Republicans Block Latest Attempt At Curbing NSA Power

Robotron23 writes: The latest attempt at NSA reform has been prevented from passage in the Senate by a margin of 58 to 42. Introduced as a means to stop the NSA collecting bulk phone and e-mail records on a daily basis, the USA Freedom Act has been considered a practical route to curtailment of perceived overreach by security services, 18 months since Edward Snowden went public. Opponents to the bill said it was needless, as Wall Street Journal raised the possibility of terrorists such as ISIS running amok on U.S. soil. Supporting the bill meanwhile were the technology giants Google and Microsoft. Prior to this vote, the bill had already been stripped of privacy protections in aid of gaining White House support. A provision to extend the controversial USA Patriot Act to 2017 was also appended by the House of Representatives.

Comments

So basically

[magsol]

A watered down version of the original bill with the name "FREEDOM" in the very title still couldn't pass muster once the WSJ put the words "terrorist" and "ISIS" next to it.

Re:So basically

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on, we know that it was dead before word one was written. I'm just curious when libertarians will admit their people are just as in bed with money as the rest of us so we can finally fight the money together. The ones with money are the ones taking all your guns and taking all the jobs.

Re:So basically

[i kan reed]

Libertarians don't admit that because they typically don't admit to voting republican in the first place.

Re:So basically

[Anonymous Coward]

Libertarianism is just Big Government renamed to Big Government Inc., with less accountability to the people.

Power always finds a vacuum.

Re:So basically

[jeffmflanagan]

>Libertarianism is just Big Government renamed to Big Government Inc., with less accountability to the people.

This is why most of us grow out of our Libertarian phase by our mid-20s.

Re: So basically

[mc6809e]

Interesting, though, that the vote happened after the election, when it was known who would control the Senate in 2015 and 2016. And interesting that those that are losing power oppose surveillance while those that are gaining it support continued surveillance.

This might suggest the possibility that each side fears the use of the NSA against them by the other side.

I'd hate to think the USA has gotten to that point but I don't think anything would surprise me now.

Re:So basically

[LF11]

...and become anarchists?

Re:So basically

[operagost]

Only the ones who are either crony capitalists or abject failures who depend on the government for their sustenance.

Re: So basically

[CrimsonAvenger]

This happened now because the Democrats knew it would fail (if they'd thought it would succeed, they'd have pushed it BEFORE the elections just past), and wanted to get the good publicity for being AGAINST THE NSA!!!

The Republicans voted against it because the Democrats were for it.

Neither Party's position had anything to do with their opinions about the issue (they're both in favour of the status quo) - it was a purely tactical vote.

Re:So basically

[meustrus]

If the entire government became Libertarian today, it would take less than 10 years for corporations to take total control of governance and we'd have just as much (or probably more) squashing of individual liberties, but no longer any accountability to voters. There are many powerful players in society and I'm not one of them. Does it make me a crony capitalist or a welfare queen when I decide I'd rather the power go to those I can vote out of office than those I can't?

Re:So basically

[Pope Hagbard]

Represent! I went through the standard semi-privileged white nerdy male libertarian phase in my late teens to mid-20s, then grew out of it.

Re:So basically

[Anonymous Coward]

it's called neuron loss

Re: So basically

[tomhath]

Mostly correct. Republicans voted it down because this is a lame duck Congress and everyone knows the bill was just a PR stunt. Next session the Republicans will agree on a bill that will pass both the House and the Senate (unlike this one which was DOA).

Re:So basically

[IamTheRealMike]

If the entire government became Libertarian today, it would take less than 10 years for corporations to take total control of governance and we'd have just as much (or probably more) squashing of individual liberties, but no longer any accountability to voters.

Isn't that a contradiction? I'd think a libertarian government would not want anyone, owners of large corporations included, to take over governance. That's kind of the definition of libertarianism, I thought.

Additionally, I'm having a hard time recalling the last occasion on which a company squashed my civil liberties. Actually I don't think it ever happened. Companies, even big ones, are typically very simple creatures compared to governments - they have simple needs and simple desires. Even companies that can't be easily reduced down to the profit motive (most obviously Google in this day and age) still have quite simple motivations, in their case "build sci fi stuff".

On the other hand, our awesome western governments routinely kill people for merely being in the wrong place at the wrong time or receiving a text message from the "wrong" person (see: signature driven drone strikes).

Whilst these governments aren't quite at the stage of drone striking people who are physically in western countries yet, they certainly are willing to do lots of other nasty things, as residents of gitmo will attest. So given a choice between a government that did very little and mostly let corporations get on with it, or the current state of affairs, it's pretty hard to choose the current state of affairs given the very very low likelyhood of companies deciding to nuke people out of existence of their own accord.

There are many powerful players in society and I'm not one of them. Does it make me a crony capitalist or a welfare queen when I decide I'd rather the power go to those I can vote out of office than those I can't?

No, it doesn't make you either of those things. It does mean you have a lot more faith in voting than other people do. This can be described as either very reasonable or perhaps naive, depending on where you live. E.g. in places like America or the UK voting is driven almost entirely by the economy and matters of foreign policy or the justice system have no impact on elections, politicians know that so they do more or less whatever they like. In places like Switzerland where there are referendums four times a year, preferring voting power to market power would make a lot more sense.

Re:So basically

[king neckbeard]

Corporations might have less resources to dedicate to lobbying in light of actually having to compete again, especially since the current monopolistic environment in many industries has made competence no longer a useful trait to possess.

Re:So basically

[Pope Hagbard]

So I'm a medical miracle and grew those neurons back in my mid-20s, eh?

Re:So basically

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

The implicit theoretical side effect of libertarianism is that the wealthy, those with the means and resources, would do every well and those with out wouldn't. If you don't have people paying taxes for schools, libraries, roads, etc. How do things get better? When you've got concentrated wealth, what's stopping the wealthy from taking over?

Violent insurrection is a fine idea in that case, but, I wouldn't bet on it.

Re:So basically

[Anonymous Coward]

So, removal of all legal restrictions will prevent the formation of monopolies?

You, sir, are an oxygen thief. I actually don't have words to properly describe the anger I feel at your blatant, sordid, idiocy.

Re:So basically

[Anonymous Coward]

No, see, then you would vote with your wallet by abandoning society and living off the land as a subsistence farmer. Except all of the land is already owned by a conglomerate of corporations and they'll only lease it to you.

Re:So basically

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans vote because, "I got mine, fuck everyone else."

Libertarians vote because, "Roads, schools, hospitals, and fire departments are big Government, and therefore bad."

Re:So basically

[mi]

Good to see Illiberals target libertarians on a regular basis now... Only 10 years ago or so, we were simply dismissed with mild amusement.

There is hope for America yet.

Re: So basically

[pastafazou]

FYI, because this bill failed, the NSA's authorization to bulk monitor phone calls warrantlessly is now set to expire next year, whereas this bill would have extended it with some minor limitations. Some Republicans who were in favor of the original bill voted against the final version because it didn't do enough, and they would prefer the expiration to take effect instead.

Re:So basically

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that a contradiction? I'd think a libertarian government would not want anyone, owners of large corporations included, to take over governance. That's kind of the definition of libertarianism, I thought.

No, that's not kind of the definition of libertarianism. That's closer to anarchy.

Libertarianism is about maximizing individual liberty. Corporations are private individuals. As such, it does not contradict libertarian thought if a corporation becomes all powerful. Private individuals are free to be as powerful as their success lets them.

In fact, libertarians, much like conservatives, praise powerful corporations, because it is their belief that the only way a corporation can get so powerful is by being a net benefit to society. If a corporation that isn't a net benefit stays in power, then the libertarian answer is that society isn't Truly Libertarian. Libertarians are just like Communists in that regard.

Re:So basically

[Anonymous Coward]

You're talking about republicans masquerading as libertarians to give the latter a bad name, so that they (republicans) don't have to worry about that third party.

A true libertarian recognizes that (limited liability) corporations are an artificial goverment construct. If someone claims to be libertarian but supports the idea of (government enforced) limited liability corporations, they're lying.

True libertarians aren't anarchists, but they're a lot closer to that than LINOs are.

Re:So basically

[i kan reed]

The problem here is that you just no true Scotsmanned away over half the people with your ideological alignment.

Besides which, the data on libertarian voting isn't very ambiguous. Self identified libertarians vote for republican candidates at about the same rate as self identifed republicans. 75% vs 80%.

Re:So basically

[Bardez]

I voted Libertarian on everything in Illinois, except Dick Durbin. I voted Republican there in order to not dilute the potential votes getting rid of him.

Re:So basically

[bill_mcgonigle]

Does it make me a crony capitalist or a welfare queen when I decide I'd rather the power go to those I can vote out of office than those I can't?

If you think voting significantly changes the government, that just makes you naive. The bureaucrats run most things and are unaccountable.

If the entire government became Libertarian today, it would take less than 10 years for corporations to take total control of governance

Do you mean they'd have private armies in the streets? Like in the US from 1776-1870, before permanent corporations were legal?

