have an aggresion. Calling it weapon could be strong, or not, same could be said about economical embargos for political reasons, not condemning violations of human rights from friends while doing it against others.
Remember, your truth not always is the truth, if there is ever one. Don't force on others something on which you could be wrong.
Why do the red states have the bulk of military bases? Stimulus/pork-barrel spending. As for energy and food... who exactly would the red states sell them to? Let's see what the red-state economies look like when they don't have the blue states to purchase their goods.
We're interdependent. Neither "side" would fare well independently without a sizable period of time to adjust.
What's indisputable, though, is the OP's point, which you failed to address. The red states are subsidized by the blue states, quite heavily in most cases.
That's a bunch of whargarble. It's not federal or regional control of land that keeps the rural states poor. More arable land isn't going to help you get richer. Mineral extraction is a slightly different matter... but the mining companies know they can get minerals much cheaper overseas. It's not federal land management that makes the US a poor prospect for mining... it's labor costs and environmental/social regulations. As an aside, I think those regulations are a good thing.
As for strategic viability of red vs. blue states... Blue states have more and better ports. And the cash to buy things to get shipped into those ports. Can't say the same for the Red states. Short-term, food and power are issues. But money can overcome those issues. Not sure about the red states ability to overcome their issues... lack of capital. Lack of ports. Lack of infrastructure in general (especially once the blue-state subsidy is gone).
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
They don't. I cannot speak for all of them, but currently Russia is a one-party system, with other contenders being actively suppressed and harassed. It's no coincidence that Russia is the country to suggest such a thing in UN.
mmm....the word "information weapon" was tossed around quite liberally, I apologize for not choosing my words more carefully. That being said, it seems the Wild West approach to the internet has served us all pretty well so far, I'm not sure additional regulation by the world's ultimate bureaucracy is necessarily a good thing.
"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not."
"At a UN disarmament conference in 2008, Sergei Korotkov of the Russian Defense Ministry argued that anytime a government promotes ideas on the Internet with the goal of subverting another country's government — even in the name of democratic reform — it should qualify as 'aggression.' "
Read the above, and please describe how this (in any way) is a good idea. Please help us all to understand how we could have taken the above quote out of context, and that considering the promotion of ideas should qualify as "aggression".
Here, let me play a scenario for you... I submit that Sergei Korotkov just initiated an aggressive act against all countries who recognize the individual right's of free speech. Thus, this is an act of war by his own definition. He has chosen allies, and began the first battle in a war.
See what I did there?
To claim that the expression of information or ideas can be classified as acts of aggression is in itself aggression looking for a trigger. It boils down to a simplistic excuse to attack others if you don't like what they are saying to you and your citizens.
It's not even a slippery slope. It's a cliff. Example: Wikipedia claims that democracy is good. That's a clearly aggressive act against totalitarian states. Justification to retaliate in this war granted unless you censor us from your political beliefs!
Justifying one thing as aggression carries with it the implication that you're just in defending against such "aggression" with more aggression. The more that the definition of aggression expands, the more aggression we'll all experience.
www.facebook.com/DareDefendOurRights
www.fairtax.org
I'm thinking that Texas has all the food, ports, capital, and fossil energy they need at the moment (wind power is being developed; the environment would be fair-to-good for solar as well), and is red as can be.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
but the North East is boned.
Umm, I agree with everything else you said, but this comment is a bit of a reach. Pennsylvania has rich energy reserves. New York and Pennsylvania both have decent agricultural sectors and could easily be self-sufficient in food production. Heck, the only reason they aren't is because of the market distorting effects of subsidies to the corn belt and the factory farming of California and the South. Natural resources are trickier but that's where trade comes in. The US isn't self-sufficient in many of them anyway even with all 50 states.