Re: So basically

[quantaman]

This happened now because the Democrats knew it would fail (if they'd thought it would succeed, they'd have pushed it BEFORE the elections just past), and wanted to get the good publicity for being AGAINST THE NSA!!!

The Republicans voted against it because the Democrats were for it.

Neither Party's position had anything to do with their opinions about the issue (they're both in favour of the status quo) - it was a purely tactical vote.

If they knew it would fail and it was just done for good PR then why wouldn't they do the vote before the election? Seems to me that good PR is kinda wasted at this point.

If I'd read anything into scheduling something as a lame-duck vote it would be that they think it's bad PR.

Re:So basically

[king neckbeard]

No, I'm saying that Congress and a number of our megacorps have created a symbiotic relationship to ensure the continued survival of both, and that they are so dependent upon that system that they cannot exist without each other. A lot of competition is kept at bay by a ridiculously complicated legal framework, and corporations grow fat and soft in this environment. The companies that make you think "I could do this better myself" stay in business because they legislate away all competition. Without the state protecting them, they will fall under their own overwhelming incompetence.

Re:So basically

[stealth.c]

Interesting. How far did you dig into the philosophy and economics aspects of the ideology before discarding it? Bastiat and Hayek are pretty ironclad. Usually once someone goes Rothbard they don't go back.

Re:So basically

[supercrisp]

"Without the state protecting them, they will fall under their own overwhelming incompetence." - King Neckbeard.
"We learn from history that we learn nothing from history." -- George Bernard Shaw

Re:So basically

[king neckbeard]

30+ is also much more likely to have kids, and thus much susceptible to fearmongering, the go to solutionfor getting crappy and unconstitutional laws passed.

Re:So basically

[ShanghaiBill]

The closest thing to a libertarian in the Senate is Rand Paul. He voted against the bill. He used the chicken shit excuse that "It didn't go far enough", as if a fantasy bill that went even farther was a realistic alternative.

Re:So basically

[mi]

The Libertarian philosophy is the most self-consistent of all available. It requires the fewest "common-sense" exceptions to be practical.

reality-denying assumptions

I could've asked for citations, but let's not continue down this off-topic road — on which you and an AC ventured unprovoked, for such is your fear and loathing of the Libertarianism gaining its well-deserved popularity and strength.

Statists gonna state.

Re:So basically

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, like the federal government provides roads

As desperate as the libertarians are to come up with yet another way to outsource the government for stockholder gain, the Constitution does in fact establish federal rule over all post roads, which at the time of authorship would have been any road a mailman would would use (ie not private roads).

schools, hospitals, and fire departments

He didn't say anything about that at the federal level, though there are plenty of state level Republicans who think they're too big government.

Re:So basically

[i kan reed]

"Statist" as if that's a political philosophy.

That's the problem with you. You can't even address ideologies that aren't libertarianism as separate and distinct from one another. You create a false dilemma between the state solving everything and no state.

It's clearly stupid, and yet it's the first place you go.

As far as "reality denying assumptions" go, let's start with giving you the benefit of the doubt, and asking you how you think free markets work.

Re:So basically

[Severus Snape]

...and become anarchists?

Moded parent funny, decided to reply now though..

It's worth mentioning that the word libertarian means something completely different in America as to the rest of the world. I'm European, I don't like using the word anarchist in describing my political opinions, because of the connotations of the word. I can happily use Libertarian-(Socialist) though. Libertarianism under capitalism is getting rid of one of the bad guys, and letting the other bad guy multiply ten times in size. Both are incompatible with each other.

Re:So basically

[tburkhol]

I'd think a libertarian government would not want anyone, owners of large corporations included, to take over governance.

Libertarians may not want there to be much structural government, but that's different from disclaiming any governance. For example, if Homeland Security says that people must go through backscatter detectors and bomb sniffers before getting on an airplane, that's government. If the monopoly airline says that passengers are only welcome after a backscatter test and bomb sniffer, the outcome is functionally identical.

Additionally, I'm having a hard time recalling the last occasion on which a company squashed my civil liberties

How about this example: there's no law against me running a web server from my home, but Comcast won't let me. Nor will AT&T. Are they "quashing my right to free speech?" When the police show up and tell me I'm free to protest...over there, are they quashing my right to free speech?

Re:So basically

[king neckbeard]

I think the usage of 'statist' here is a nice way of saying authoritarian, which tastes about the same regardless of the flavor.

Re: So basically

[pitchpipe]

The Republicans voted against it because the Democrats were for it.

That is the single best argument for not voting Republican that I've heard. My two year old thinks more critically than this.

Re:So basically

[spacepimp]

Libertarians praise personal liberties. No company or government should have a right or ability to infringe or interfere upon those individual liberties. This idea that taking the government away and allowing for those same intrusion to exist but by corporations is an utterly flawed and seemingly deliberately misleading construction. The liberties they seek to preserve, are the same no matter the situation. No company or government should be empowered to restrict those liberties. It isn't acceptable that a corporate power does so, just because it isn't the government.

Re:So basically

[XxtraLarGe]

He used the chicken shit excuse that "It didn't go far enough", as if a fantasy bill that went even farther was a realistic alternative.

According to your link:

Paul said he voted against the bill because it would have extended the Patriot Act provision that allows the NSA to search Americans' phone records. He has consistently opposed the Patriot Act, passed in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

It curtailed some domestic spying, but extended it in other areas, and also extended the PATRIOT Act. My guess is you would have criticized him if he voted in favor of it as well.

Re:So basically

[Jane Q. Public]

Come on, we know that it was dead before word one was written. I'm just curious when libertarians will admit their people are just as in bed with money as the rest of us so we can finally fight the money together. The ones with money are the ones taking all your guns and taking all the jobs.

You are rather grossly confusing Libertarians with Republicans. They are NOT, even remotely, the same things.

Re:So basically

[danbert8]

Good luck with that voting people out of office thing. Don't like John Dingell? He was first elected in 1955 and has been in congress ever since... Similar stories will all politicians. Incumbents have a huge advantage and are very difficult to replace. Even moreso in a primary. So even if I vote against a candidate that will represent me, I am still stuck with their voting record and decisions...

Meanwhile in corporate crazyland, if I don't like Wal-Mart, I can shop at any number of competitors and choose not to do business with them. You can vote with your dollars and unlike votes, every single one counts. You may not be able to vote for the board of a company (well actually you can if you choose to buy stock which is generally available to the public), but you sure can choose which companies you associate with.

Where is this example of corporations taking control of governance and oppressing the people? Name one country that has resorted to revolution to throw out a monopolistic corporation. Hmm, I can think of several governments that have oppressed the people to the point where only bloodshed can change governance.

It disgusts me that all of these blatant political flamebait posts are getting +5 insightful mods. The sad part is, the metamods will probably agree.

Re:So basically

[danbert8]

The implicit theoretical side of libertarians is that the wealthy population increases over time. Near 100% of the US population is wealthy by third world standards. You only call it concentrated wealth because it's more than you have. What is stopping the wealthy from taking over is the government in an ideal libertarian world. Yes, contrary to your delusions of what libertarians believe, we do believe in government. A government whose role is to protect the rights of the people.

Now in this system we have now, the rich can buy politicians and they are pretty much taking over. They openly admit that the rules of governance are no longer applicable to them. Tell me again how this is working so much better...

When we cut government down to where there are taxes for just schools, roads, and libraries and things are horrible, give me a call.

Re:So basically

[DamnOregonian]

Was the state protecting the old trusts that laws were written to combat? It seems to me that history shows us that the natural end-result of pure free-market capitalism is the formation of abusive monopolies even without state assistance. I think the state assistance is an attempt to utilize the monopolies, which sometimes have uses, but under the control of the people.

Re:So basically

[towermac]

What do you mean by 'what's stopping the wealthy from taking over?'

Nothing. Well, other wealthy people. Anyway, they already took over. Good times, bad times; they were in charge the whole time.

Re:So basically

[neoritter]

More the media. TFA is biased. The bill was pushed on bipartisan basis and it wasn't just Republicans that voted against it; further it passed the Republican controlled House and its main sponsor is a Republican. So I'm unsure how we got the headline "Republicans block...."

Re:So basically

[i kan reed]

And, of course, that's bullshit. It's heaping piles of bullshit to get to the obviously and clearly flawed premise that all non-libertarians are the same.

Authoritarian characteristics are a measurable thing that exist(unless you're a sociology denialist, then we're back to reality denying) and describe far fewer people than they're pretending it does.

Re:So basically

[Jane Q. Public]

You might find this essay interesting:

No. Since there is no context associated with it, and I know nothing about any of the parties involved, I did not find it even a little bit interesting. Are you trying to apologize for something? Then why not just say it?

Re:So basically

[micahraleigh]

I can say "no" to Time Warner.

I can't say "no" to the IRS.

Re:So basically

[whistlingtony]

you know, that's actually not true. If everyone up and voted Independant, we'd have a radically different government. That Rs and Ds can scare us into voting for them, using each other to fear monger, is OUR failure.

This isn't the Government's fault. This is OUR fault. They stay in power through OUR stupidity and ignorance.

Re:So basically

[ultranova]

The Libertarian philosophy is the most self-consistent of all available. It requires the fewest "common-sense" exceptions to be practical.