The West has problems that the Northeast will never have to contend with. Water availability for starters. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the concept that you could ever run out of water (the joke around these parts is that the Northeast is a rain forest with snow and no malaria) but that's a very real danger for some of the Western states that have experienced population explosions. Lake Mead is at <40% of capacity and still dropping. Evidence now suggests that the Colorado River Compact was based on abnormally high rain levels and the recent "drought" is actually a return to normalcy.
They also waste absurd amounts of water simply trying to emulate the East. When I visited Utah and Nevada I couldn't get over how much water I saw being used simply to keep the lawns green. Will people still want to live in such locales if that ceases to be viable and their little slice of suburbia is reclaimed by the desert?
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
"anytime a government promotes ideas on the Internet with the goal of subverting another country's government -- even in the name of democratic reform -- it should qualify as 'aggression.'"
Yes, indeed, if you are part of an oppresive regime, or want to be, freedom is a direct threat to YOU. You are engaged in, or preparing for, a war against freedom. And free states are under the threat of the oppressors, who have to oppose them to survive. This is war at its most fundamental, and the oppressor states that support this seem to understsand that, and are acting to either deter the threat or eliminate it.
And this U.N. initiative, in case you missed it, is their most devastating attack on freedom yet. To suppress even the awareness of freedom is their best defense. It will fail, eventually, but they have to try, or face an even quicker demise. So they try this now.
Which side are you on? You will have to choose, you know. Someday, somehow, you will have to choose.
We have a good idea which side Russia, China, Brazil(WTF?), Chile (ditto), Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Mali, Sudan, India, Madagascar, Myanmar, Vietnam, Serbia, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbyjan, Turkmenistan,Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan, and Nicaragua are on, and they are not alone. Other states will gladly support this if it comes to a vote.
The U.N. has a majority of states that do not favor freedom. They are your enemies if you do. There is no in between, no compromise, just an uneasy coexistance.
You will have to choose. Do so wisely.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
China and Russia surely do strangle the flow of information and so does the U.S.. Any day now the specs on the vastly obsolete M1 rifle will perhaps no longer be secret. And Julian would not have to worry about trumped up rape charges or whatever they throw at him next. Matter of fact information seems to try to hide in deep dark pockets and it takes both effort and risk to liberate information.
The reason why military bases tend to be in "Red states" has little to do with pork barrel politics (although that does have an impact) but rather where the real estate is at.
If you are going to blow up a nuclear bomb, which would be better: Nevada or Connecticut? Heck, the folks in Utah didn't complain (too loudly and only well after the fact) when the wind from the bombs carried the debris in their direction. If nukes had been tested in northern Pennsylvania, there is no doubt that the "down winder" issue would be something much more prominent on the national level. Having military bases in your state isn't always the cash cow that it may seem, and there certainly are costs associated with the base that must be lived with afterward. Where I live a brush fire from some artillery practice (originally reported as a machine gun test) burned down about 10k acres of land and took out three homes, threatening to become a major urban conflagration with 1700 families that were evacuated from the fire front. And you are complaining that you want these bases in your back yard?
I had no idea Radio Free Europe, Russia, Cuba, China, god knows what, were sucky ideas.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The article is talking about outlawing subversive information "attacks". Not the general free speech of individual citizens. For example, allowed:
Not allowed:
Labeling a country a democracy dosen't magically turn it into one. Neither does the multiparty system.
That's one example of where geography determines the site of military bases.
So why do states fight like the dickens to keep military bases when there's a round of base closures?
No, that's not what I said. But you do recognize that decisions on locations of military bases has often been political, and the bases are a feather in the cap of a politicians when he's battling for votes? Military bases == jobs. Those states with poor employment fight the hardest for military bases because the jobs are so important to them. Funding gets handed out as pork to entice support for other things.
(And FWIW, we have some issues with artillery ranges in the blue state I live in. For example, errant artillery fire hitting houses, live rounds instead of dummy rounds setting fires that burned 10000+ acres and some homes, etc. Every 2-3 years there's some accident that causes a quickly-forgotten uproar)
There is a massive amount of wealth transfer that happens from blue states to red states, and I question the ability of red states to get by without that subsidization.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
And why do Americans tolerate a secret police with secret jails and people imprisoned without trial by soldiers in a communist country?
Yes, I am of course talking about the CIA. Do I need to explain the rest?
There is a comic I am to lazy to look up with Obama refusing to destroy the one ring at mount doom after obtaining it from the dark lord. Gost, Guatanomo Bay still hasn't been closed has it. Mighty handy all those new secret powers Bush game himself. To tempting to give up.
People want certainty. On the whole, the masses want to believe that there is someone in charge who knows what he is doing. Religion is the simplest answer to all this. We are born, we die. Why? God controls it all according to a plan so no worries how little sense it makes, there is a plan.
You can see this in places like Syria. It is, oddly enough a secular nation, where the leadership after decades of mismanagement and leaning to radical Islam is not starting to fear radical Islam because people distrustful of the ruling elite see in radical Islam a new savior, a new certainty. How do you think Hamas came into power? Because Fatah was just not believed anymore. Billions have been donated and the elite live in luxury (check were the wive of Arafar lives, how much its costs and who pays for it) and the population does not. So they seek the next promiser of salvation. Hamas has absolutely nothing to offer. It hates democracy (which is why no arab nation has ever offered to hose the palestinians, they are to western from contact with Israel and might demand elections), women and anything modern. But people wanted to get rid of the untrusted/uncertain leaders and looked for anything better.
Find this hard to grasp? Then look no futher then the teabaggers. Glen Beck as the salvation of the US of A? My god. Just how delusional can you get?
Or for the dutch, Geert Wilders. The guy HAS raised some intresting issues that need to be addressed, but who in their right mind thinks an VVDer can solve the dutch problems? His kind got only one mantra "CUT SPENDING, LOWER TAXES" and yet he got elected by claiming to be against spending custs. My my, he sure couldn't drop that fast enough once it became time to negiotate about a cabinet. If it is was all a masterful plot by the VVD to capture the hard left (people who believe in social projects but only for the right/white people) then it couldn't have gone better.
Democracy for the Russians has brought the end to them being the number two power (and if you know your military power, a war between the US and USSR might not have gone as Americans might have hoped) to a nation riddled with crime, reduced to a backwards nation once again with all the certainties of a state run economy gone. So, they got freedom. freedom to have you tiny business taken over by the mafia is not better then not being allowed to run a tiny business at all.
For the average person pretty much anywhere in the world, live is not all that splendid and filled with opportunity. Most live very simple lives, hopefully holding on to a job long enough to retire and have a pension that last long enough till the cold dark grave delivers them from this hell.
Yes, HELL. Why do you think some versions of Christianity make heaven out to be such a big reward. Why do you think Islamic suicide bombers want to commit suicide?
But to these people, democracy, economic freedom don't really mean anything. they are not the ones send to the goulags or stoned to death or lynched by people in bedsheets. They are the baker who delivers bread to that barbed prison camps where they take care not to notice all the people arriving yet none ever leaving. And if you give them a choice between all these uncertainties and problems and a ruler who says "do this, and I will provide", they listen.
THAT was the big failure of the west. We believed that once the iron curtain fell, everything would be well. Iraq, Afghanistan are just the same. Just holding elections and thinking everything is fixed i
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
There are two parties that have a shot at power. You can try to influence the parties so their policies align more with your own (but that was true in most of the communist states to some degree), but you exercise power by voting for them or not.
Gore didn't lose because people voted for Ralph Nader. He lost because people didn't vote for him. Since the effect of voting for Ralph Nader could be perfectly duplicated by writing in Donald Duck, turn your ballot into a lace card, or not bother to show up at all, it's wrong to give him either blame or credit for what happened.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
It starts raining paper with the word Freedom on it!
I'm thinking you might be surprised about that. Could Texas's ports support all of the red states? How much money would need to be spent to connect them to the Mississippi?