Right. So you're okay with me opening an open-air nuclear waste dumb next door to your house? Or do you reserve the right to keep redefining "force" to cover everything I do which might negatively affect you yet not cover anything you do that might negatively affect me?

Re:So basically

[mjm1231]

It's true that it is internally self-consistent. That doesn't mean it comes anywhere close to matching the way the real world actually works. As many people have pointed out, it is similar to Marxism in this regard.

Re:So basically

[whistlingtony]

Ahem.... There were TWO bills, ONE of which was introduced by Jim Sensenbrenner, a republican in the House. I don't know how it started, and Sensenbrenner is the guy that helped WRITE the Patriot Act, who later said "oops". He gets credit for that in my book. Anyway, the HOUSE (R controlled) version went through committees and THAT version extended the Patriot act and didn't go far enough.

The OTHER bill was introduced by Patrick Leahy, a Dem in the Senate. THAT version was stronger, and THAT version unequivocally was BLOCKED by Republicans in the Sentate.

If you'd care to look for yourself... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U...

So, it seems you don't know what you're talking about....

Re:So basically

[stephenmac7]

If the monopoly airline says that passengers are only welcome after a backscatter test and bomb sniffer, there won't be a monopoly for long.

Re:So basically

[stephenmac7]

The IRS isn't a corporation.

Re:So basically

[crunchygranola]

The Libertarian philosophy is the most self-consistent of all available.

Quite possibly. I would prefer a reality consistent philosophy, especially since Libertarianism makes extravagant claims about economics which is very much an empirical activity.

It requires the fewest "common-sense" exceptions to be practical.

reality-denying assumptions.

Oh my, no. Libertarianism and its Hayekist pseudo-economics twin are quite aggressive about denying the importance of basing beliefs of reality. Can you say "Praxeology"?

LIbertarians and Hayekists hold that their axiomatic principles are the true basis of perfect morality, the best of all possible moral codes, and that social, political and economic doctrines can, indeed must, be derived directly from them without contaminating the matter with social or economic data.

If you dispute with a Libertarian about the feasibility, and desirability of their proposals, you will shortly find them trying to derail the discussion from practical effects to an effort to educate you about the perfection of their axioms.

Re:So basically

[Frobnicator]

It curtailed some domestic spying, but extended it in other areas, and also extended the PATRIOT Act. My guess is you would have criticized him if he voted in favor of it as well.

That's the issue with so many of these bills. Politicians start with an important bill that is very likely to pass, and then attach all kinds of unpalatable features to it.

They are not little 10-line precise changes to policy. This particular bill is 7000 words in a 46-page PDF. Often they are in bills that are tens of thousands of words, sometimes hundreds of thousands of words, and hundreds of pages in length.

It is easy to headline "${PoliticalParty} objects to bill with ${Feature}" but to not mention the fact that the bill included several hundred additional features.

You've got a headline "Thirsty person rejects glass of water", but buried deep down in the details you will read the water is yellow and brown and came from the toilet. The thirsty person will turn that drink down and wait for something a little more palatable.

Re:So basically

[tburkhol]

I don't think you understand how monopolies work.

Re:So basically

[Khyeron]

You said:

How about this example: there's no law against me running a web server from my home, but Comcast won't let me. Nor will AT&T. Are they "quashing my right to free speech?" When the police show up and tell me I'm free to protest...over there, are they quashing my right to free speech?

***** Lets address Comcast first:

Comcast is a private company run by private people providing a voluntarily purchased service. You sound like you purchased the cheapest option and are upset that it is of less quality and permissiveness than their higher end service (for example most big ISP's now block port 25 so ignorant users won't end up running spam relays or intentional spam gateways.
(The fact that government with such excessive coercive power exists for Comcast to abuse and lock competitors out of certain areas is not Comcast's fault. The company's directors merely used all the fancy government tools that other control freaks created and made themselves rich using the tools. Government exists precisely so one group can dominate another. In ancient times, when the new roving marauders ruled a place they called taxes tribute, and didn't pretend to be as nice as governments do today, but be assured those positions of power over others attract the exact same psychology. More on that in the cop section.)

Oftentimes if you were wise enough to purchase from a smaller company, you can talk to the techs and tell them you run a webserver for business and they upgrade you to the business service, or you can tell them you run a webserver for fun and games and need them to lift the restriction. Often times, they will. Occasionally they'll talk to you long enough to figure out you know what you're talking about and remove the port block. DSL companies are well known for letting people do whatever with their specific line or otherwise dedicated bandwidth, unless it results in lawyer calls.

The main issue here is that you are free to walk away and they won't raid your house with paramilitary troops or take half your stuff as an exit tax. Its a tossup between people who are equally as likely to not even return the leased cablemodems, unless the company nailed them with an extra refundable fee upon receipt of used/old hardware.

***** Lets address the cops and government in general:

First off, you likely never got to CHOOSE a government, and one was thrust upon you before you were even born, merely by virtue of which fiefdom (now called "jurisdiction") you had the fortune or misfortune of being born upon... some won't even let you leave, others just track you wherever they can and extract more tribute from you. USA does this to you. If you expatriate and thus no longer derive "income" from US sources, they still hunt you down for ten years to tax you some more... in effect they nail you with a serious exit tax.

Either way, I strongly doubt you got offered a menu of services, a fee schedule and other options you likely got from Comcast but were too busy to read after they said "residential service comes with 50% off cable TV and HBO while business service costs twice and comes with nothing but the ability to run your server."

So in effect, with cops and governments, you are NOT free to walk away, or to switch to a government with better rules, or shop until you find one with better rules or acceptable rules. There aren't any. They, to some degree, all take your stuff and give it to their friends or preferred class of people. Some are more forceful than others.(See Taliban, See ISIS, see pretty much every authoritarian regime from China to the NYPD and LAPD.) Some pretend to be nicer than others.(See the nordic countries.) Government is always, and foremost, a purveyor of force, which most people religiously obey and assume is correct. (See "divine right of kings" taken to its logical conclusion.) Occasionally only as a "they did it to me, so I want it done to everyone e

Re:So basically

[shutdown -p now]

So the version that Rand voted on did not actually extend PATRIOT Act, despite what he said?

Re:So basically

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

In an ideal libertarian world, what stops the mega-wealthy from exploiting the people? Is there any room for labor laws? OSHA? EPA? Regulations of any kind? FCC?

How does any of that square with extremely limited governance?

What does Libertarianism mean to you?

From what I've been told by libertarians is that the government needs to be smaller, less rules, less regulations, less interference. Individuals and market forces and rational common interest will benefit us all.

I don't buy it myself, but...

The problems you're describing where the hyper wealthy are colluding in an oligarchy to oppress the people and keep them consuming isn't solved by being more libertarian. Being hands off, having less regulations and rules doesn't solve that problem.

That problem's solved by *more* rules, specifically the rules to reform election laws to keep money out of politics.

Re:So basically

[i kan reed]

I'm talking about "republicans masquerading as libertarians"

Re:So basically

[Bartles]

The problem here is that you just no true Scotsmanned away over half the people with your ideological alignment.

Besides which, the data on libertarian voting isn't very ambiguous. Self identified libertarians vote for republican candidates at about the same rate as self identifed republicans. 75% vs 80%.

Yes, because Republicans and Libertarians are far more liberal than the authoritarian socialists people call Democrats these days. Naturally they would align.

Re:So basically

[Khyeron]

You said: Libertarians don't admit that because they typically don't admit to voting republican in the first place.

Ironically, corruption isn't needed on an "outside the system" basis, because the system is rigged so only the two main parties can really make a serious showing (except maybe New Hampshire because of the extremely strong libertarian presence there due to the freestate project, and take by difference, Wyoming, which also had its "free state project" but which only has one party, the Republicans, if you don't want to vote hard core socialist, you vote republican. Any other registration in Wyoming is just a political statement of no actual efficacy.)

The original statement is full of ignorance about how the US political system works. For elections, in most states, you are FORCED into "republican" or "democrat." In some jurisdictions they occasionally offer "independent" which basically just means your votes are discarded at count time.

The way to run for office, aside from funding issues is to get on a balot. Which means A, your party has to be endorsed by the state government (another term for it is accepted) and then you have to be approved by the state. Then you have to find a way to reach your target demographic and then persuade them to actually show up at primaries, otherwise you'll never even be remembered by November 5th. Most states don't recognize libertarians, constitutionalists or even a vague label like independent. As a result, when the election process starts, you're given the list of candidates for a "pre-election" voting process in which you ONLY vote for your party and are ONLY given their candidates to choose from, for any seat.

(Example: where I live, the only District Attorney to be voted for was a Democrat. There are less than a thousand registered democrats in an area with around ten thousand eligible voters, just by virtue of two wolves and one sheep voting on dinner, the man should have suffered a crushing defeat.)

So while many people may vote "no consent" (a little known "against all these guys" type thing that registers you're being taxed without representation) it didn't unelect that guy or block him from office. He was the only one running, so he got elected. For those of us who weren't Democrats, we saw an EMPTY District Attorney box/menu.

So in the primaries you get your "registered voter" party's list of candidates. Libertarians end up going republican because often times most actually libertarian candidates cannot run anything but republican. In most other places they can't get ON the ballot and very few people register as independent voters as they know despite the nobility and merit of the word "independent" what it actually means is "discarded before count."

Once the primaries are over (which most American voters don't know are also LOCAL elections), by virtue of two wolves and a lamb voting on dinner, you end up with a single candidate for each party, voted by the aforementioned majority rule, and all your local offices are also settled in the primaries.

I've seen some terrible candidates get elected over the years, all because a multitude of folks thought the local and candidate election was Nov 05 rather than primaries. Come 4 or 6 years later. They forgot. What's that saying about a nation of sheep begetting a government of wolves?

Remember, your primaries are state, county and city elections and national candidate selection. Rarely will a good candidate put on as good of a show as the authoritarian, tyranny loving psychopaths out there, and for good reason. Psychopaths know how to manipulate simpletons and get psychological and monetary rewards for successfully doing so (in english: they get off on it and get paid, double payday!)
There's a reason Nigerian scammers are rich enough to drive Ferraris.

Note: The author does not endorse the practice of voting to restrict other people's freedom (which is all this boils down to, these days) the author does endorse attempting it once in your life (after meeting and researching the candidates yourself) so you can see just how many EXCELLENT people get discarded either by voter ignorance or by system being rigged to keep them out.

Re:So basically

[phantomfive]

and also extended the PATRIOT Act.

Oh, in that case I would have voted against that also. In other words, it's a bill that does opposite of what its name suggests.

And here we are distracted over whether Republicans or Democrats are better.

Re:So basically

[rtb61]

In this case, far more likely, the voted because "they got yours and they got caught" but if they want to remain in their positions of graft and corruption then they had better vote the way they have been instructed to vote else there is a federal cell with their name 'er' number on it. Make no mistake when an espionage service over reaches purposefully and against a countries law, that is it's real intention in a corrupted capitalists society, finding and controlling the cheats. This is done locally and in foreign locations. When the means are criminal don't be surprised when the end is also criminal (often in the initial planning the end wasn't criminal but once the corruption set, the criminal activity becomes the norm, the end soon changes to feed the ego of the individuals with the power).

Re:So basically

[NotSanguine]

The Libertarian philosophy is the most self-consistent of all available. It requires the fewest "common-sense" exceptions to be practical.

reality-denying assumptions

I could've asked for citations, but let's not continue down this off-topic road — on which you and an AC ventured unprovoked, for such is your fear and loathing of the Libertarianism gaining its well-deserved popularity and strength.

Statists gonna state.

Many folks would probably class me as a "liberal" for one reason. And that reason is the only major difference my political philosophy differs from the standard "Libertarian" platform. I believe that helping the less fortunate is an appropriate role for government. The logical extension of that idea is rather far-reaching. However, aside from that, I think most Libertarian ideals are pretty good.

It seems to me that even though many of us disagree with respect to policy choices, the vast majority of the US population can agree about individual liberties, a government which represents the electorate and equality of opportunity for everyone.

As I said, reasonable people may disagree about how to achieve these things (as we certainly don't have that now), if we can stop the absurd kabuki of right vs. left (news flash: the US Democratic party is a center-right party), perhaps we could work together to address the cesspool of money flowing into our political system and the circumstances that drive that process, we might get representative that actually represent their electorate, rather than those who drown them in filthy lucre. That might give us better laws and better government.

As I said, I think reasonable people (and there are both reasonable and unreasonable people on all sides) can disagree on specific policy points, but it seems to me that we should all agree that the US should be a nation of laws which respects individual liberty and provides a level playing field for everyone.

So while you folks are bashing your "enemies" those who are really in control are laughing all the way to the bank.

Re:So basically

[Cyberax]

No, it's not correct. It's a typical libertardian excuse. The bill in question extended certain powers to legally tap into foreign communication lines while curtailing mass domestic surveillance.

Re:So basically

[AK Marc]

10 years ago, they were closer to the same. Liberal meant smaller unobtrusive government. Libertarian meant toll sidewalks and "blacks only" toilets.

Re:So basically

[mi]

Is that way it says right here in the write-up (emphasis mine):

Prior to this vote, the bill had already been stripped of privacy protections in aid of gaining White House support.

Remind me again, who do we have in the White House — a RethugliKKKan or a Libertardian?

Re:So basically

[AK Marc]

Well, Blame Democrats has been the motto of the previous 20 years. The Democrats just learned it from the Republicans. But it's ok when it's "your side" using it against the "other guys".

Re:So basically

[AK Marc]

The Libertarian philosophy is the most self-consistent of all available.

So, does a person have the right to carry a gun on them in public? What about in private? Must they notify the landowner if requested? Why does the ownership of the land trump the personal liberty to carry a gun?

Is abortion murder, or a medical procedure?

Libertarians fight over such issues amongst themselves, so it's not very self consistent. The self consistent libertarian philosophy is the one based on property having rights, but people don't have rights. When you over-simplify to that abominable extreme, it agrees with 90% of the Libertarian philosophy, and is self-consistent. But highly impractical.

Re:So basically

[AK Marc]

I'm a socialist libertarian. The problem with libertarians is that they think the government should be small. I believe it should be effective (and with that, it would be small if it were ideally effective).

In practice, libertarians are also anti-democracy. Because they don't trust anyone else with the vote. Benevolent dictatorship is the libertarian ideal. Though sometimes they call it a "constitutional" democracy, where the constitution eliminates the power of the vote.

Re:So basically

[Cyberax]

A Republican by his actions and policies. Why do you ask?

Re:So basically

[AK Marc]

That's why it's inconsistent. The heirarchy of liberties is weak. They are all equal, and conflicting. Right to carry a gun? Not when you are on someone's property who doesn't want it. So their property rights override your personal rights. But when you put it that way, they object.

Re:So basically

[AK Marc]

If they have a monopoly, people will either do it or not fly. And people have put up with worse to fly. So your example fails.

Re:So basically

[AK Marc]

If you expatriate and thus no longer derive "income" from US sources, they still hunt you down for ten years to tax you some more... in effect they nail you with a serious exit tax.

In case anyone reads this, it is 100% wrong. He is lying to make a point. No, I'm not going to debate the point with him. I am an expat. I had to deal with it more than him. He just read something once that was a lie to make a point, and he's repeating it. But he's a zealot. So there's no point addressing this to him. I just don't want anyone else reading it and thinking that's correct. It's not.

Re:So basically

[Richy_T]

Gotta agree with you here. There is a spectrum of libertarian positions from left-libertarian to right libertarian and another couple of dimensions thrown in as well. As someone who fits broadly in as a libertarian, I find there plenty of areas that I disagree with other libertarians on and some where it is not clear to me that those who disagree with are actually wrong, it just seems to me that my position is more "right".

This is no different from many other political stances, of course.

However, what most libertarians, more than a few republicans and not a few democrats do agree on is that we are heading away from the direction of personal liberty towards authoritarianism and it should be reversed. The problem is, it's the politicians that fuck it up and invariably, that means both the Republican and Democratic politicians.

If you want more of the same, vote (D) or (R).

Re:So basically

[Richy_T]

His votes there did nothing and were politically easy. His votes for other legislation which passed have done a whole lot of damage.

Re:So basically

[Richy_T]

I don't think you understand how monopolies work.

Re:So basically

[Richy_T]

Which trusts specifically? Not all monopolies are abusive.

Re:So basically

[Richy_T]

The voting system is also to blame and that has largely been put in place by the government.

Re:So basically

[mi]

A Republican by his actions and policies.

Oh, no you don't... You keep him. A Republican would not have withdrawn all troops from Iraq — allowing ISIS to bloom and necessitating a painful return.

A Republican would not have encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine by lifting all sanctions imposed over a similar invasion into Georgia.

A Republican would've continued to detain terrorist suspects — in Guantanamo or elsewhere — rather then order extrajudicial killings — most infamously one of Osama bin Laden himself.

No, Obama is an Illiberal Democrat through and through. But such people — yourself included — are famous for inability to recognize each other — so far are their deeds from their proclaimed ideals.

Re:So basically

[Cyberax]

Oh, no you don't... You keep him. A Republican would not have withdrawn all troops from Iraq

Bush drafted the pullout plan...

A Republican [politifact.com] would not have encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine by lifting all sanctions [washingtonpost.com] imposed over a similar invasion into Georgia.

You mean, like Reagan did with the USSR and Afghanistan invasion?

A Republican would've continued to detain terrorist suspects [theguardian.com] — in Guantanamo or elsewhere — rather then order extrajudicial killings [commondreams.org] — most infamously one of Osama bin Laden [theatlantic.com] himself.

1) Gitmo is still open. 2) Drone strikes were started by Bush.

No, Obama is an Illiberal Democrat through and through. But such people — yourself included — are famous for inability to recognize each other — so far are their deeds from their proclaimed ideals.

So far you've listed exactly the things that Republicans do.

Re:So basically

[LordLimecat]

Hold on a second, I just want to be clear here. Is this Freedom Act the same one that passed the house, with far more Nays (proportionally) from democrats than from republicans?
http://clerk.house.gov/evs/201...