Food production? Hardly. Texas can't produce enough food to feed itself. They're a food importing state just like many of the blue states -- with the disadvantage of not enough water to use all their arable land.
Energy-wise, you're right. Texas is positioned much better than many of the other red states in terms of self-sufficiency. But Texas alone can't support the drain of the other red states... they are just barely in the black for federal balance of payments.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Remember the demographic of the people here, most don't remember anything earlier than "desert storm", "Glasnost" and "Perestroika" are before their time and beneath their radar!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
More like a bankrupt treasury.
I give zero credit to the 24 hour propaganda radio.
I think 24 hour propaganda radio had a lot to do with driving the treasury into bankruptcy. Western radio, TV, and film showing the technological and social advances made in the west provided a lot of the pressure for the soviet block to push their own development and at least to maintain the appearance of a dominant military in an international version of Keep Up With the Joneses.
In the absence of Western propaganda, the internal soviet propaganda could just spout the latest triumphs of the glorious workers' state and not have to push the crumbling (and shattered, after WWII) economy to out-do the US's latest military wonder.
"So in effect what the Russian Minister said the VOA and BBC in the 60s through 90s was an act of aggression."
Rock'n'roll as cultural WMD? I approve.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
There are two parties that have a shot at power. You can try to influence the parties so their policies align more with your own (but that was true in most of the communist states to some degree), but you exercise power by voting for them or not.
Gore didn't lose because people voted for Ralph Nader. He lost because people didn't vote for him. Since the effect of voting for Ralph Nader could be perfectly duplicated by writing in Donald Duck, turn your ballot into a lace card, or not bother to show up at all, it's wrong to give him either blame or credit for what happened.
What keeps a major third party from really developing in the United States?
"information weapons" is just a catch phrase for telling truth to assholes like the people who run the Soviet Union. Er..ah..excuse me,.. the People's Democratic Republic of Russia. Whatever. The rulers of Russia were assholes 500 years ago, they were 100 years ago, they were 50 years ago and they are still assholes today. Nothing ever changes there in terms of leadership.
Normally I consider it not to be of any concern to anyone lucky enough not to live in Russia. But they have about 6000 hydrogen-to-helium converters that have a tendency to ignore environmental regulations on waste-heat management when they are operated. It would be best not to piss them off lest they decide to send a few of these H2He converters floating down on our neighborhoods. We get enough shit already from the idiot Moslems already about those fucking cartoons. We don't need any more problems from assholes who can't tell the difference between freedom-of-speech and a weapon.
This is what happens when nulkulturny shit-for-brains psychopaths get hydrogen-to-helium converters. We have to pretend that they are civilized people.
It really is in the best interest of all the freedom-loving people of the world to make sure that assholes don't get hydrogen-to-helium converters.
Funny that you've mentioned 100% feudal states like Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan as shining examples of new democracy.
The government shouldn't be preaching ideology to anyone about anything. Why should my tax dollars be used to tell me what to think? Democracy doesn't work that way.
If so, does Russia object to that too? (I'm sure it's much worse over there.)
Louisiana is a red state so Texas could ship it over there if Texas ports aren't up to snuff. Texas has four of the ten biggest ports in the US.
Port of Houston - 202,047,327 short tons
Port of Beaumont, Texas - 91,697,948
Port of Corpus Christi, Texas - 78,924,757
Port of Texas City, Texas - 68,282,902
I spaced Pennsylvania, the price of posting from work.
There's a question of how one would form. In the past, the alternative took it's base from one of the other parties. All this did was to let the party that wasn't split in half. And there's really no where else to get voters from. There is the non-political block, which is sizable, but they're DEFINED by not voting. And the third-parties are all super-small.
So as it stands, the only way to get another party is to break off from one of the two and then devour it's base. Kinda like how the religious right took over and perhaps what the TEA-baggers are going to do. But this doesn't so much make a third party as transform one of the two. And sad as it is, if one party is for it, the other is against it by default.
Touché, "Anon. Coward"! I'm going to bookmark that list.
Duverger's law. Up until the point where you replace the second largest party, you will only hurt your own interests more and more the larger your party gets.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
I don't know how I forgot that... oops.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Russia collapsed in bankruptcy, but it seems almost certain that cultural influences and "24 hour propaganda radio" were contributing factors in that financial over-extension. It contributed to the paranoia and ego spending to keep up militarily, as well as stressing them to support a domestic economic image. The people wanted western goods and envied images of western lifestyles. The population was always told they were the greatest most powerful nation on earth with the best government and best economic system, and so they wanted more than they had, they felt entitled to more than they were getting. A population will be relatively content at almost any standard of living so long as they have nothing to compare it to, or if they don't feel entitled to equality. On the other hand when there is economic discontent that energy generally flows into ideology and ideals. Since they envied western goods and western lifestyles that energy would naturally get funneled into western ideology and ideals. To the extent the Soviets failed to keep up the domestic image it fueled problematical political pressures, and to the extent they did sustain the domestic image it overstretched their economy.
I don't mean to oversimplify the causes of the Soviet economic implosion, but I don't think it is correct to completely discount "24 hour propaganda radio" and surrounding media and cultural influences. I believe they increased, and focused, the pressures that ultimately drove them off the financial cliff.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
against Hitler was "aggression" and justified Hitler's physical attack against England?
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
On the road to total control of people. Basic knowledge has to be limited at some point to keep the people in line.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Seems like a giant waste of money to me. It certainly didn't accomplish much during the Cold war
It certainly didn't accomplish much during the Cold war
It accomplished a lot in the Cold War. Most notably, it gave millions of Soviet citizens the idealistic picture of a perfect life in capitalist states, so much so that, when perestroika came, large part of the population were actually pushing forward because they wanted to see heaven on Earth that would surely come once true democracy is established, and all industry is privatized.
These unrealistic expectations, by the way, are one of the major causes of why Russian democracy quickly collapsed the way it did. Way too much was promised, and way too little delivered, under the brand of "democracy and freedom", which is now firmly associated with that failure. Which makes it damn hard to push for actual democracy and freedom in Russia today - you will inevitably be referred to as "the follower of those bastards who raped the country in the 90s".
A true story reflective of all this. In early 90s, there were mass pro-Yeltsin demonstrations of miners. A video recording from one of them shows a miner telling to the camera: "I'm sick and tired of communists. I want a business owner, a master who knows how to run things right! I want to work for the master, get paid well, and have my vacation on the Canary Islands!". The guy got his master, for sure, but, unfortunately, not the pay or the vacation parts. He died a few years later from alcohol poisoning in his apartment - same one he had in the USSR.
Estonia and Latvia have fascist apartheid laws, denying citizenship rights to one quarter and one third of their respective population.
--> a foreign population that was colonialisising them under Soviet rule.
Lithuania has democratically voted back the commies right after they got a taste of democacy.
--> which doesn't mean a thing. Democracy is not about political preferences but an organisational principle.
Well, it isn't. While the Soviet zone joined the Federal Republic, eastern German territory is still under lasting Polish or Russian occupation.
As did the Soviets provided financial support to the leftists in Europe. The Soviet System collapsed for financial reasons.
The bias of your election system that is non-existent in other nations.
Very good point.
I traveled all over the States when I was younger, and noticed something.
The farther one gets from the coast or a large ocean-connected body of water (Great Lakes, etc.), the harder it becomes to find anything other than the "staples" of life. Fewer jobs, less opportunity, lower levels of education.
Name a democracy formed from a failed state that was stable within the first decade or two after it's inception.
What does their employer's actions have to do with Democracy? Voter verification can be abused, but it's not undemocratic. Would you call Congress undemocratic because their votes are public?
Democracy just changes the way leaders get into power. A feudal society is a feudal society, no matter how it picks it's leaders. I think you're confusing democracy and freedom. The two are not synonyms. One does not automatically, or even usually lead to the other.