Would this be the act to limit the NSA's power, the NSA being an executive branch department which certainly the president can take executive action to reign in, as thats actually one of his constitutionally enumerated powers? I mean, if the President has the power to override congress by refusing to carry out legislation (ie, with immigration), then CERTAINLY he has the power to tell the NSA to stop collecting whatever he tells them.

And you say it failed in the senate-- just to be clear, this would be the senate that is majority controlled by democrats, correct?

I just want to be sure we're on the same page here.

Re:So basically

[LordLimecat]

The senate is democrat controlled. The house is republican controlled. How the heck are you pinning this on republicans?

And I'd note that the NSA is an executive branch department directly accountable to the democrat president. Unlike a lot of the other things the president is doing, it would actually be one of his constitutional rights-- in fact, his duty, by the oath he swore-- to keep the NSA in check.

Is the entire world insane? How are you gonna pin this on republicans?

Re:So basically

[Jane Q. Public]

You really didn't see anything familiar about this?

Yes, you are quite correct. I really don't see anything familiar about that.

I *DO*, however, seem to detect something familiar about YOU.

Stop spamming me. Nobody is impressed. And I mean that literally: nobody.

Re:So basically

[king neckbeard]

Oh yeah. It was arguably a good bit more overt back in that point in time. There was a lot of politics in important patents, the railroad system involved a number of military campaigns, our roads were heavily subsidized at the behest of oil companies (to the detriment of the railroad system), never mind protectionism. The state was in some cases just short of just being mercenaries.

Re:So basically

[king neckbeard]

Nobody but the ruling class wants an authoritarian state, but getting it piecemeal is a pretty easy sell. You get something scary, like terrorists, immigrants, drugs, child porn, etc., for a foot in the door and expand from there. Temporary measures become permanent and expanded.

Re:So basically

[david_thornley]

Excuse me, but blaming $OTHER_PARTY has always been part of $PARTY. I was particularly amused by watching the rabid Republican idiots changing from blaming everything on Clinton to blaming everything on Obama about December 2008. (The rabid Democrat idiots were being somewhat quieter at the time.)

Re:So basically

[painandgreed]

The problem here is that you just no true Scotsmanned away over half the people with your ideological alignment.

Besides which, the data on libertarian voting isn't very ambiguous. Self identified libertarians vote for republican candidates at about the same rate as self identifed republicans. 75% vs 80%.

Yes, because Republicans and Libertarians are far more liberal than the authoritarian socialists people call Democrats these days. Naturally they would align.

Yes. Bush was a very liberal president, in the classical sense, probably the most in a long time. He created an entire new branch of government and increased its powers.

Re:So basically

[Jane Q. Public]

Obviously sincere apologies wouldn't be familiar to you

Really. You're writing about other people's attitude, and you start it off that way? Do you not own any mirrors? Sounds like blatant hypocrisy to me.

When I believe that someone else has been unjustifiably rude or insulting, I have no problem with responding in kind. I can be wrong sometimes, and when shown I am wrong, I also have no problem apologizing. There are innumerable examples of that here on Slashdot over the years.

The qualifier is that first I must be shown to be wrong. "Shown" is the operative word. Merely saying I am wrong doesn't make it so. Show me real evidence, and barring contrary evidence I will accept it.

Re:So basically

[Bartles]

I don't know why you would think that. That's a pretty irrational argument actually. And quite silly.

Re:So basically

[Jane Q. Public]

Winterfox eventually realized that she was overreacting by escalating the language (like "illiterate fuck") in response to people who had never used that language to describe her.

Let's be clear: I really don't give a damn about your philosophy.

I am not a pacifist. Attack me and I will attack back, and feel NO remorse for doing so. I don't care whether you want to call that escalation. Do you understand that? I don't care. Trying to go there isn't going to get you anywhere.

INVARIABLY, the people here on Slashdot who harass me in this manner have been people who failed to show I was wrong, but felt they were right anyway, and got all butthurt because I wouldn't admit I was wrong and validate their feelings.

Nope. Doesn't work that way. Show me or get stuffed. If I think I made a mistake -- as I may have once here in this thread, go back and read -- I will admit I may have been wrong and ask for pardon. But if I am pretty sure I have not made a mistake, you will not get an apology from me.

It's that simple. I don't give a rat's ass about political correctness or what other people think. I speak the truth as I best know it, without spin. If I am shown to be wrong, I will admit it. That's all there is to it. If your feelings get all hurt because of that, probably best to just not engage me at all.

Re:So basically

[Jane Q. Public]

Again, Jane distinguishes his behavior from Winterfox's by insisting that Jane's just "responding in kind" rather than overreacting by escalating the language.

That is very definitely NOT what I wrote. Don't try to put words in my mouth. That practice is at least as evil as anything you have accused me of doing. I ask again: look in a mirror much? Do you know what the word "hypocrisy" means?

Here is the difference between YOU and ME (and nothing whatever to do with this "Winterfox" person): at least I acknowledge the behavior that I actually do engage in, regardless of whether you think I should apologize for it. You, on the other hand, seem to be blind to your own transgressions.

I did NOT claim I never "escalated", if you want to use that word. What I stated was that I won't apologize for it, IF I felt it was actually justified.

Re:So basically

[Cyberax]

Yes, the plan drafted by him years earlier

Not _drafted_, but agreed with Iraq government. Or do you want the US to violate its foreign treaties?

Hah! You lie, but that's a good example, thank you! USSR invaded Afghanistain [wikipedia.org] in 1979, when Jimmy Carter was is office — another example of a weak "it is all America's fault" excuse for a President. But even he imposed sanctions against USSR. And the whole world boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics.

And then Reagan lifted most of the sanctions by 1984 (after Brezhnev's death and the right noises in Poland about democracy). See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1... , http://www.csmonitor.com/1984/... and so on.

Yes, which is an embarrassment for Obama.

Moving goalposts, are we? I did say that Obama is a mainstream Republican by his actions, so naturally he expanded the policies of his predecessors.

On top of that you got Reagan's reaction to USSR's invasion exactly backwards, which demonstrates the level of ignorance so deep, I'm unlikely to respond again...

When the facts contradict your ideology, you damn the facts.

Nonsense. You have no leg to stand on in this argument — the extrajudicial killing of bin Laden (ordered by Obama) defeats your point by itself

Don't worry, Republicans _love_ extra-judicial killings. As witnessed by their support of Bush's war and Israel.

Re:So basically

[cold fjord]

Liberal meant smaller unobtrusive government.

Not anytime recently in the US.

Libertarian meant toll sidewalks and "blacks only" toilets.

And you probably think it was "famous" "Libertarian" politicians like George Wallace and Bull Connor that were responsible, right? Oh, did I write Libertarian? How silly, they were DEMOCRATS.

I can't decide if you are simply trolling or suffering from dementia.

Re:So basically

[Severus Snape]

Sorry for the late reply, I hope you still read this!

I don't think the issue is the size of governence, more it must be decentralised. Power needs to be close to the people whom it effects with their needs and wants important to the decision making, only then is it effective.

We call our western societies democractic, but are they really? It is what differentiates us from those scary crazy dictatoriships, but we are not much different. I find it hard to imagine the will of the people being pro to everything Snowden has leaked. It has infact shown that the domestic population are the enemy of the state, no matter what way the media and politicians try to spin it. At the heart of anarchism and social libertarian ideals is direct democracy, where indiviudals vote on policies directly instead of electing people to do that for us. Our representational democracy system may sound great on paper but as we see in practice it doesn't really work. I don't see benevolent dicatoriship as ideal at all, that is centralisation of power which is everything libertarian ideals are against.

Re:So basically

[Jane Q. Public]

Jane doesn't seem to be describing someone who just isn't a pacifist. Jane actually seems to be describing someone who attacks without remorse and doesn't care if his responses are proportional or escalating. How is that different from the description of a sociopath?

And "Anonymous Coward" doesn't seem to be describing what I actually wrote. Where is your failure to understand my simple words? Why do you insist on putting your own spin on them that I neither wrote or intended?

That's a form of dishonesty. I repeat: you are quick to criticize others but you seem blind to your own transgressions. That's called hypocrisy.

Don't bother to reply; I have nothing further to say to you.

Re:So basically

[Jane Q. Public]

Here's a quiz, Jane. Is the rest of this comment a proportional response, or is it an anger-driven escalating over-reaction?

You just gave away who you are. But I knew already.

Sock-puppetry is another form of dishonesty. It's also universally despised here on Slashdot.

But you've been told that before. So why don't you cease the BS, and STOP HARASSING ME?

Or do you somehow think that my behavior is evil, but bullying and harassment isn't? It's that hypocrisy rearing its head again.

Re:So basically

[Jane Q. Public]

Do you somehow think your behavior isn't bullying and harassment?

I don't "think" it, I know it. I haven't been following you around and spamming YOUR comments with insults. That is not a matter of opinion it is provably true. I have only been replying to your own harassing comments.