Their employer is the state.
I thought university would give that away.
Why do you think that? I think capitalism was inevitable, but democracy is not something that would have come to Russia naturally. Someone else would have simply taken over. Even with Democracy they ended up with another strongman with an iron fist.
I used to do stuff at a cash strapped volunteer radio station. Every month we'd get reels of high quality tape from some propaganda mob in the USSR. We loved those tapes. A few seconds on the bulk eraser and they were as good as the best blank tape we couldn't afford. I think somebody played one once looking for Cuban jazz.
It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
What about those that are trying, why push a bad form of government on them?
The truth is, communist-anarchy is the best form of government (kind of self governance), through meritocracy.
also, the Amish don't seem to be doing too badly.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
"Economic implosion" happened years after Communists dismantled their economy and placed Libertarians in power.
Russian Libertarians, of course, were parroting US-originated propaganda by then, so Americans were told (by the same propaganda workers, of course) that things happened in the reverse order.
This is why Russians are so against hostile propaganda campaigns, and this is why nothing Americans can say now, will change this.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I think you mean double-assed.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Thanks in advance for any protection you can afford me as a sovereign individual.
Sorry.
Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a territory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty
And we all know who is the _real_ authority in your basement.
Sure, I'm sure there's corruption in some of those too, but by no means all of them.
I think it is worth bearing in mind that whereas corruption in power structures is universal, democracy is really a mostly Western invention. Also, although the stated purpose of democracy is to put power in the hands of "the people", the real purpose is to defuse the tensions and dissatisfaction that arises when people feel unhappy about their rulers - in a democracy they can always say "Look, you have elected us, so stuff it".
Anopther thing is that democracy is a luxury enabled by the wealth we enjoy in the West. Democracy is a big, lumbering, expensive and inefficient contruction, which is why it is normally suspended during war; that should provide a hint about why so many poor countries find it hard to see the use of it.
What if, hypothetically speaking, at a secret location in the desert, we have a gigantic server. And, let's say, for ze sake of argument, that this server contains a vast quantity of information critical of ze government of another country. And this server is connected to a giant bank of comp... uters programmed to deliver its message to ze Internet completely automatically should our own country be subject to any kind of attack. Ze information would be of a nature so so critical that ze mere suggestion of its public release will strike fear into ze other government. The foreign government would be so paralyzed by this fear that it wouldn't dare to attack us!
Mein Fuer! I can WALK!
Of course, for this to work we will have to tell someone about it first.
You would hope so, but British Police have arrested 6 men for burning the Koran on 9/11. Many probably consider it stupid & ignorant but it should never be illegal.
I think you'll find that was the peace loving Germans in 1939...
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
If you come out with some ridiculous racial insult (all Russians are stupid, or whatever the GP was aiming at) then you are being racist, so why wouldn't people point this out?
The best way to avoid people thinking you are stupid is not to say stupid things.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Estonia and Latvia have fascist apartheid laws, denying citizenship rights to one quarter and one third of their respective population.
Let's just stop here. Can't speak of Estonia but Latvia has one of the most liberal citizenship laws in EU. I believe that knowledge of official language, state history and national anthem is not so much to ask. There other problems like willingness of non citizens to get citizenship (till now it much easer to get Russian visa for non citizen than citizen) and lack of motivation from government part. But you cant call it fascist state or fascist laws.
Actually, I was primarily thinking about Texas itself as self-sufficient. But if we include the other red states, I don't think we would have a problem with ports and food.
BTW, Texas would have a lot more available water (at least in some parts, like the hill country) if the land were managed better. Much of the hill country was valuable ranch land, but is now choked with cedar, which draws an enormous amount of water from the ground. Wildfires kept the cedar population naturally under control before white men came. After clearing much of the cedar from a ranch, springs and streams have actually been found to flow again.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Why would I assume university meant state-run? I went to a private university.
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For some reason my control-v is broke right now...
Right click?