Listen up: while YOU might find name-calling as a matter of opinion objectionable, there is a line -- and it isn't all that fine of a line -- between that and LIBEL. (I am not accusing you here of libel, that is just a neutral statement of fact.)

There is ALSO a fine line between replying to a comment, no matter how angrily, and HARASSMENT.

Name-calling might not be a nice thing to do, but libel and harassment are behaviors that are so odious they are actually ILLEGAL. Illegal behaviors are grounds for lawsuits. That is also a statement of fact.

Do you understand the difference between those kinds of behaviors, or not?

Re:So basically

[Jane Q. Public]

I've learned how to handle questions by watching you. If you manage to directly answer my question, that will show me that the right thing to do is directly answer your question. If you continue to simply evade my question, that will show me that the right thing to do is evade every question you ask.

I answered your question in my last post.

Did you get my point about "escalating" not just beyond what is socially acceptable, but even further, beyond what is legally acceptable? Once again, to be clear, I'm not accusing you of breaking any laws, I was making a point. Harassment is odious behavior. It is far worse than simply calling people names.

As I stated before: you seem quick to judge others but at the same time appear blind to your own transgressions.

I don't owe you anything, despite what seems to be a feeling on your part that I do. So this is all you're going to get. If you aren't satisfied with the content of my answers, my best suggestion would be to just go away.

Re:So basically

[spiralx]

It extended 3 out of 100 provisions of the PATRIOT Act until 2017. And actually, the vote was to put it up for discussion and amendment, so it could have been possible to get rid of that.

Now the entire act will be renewed in January, all 100 provisions. Not a win.

Re:So basically

[DamnOregonian]

No- not all monopolies are, I completely agree. That's why the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts were written to specifically discriminate against monopolies that were harmful, or non-merit based (where merit doesn't include a hostile takeover of the market with the resources you acquired legitimately).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

That's the one that I remember most, but there are probably lots of examples from that era.

Re:So basically

[phantomfive]

Now the entire act will be renewed in January, all 100 provisions. Not a win.

Why do you think it will be renewed? I don't think they have enough votes.

Re:So basically

[spiralx]

Why would you assume that it will go any differently in 2015 than it did in 2005, 2006 and 2011? The Republicans came out against this bill with accusations that it would help ISIS and risk another 9/11, and when the time for renewal is up in May (not January as I said), they will be in control of both houses and looking towards the primaries and the election after that - they're not going to let it expire

I don't see any chance that it won't be renewed. I'm sure there will be lots of drama, name-calling and stirring speeches, but in the end, little or no substantive changes to the act itself, and it will be 2020 before all this comes up again.

Re:So basically

[phantomfive]

Different people are in office now. People are turning against it. Even the lead architect says it's time for it to expire.

Re:So basically

[spiralx]

Sure it won't be quite the unanimity it was before, but the few dissenters won't prevent it from being renewed again. Only one Republican voted for this bill, most of them were loudly against weakening the PATRIOT Act in any way; come renewal time they'll extend it for another five years happily.

Re:So basically

[meustrus]

If you live in a Time Warner area, saying "no" to Time Warner means saying no to cable and usually to internet above DSL speeds. For some of us, that service is more valuable than any message we might send by refusing to support Time Warner. Not much of a choice, really.

If you house catches fire, your tax dollars paid for the fire department to come save you. We as a society have decided that you can't say "no" to funding the fire department, because plenty of short sighted idiots will do just that and their houses will burn down. Even worse, if people could make that decision, the government would need to spend even more tax money on keeping track of who has and has not paid for that service. And further, the fire department would still have to show up and make sure that the fire in your house doesn't spread to nearby houses that are protected. Some government services are universally good for society and can only be effective if everyone pays for them.

Of course not every government program is a fire department. That's why our government has constitutional limits to what it can do. Unfortunately those limits have broken down over the last 70 years as people of all political persuasions and branches of government have pushed to make all laws national. You see, the strictest limits are imposed on the federal government, which can only make laws about very narrowly specific things (which have been interpreted less narrowly over time). Federal government is supposed to be weaker than state government because individual voters have less power over it. But as society has become more complex and interconnected, and voters have adopted a larger context to our lives, it is ourselves that have pushed for more and more power to which we have less power to say "no".

So ultimately, it's right that we can't say "no" to the IRS. But we clearly don't have as much power as we should over where that money goes. The solution is to get more involved with local politics and put our emphasis on state government. Historically, the Democrats were for states' rights until FDR; after that the Republicans paid lip service to the idea, but it's pretty clear nowadays that nobody in Washington is serious about abdicating power to the states. And the unfortunate thing is that the states simply aren't prepared to take that power. They would have to raise taxes and gain power, and especially with most state governments controlled by Republicans that simply isn't going to happen. So the federal government can't just give up its power until the states are ready to take it, or else the unelected corporations (Time Warner et al) will expand to fill the resulting power vacuum.

Re:So basically

[micahraleigh]

Wow. Thanks for the time to put together that response. Although I largely disagree with you, I learned a couple interesting things.

You are certainly right about the government expanding. This is a trend that I see pretty much across the board for all nations for the last several hundred years. Even where Europeans are decrying austerity measures (i.e. decreased spending) none of their governments are spending any less on any year than the previous year. In other words: they are expanding also!

But while governments expand, economic growth has declined. The greatest periods of economic growth (e.g. in the US) were during periods where the country had far less regulation than it has today. Regulation (such as breaking up standard oil into smaller corporations that *increased* profits for stakeholders) has not had the macro effect on the economy or the immediate effect it has been historically intended to address. If you look at France as a nation state with high taxes/regulation, note that it hasn't had a new company enter it's top grossing companies/corporations in the last 30 years. That means that if you risk your neck on providing something people want so badly they will pay money for it ... you will fail in France. And so no one tries, innovation stagnates, and the economy struggles to stay where it is.

While on the subject of Time Warner: the internet has flourished after being set up and relinquished by the government/military. Net neutrality may be a government-imposed improvement, but at this point it looks like a big high five for Game of Throne pirates (maybe I read the \. comments too much if that's my perception). The fire department is often seen as a sweet-spot where a little government spending can significant returns on small investments ... but now this premise is being undermined by Democrats who consider "doing more with less" as a whistle for a "race to the bottom". We could cherry pick examples for some time, but if I had to choose between a private sector resource like the internet vs. a public sector resource like fire protection I would choose internet. My privately funded home-owners insurance will build me a new house. The fire department will not build me a new house.

Your sentiment about no one really caring about scaling down the size of the government is largely true, and some of it is tied to political/voter aversion: see Barry Goldwater. But there is also a voter appetite for it: see US 2014 elections, Raegan administration, etc. Another obstacle is small-government politicians changing their opinion when they get into office. This goes clear back to Jefferson who campaigned on a nation of small farmers but doubled the size of the country without going through Congress. And now we have a president who is writing immigration policy without Congress either after saying he didn't have the authority to do so.

Anyway, thanks for lending your perspective. Your examples / data points are food for thought.

Re:So basically

[meustrus]

I do really appreciate having thoughtful discussions, and I'm glad my words were not lost on you. You've got some good points yourself, and although I don't really have any argument to voice right now I'm reminded of something more basic that informs my unfortunately unusual point of view.

One belief I hold that pretty much nobody in politics shares is that economic growth is not the ultimate standard by which we should judge progress in our society. Look at the last few years. A Democratic Washington has largely succeeded in turning the economy around, and we're back to growth and Wall Street profits. But how's the average American doing? Wages have been stagnant since about 1970, and that trend shows no sign of abating. Home ownership levels are not recovering. People of my generation are moving back in with their parents, and baby boomers are being forced out of their homes by gentrification. And falling unemployment levels are really due to people giving up on finding jobs, not because they found them. It's easy to look at GDP and say "we fixed it!" But growth in GDP does not necessarily mean a growth in the economy, and growth in the economy does not necessarily mean an improved standard of living for the average American, and an improved standard of living does not mean people are happier today than they were fifty years ago. We need to figure out how to measure what really improves peoples' lives, because economic growth ain't it.

Re:So basically

[Khyeron]

Suffice to say that I've acquaintances who refuse to work legitimately above ground (only under table) after expatriating. I have relocated myself and my business away from a tax happy, regulation happy, business destroying state. More than half a decade later, I'm still finding out there's another bureau I didn't inform I moved, I pay those fees, and fix that issue and there's another one. The DMV has three different branches who needed notifying and want to know my new address, my new business location, my new Drivers License, and everything else. And that's just the DMV!!!! Had a fleet of trucks there with DOT numbers. They tell me I'm still liable for the fees and taxes they come up with for the one truck that I kept, because I didn't re-register it in another jurisdiction and file an empty tax form for fuel taxes for the last half decade that I lived somewhere else. "But I don't run trucks anymore, I shut down that particular subsidiary and closed it down before I left." "That doesn't matter, we need forms, and a change of address form, with your new address, new truck registration, new title in the new jurisdiction, etc." "I'm not operating it as a commercial DOT numbered vehicle, its just sitting on a ranch and never sees highway use anymore, just a memento, really." "Well sir, I've told you what you need to do. Penalties will keep accruing until you file those forms and pay those late fees." (So not renewing your business in their jurisdiction is no longer enough, you have to notify every single department that might possibly conceive of a reason to nail you with a fee, especially in tax happy jurisdictions with fees for every leaf of toilet paper you might use.) So what I need to do is pay them another 200 bucks, plus get the vehicle retitled, plus pay them another 20 bucks to change my address in yet another of their computers, which apparently didn't match the regular DMV one, and pay yet another vehicle tax to license plate a vehicle that will never be on a state or federal highway (I pay to maintain the road the truck gets used on, private road and property.) All so it matches their regulations and rules. And they still find me "liable" for their taxes. Before that all got sorted out, they put a hold on my license so I couldn't get it replaced in another state. I fail to see how the feds would be any nicer in jurisdictions that are friendly to them. Hell, switzerland caved. Last I read in financial news some years back, US citizens aren't as welcome at swiss banks as we used to be. We're a source of unnecessary paperwork and compliance requests. So unless you moved to Zimbabwe, Russia or China (and Russia's kind of iffy) one has to wonder how far those guys could hound you, given their endless resources if they had a financial reason to dig into your pockets (i.e. you had a business here before you left and relocated abroad.)

Can you tell me its any different if you leave the country? Last I remember, if you fail to tell every single department that might nail you with a fee, that you've moved, and some of them want PROOF of your new location, so you aren't just vanishing from their system, they say you're still liable. Its not what I've heard from others, its what I've witnessed first hand. What I heard from others just served to reinforce what I already knew from my own experiences. So while the new state I moved to is tax friendly and does everything it can to encourage business to move here and flourish, the old state clings to every dollar it can steal from me, via all sorts of rules, regulations, and other bureaucratic loop holes. Given that DC passes 40 thousand new regulations and statutes every year (CFR's are getting ridiculously long) or more... I'd say they're far more paperwork happy than the last state I stayed in.

So when you call me a zealot... clarify. I'm only zealous in my disgust of unearned authority, undeserved authority and people demanding money from me by force and machination, without providing me with any service I desire or recognize.

Re:So basically

[AK Marc]

I am an expat. That your expat friends don't know the rules doesn't change them. The moment you renounce citizenship (provided the renunciation is valid) you owe no taxes to the IRS. Now, if you leave the US to take a $10,000,000 per year job, then the IRS could rule that you fraudulently renounced for tax evasion purposes, rescinding your renunciation. Perhaps your friends wrongly heard that there's a 10 year statute of limitations to that. There isn't, even if the IRS informally targets only recent renouncers for audit.

I have relocated myself and my business away from a tax happy, regulation happy, business destroying state. More than half a decade later, I'm still finding out there's another bureau I didn't inform I moved, I pay those fees, and fix that issue and there's another one. The DMV has three different branches who needed notifying and want to know my new address, my new business location, my new Drivers License, and everything else.

That's because you didn't file proper paperwork. That's not a moving fee, and from your wording, that was within the US, not outside. So the fact that a state goes after people that leave doesn't mean the feds do.

Can you tell me its any different if you leave the country?

Yes. I didn't notify the DMV or anyone else. Nobody but the IRS cared. I filed the proper $0 return, 100% deductable income, $0 taxes paid, as is the case with most expats. Though, yes, you can find the few trying to screw the system that complain how they were targeted for violating US law. Poor criminals, sad because they committed crimes.

Or did you leave the country for some other reason?

Less crime, lower taxes, greater services, lower corruption (and, in my case, greater income). That, and the USA will enter the Great Depression II soon. The growing debt leaves no other option. The economic collapse and ensuing post-apocolypsic landscape is what drove me away. And yes, I know that the USA's fall will affect the rest of the world, but I think I'm in a position where it won't hurt nearly as bad.

And the schools are better and such so it's much better for a family than in the US. Where things like my sister sued the school district because her son was listed as "retarded" (lowest 15%) and kicked out of school every time there was a standardized test (so they didn't have him pulling down averages), and putting him back in the moment the test was over so that they didn't have to give him any aid to help him. The effect was that he was suspended from school for one month every time there was a standardized test. Stuff like that doesn't happen here.

Leaving the US is actually pretty easy. Much easier than getting accepted somewhere better than the US, most of them are very selective.

Re:So basically

[danbert8]

What stops the mega wealthy is competition. What prevents competition is the government. As long as you have freedom of association, you can choose to associate with companies that don't exploit you. There is room for basic labor laws preventing child labor, discrimination, and a few other things.

OSHA should be privatized and made to be a safety standards company similar to how Underwriters Laboratories and other safety industries work. OSHA rules are out of date and often absurd.

The EPA should also be privatized. Let the public see what the environmental rules are and boycott companies that destroy the environment. The EPA as is currently set up is accountable to no one and can effectively ban anything based on if they determine it is a pollutant.

The FCC should regulate what frequencies can be used and regulate interference so jamming is considered the same as blocking speech.

Libertarians don't believe in NO government or a ridiculously tiny government. They believe in a limited government (limited by a document, like say the Constitution), an accountable government (fair elections, unlike what we have now), reasonable and low taxes, and personal freedom. History has shown that free people do a very good (but not perfect job) of advancing society and creating wealth for the entire population even if it is unevenly distributed.

Most libertarians believe the government should do a whole lot for society, but at the smallest level of government. Fire departments, police, schools, etc should be manages by the local government, not the feds. Federal officials aren't accountable over local concerns.

Your view is that we need to keep money out of politics. I see that as dealing with the symptom, not the problem. I want to get politics out of money. The problem is that the government is so large and powerful that they can control large amounts of private sector money. Take away their power, contracts, tax benefits, and straight up handouts and then there isn't an incentive to buy politicians anymore. Why spend a billion dollars to win a position that won't return a billion dollars in "influence"?

Re:So basically

[micahraleigh]

Yeah ... per capita / GDP is not a good benchmark.

Thanks Obama...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait...

Re:Thanks Obama...

[walterbyrd]

I think it is fair to say that dems, are repubs, are responsible for this.

Trying to imply that Obama is the good guy in the mess is pure bullshit.

Re:Thanks Obama...

[bmxeroh]

Pretty sure the "Wait..." signified the obvious joke. Big woosh to you, sir.

Re:Thanks Obama...

[mean pun]

Trying to imply that Obama is the good guy in the mess is pure bullshit.

He was mocking the astroturfed memes that blame Obama for every perceived wrong in the world, even if the supposed wrong or its justification makes you spin-dizzy. But you knew that.

Obama is not responsible for this law initiative or this down vote. That does not mean Obama is the good guy in the NSA-powers scandal, it only means that Obama is not responsible for this law initiative or this down vote.

Similarly, the Republicans are responsible for this down vote. That does not mean they are solely to blame for the NSA-powers scandal, or that everything should be explained in terms of Democrats versus Republicans, it only means that in this case the Republicans are responsible for this down vote.

Re:Thanks Obama...

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Obama has deported *more* illegal aliens than his predecessor. The ones that aren't being deported aren't being deported because the *LAW* says they're entitled to an asylum hearing, but the courts which handle those hearings are *beyond* understaffed because Congress won't do it's job regarding appointments to those courts.

Obama wrote an executive order delaying *enforcement* of those deadlines. Republicans are all upset about those executive orders, even as they argue for those *same* delays, but won't actually put a bill to effect those delays up for a vote.

On the third point, yes, Obama could, 'with the stroke of a pen' write an executive order to disallow what the NSA is doing. He may or may not 'want to'. However, much of what they're doing is *expressly* legal according to the law as written (even if those laws may not necessarily be Constitutional) due to the incompetence of Congress in passing laws which they haven't read and didn't understand. Likewise, Congress could 'with the stroke of a pen' make what the NSA is doing expressly *illegal*, but they haven't, and they won't because one party wants to be able to blame Obama for it. In fact blaming Obama is *much* more important to that party's congress-critters than actually *doing their freaking job*.

Re:Thanks Obama...

[Anonymous Coward]

To be completely fair, the bill was pretty much useless, and actually became bad since it would extent the Patriot Act. Our little scumbags in government screwed it up, as they usually do.

Re:Thanks Obama...

[oh_my_080980980]

Neither do the Republicans....your point zippy?

Re:Thanks Obama...

[oh_my_080980980]

LMOL...yeah the situation in Iraq is Obama's fault. It has nothing to do with our invasion of Iraq, under false pretenses, which created a power vacuum. Nah, that couldn't be it.

Re:Thanks Obama...

[spacepimp]

Obama has certainly not stood by his campaign promises about the US surveillance state. He has only granted more powers, extensions and pardons while trying to vilify the whistle blowers more than any previous president. At which point in your mind does Obama share in some culpability for his actions? Yes there are culpable Republicans as well. It isn't black or white. But Obama has earned his special place in eroding the ability of Americans to pursue happiness without being watched in every conceivable manner.

Re:Thanks Obama...

[spacepimp]

"However, much of what they're doing is *expressly* legal according to the law as written (even if those laws may not necessarily be Constitutional"

Why exactly did Ashcroft refuse to sign off on the legality of the Stellar Wind program and reverse the courts opinion, if it is all so entirely legal?

Re:Thanks Obama...

[crunchygranola]

Obama was the one who chose to fund and arm "rebels" in Syria to try and oust Assad, paving way to the rise of ISIS, a group that is now being used as a justification to continue NSA spying.

So, uh, yeah-- thanks Obama!

Wait - I thought the story-line was that Obama did not do ENOUGH arming of the rebels, which created space for Islamist radicals to create ISIS. Shill on, AC.

Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[NotDrWho]

Remember that ISIS is our enemy now. They have always been our enemy.

Ignore those who say they used to be our ally in Syria and we were sending them weapons and aid. They want the T E R R O R I S T S to win!

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[Shakrai]

Ignore those who say they used to be our ally in Syria and we were sending them weapons and aid.

Who said that? One of the reasons we were reluctant to send aid to the so-called moderates was because we were afraid it would fall into the hands of groups like ISIS. In retrospect that was probably a mistake; of course one could go further back and say that it was a mistake to help destabilize Assad in the first place. Devil you know and all that. Did you happen to catch Assad's interview with Charlie Rose? He called this happening; he may be a scumbag but he knew his country better than we ever did. Realpolitik might have been the best play, though it's a bit late for that at this stage.

Incidentally, they're not just our enemy; they're enemies of all of civilization. You're willing to sit on the sidelines while ISIS engages in a campaign of genocide and ethnic/religious cleansing? Go watch this, assuming you have the stomach to get through it. They're barbarians and they need to be terminated with extreme prejudice.

If you can't get behind the moral imperative to intervene, well, they've killed multiple American citizens and that's all the casus belli we need.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[i kan reed]

They(and their constituent subgroups) were never our ally in Syria. The groups we have given material support to in Syria have ended up fighting both Assad and Isis, which is just what Assad wants: rebels fighting each other over ideological differences are rebels not ousting him from office. There have even been accusations that he strategically ceded the most rebellious territories to ISIS so that international support for his being in power waxes.

ISIS got the American military equipment they did by stealing from Iraqis who abandoned their posts.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[NatasRevol]

In the US, they'll know where the voters & rabble rousers are.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[NatasRevol]

You're willing to sit on the sidelines while ISIS engages in a campaign of genocide and ethnic/religious cleansing?

Why were we fine with doing this when the warlords of Africa were doing it? Or Bosnia?

Or anyplace else on this list:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[Shakrai]

Not sure how the continued bulk collection is going to help anyone.

Traffic analysis.

Not saying I agree or disagree with the underlying policy; just saying that historically traffic analysis has proven to be fruitful.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[Shakrai]

Idealistic answer: We shouldn't be fine with anyone doing it.
Cynical answer: African warlords haven't used the gruesome execution of American's (and American Allies) for propaganda purposes.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[Pablew Nopl]

So basically, they're saying "the land of the free and the home of the brave" should sacrifice our fundamental liberties and allow the government to ignore the constitution to keep us safe. Why don't they just move to North Korea? It has everything they want.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[Pablew Nopl]

Unrealistic answer: Invading other countries to play world police will fix the problem.
Idealistic answer: Government thugs shouldn't be using emotional propaganda to manipulate Americans into supporting yet another war in the middle east that will accomplish a whole lot of nothing except to waste our money.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[xiando]

Used to be? ISIS still is and always was a CIA controlled group. It's basically Al-CIAda re-branded. The "war on terror" is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[Major Blud]

"Why were we fine with doing this when the warlords of Africa were doing it? Or Bosnia?"

In all fairness, it doesn't seem that everyone was fine with it happening in Bosnia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I...

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[meustrus]

ISIS hates everyone and is a threat to everyone. Why should America have to lead the charge? Because we're the only ones willing to? ISIS is a graver threat to European countries who are content to keep their hands clean. ISIS is an even graver threat to other Middle Eastern countries like Turkey and Iran, whose agendas are different from our own and whose actions may provoke us against them so they aren't going to want to make themselves a target. You see? America being the first to act in every military situation makes everyone else back off. And before you say "America, fuck yeah!" remember who is leading our country. Do you want Obama to be the only person in the world capable of waging war on every single threat that comes along? What about the next president? And the one after that? Even if you like every single president this country is ever going to have, that is simply too much responsibility to weigh on one person's shoulders. Our Congress won't even exercise its Constitutional mandate to decide when our country goes to war.

If we are ever going to advance as a society, we need to get past this "world superpower" phase. America must not be in the business of policing the entire world. It is extremely costly and it makes us a target. Why do you think ISIS is beheading Americans? They desperately want us to lead a unilateral attack, because they know that if they can goad us to strike alone then no one else will join us. They will be able to recruit even more people to fight demon America, the nation that fancies itself a greater power than God. And don't make the mistake of thinking that this is a purely military conflict. This is ideological. This is cultural. This will not end until those that would aid ISIS know that it isn't just their greatest nemesis American that is fighting them. The whole world must be arrayed against them. They must fear that the forces against them are assembled not by their enemies, but by God himself.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[i kan reed]

When exactly do you believe material support to Syrian groups began?

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[IamTheRealMike]

You're willing to sit on the sidelines while ISIS engages in a campaign of genocide and ethnic/religious cleansing? ...... They're barbarians and they need to be terminated with extreme prejudice.

You're against ethnic/religious cleansing but want to "terminate with extreme prejudice" an entire very large group of people largely defined along ethnic and religious lines .........

words fail me

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[Shakrai]

Excuse me, but where did I advocate for terminating all Sunnis? I advocating for terminating ISIS. There is a difference you know.

Obligatory Godwin time: Not all Germans were members of the SS.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[Shakrai]

ISIS is a graver threat to European countries who are content to keep their hands clean.

They're content to keep their hands clean? Europe has joined the air campaign against ISIS. They'll doubtless join the ground campaign that's coming sooner or later, regardless of what our President thinks.

America must not be in the business of policing the entire world.

We're not in the business of policing the entire world. For better or worse we are in the business of policing the Middle East. The reasons for this are too lengthy to describe in a /. post but if you have a plan to extricate us that doesn't leave our critical interests vulnerable (or those of our Allies) I'd love to hear it. So would the guy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue; hell, if his hesitation is any indication he'd like to hear it more than I would. Smarter people than you and I have tried and failed to come up with better solutions than the status quo.

The whole world must be arrayed against them.

The powers that be are working on that but the pig-headed isolationism evidenced in many of the comments here (not yours) is the wrong way to go about doing it. The United States is the indispensable nation. We're the only country with the ability to project meaningful amounts of power beyond our borders; the UK and France couldn't even manage an extended bombing campaign against a third world country without logistical support from the United States. The United States can't solve this problem alone but neither can the world solve it without the United States.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[Lumpy]

Oceania have always been at war with EastAsia.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[Lumpy]

"You're willing to sit on the sidelines while ISIS engages in a campaign of genocide and ethnic/religious cleansing?"

This has been happening in the Middle East for more than 1000 years. If you think ISIS is something new then you really need to get an education.
Murdering each other is a way of life in the Middle east. Their holy books demand you kill non believers.

Quran (2:191-193) - "And kill them wherever you find them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out. And Al-Fitnah [disbelief] is worse than killing...
but if they desist, then lo! Allah is forgiving and merciful. And fight them until there is no more Fitnah [disbelief and worshipping of others along with Allah] and worship is for Allah alone. But if they cease, let there be no transgression except against Az-Zalimun (the polytheists, and wrong-doers, etc.)"

The difference between the factions of Muslims are trivial, yet they murder each other based on this exact passage. ISIS LIVES by this passage and guess what, Thousands upon thousands of groups before them have done the same.

Trying to bring peace to the middle east is as futile as trying to stop the sun from shining.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[phantomfive]

Why were we fine with doing this when the warlords of Africa were doing it? Or Bosnia?

No one is fine with that. Who is fine with that?

The reason Obama is helping against Syria is because the Kurds have a very strong multi-national lobbying group. So that's why.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[sociocapitalist]

Remember that ISIS is our enemy now.

So you prefer OSPF then?

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[kharchenko]

When? Way before they figured out if they scare everyone with ISIS, they'll get even more resources.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[Pablew Nopl]

and can only come from a somebody who was educated by his American parents at home.

I assure you, most public and private schools do a good job of indoctrinating people and churning out mindless worker drones.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[i kan reed]

Yeah, okay that article directly references the people who were being armed.

Spoiler: it was someone attacked by ISIS allies

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[argStyopa]

So your logic is that if we can't stop all murders, why bother to try to stop some of them? If you cannot prevent poverty everywhere, there's no point in helping some people out of poverty, even if that subset is arbitrary?

I understand that such a point is usually made from political tendentiousness, but I've never really understood the position logically. Need is infinite, resources aren't; even the most altruistic person in the world prioritizes their targets.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[Eristone]

This has been happening in the Middle East for more than 1000 years. If you think ISIS is something new then you really need to get an education.
Murdering each other is a way of life in the Middle east. Their holy books demand you kill non believers

Christian Bible (2 Chronicles 15:12-13) - "They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek
the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman."

Christian Bible (Deuteronomy 13:7-12) - "If your own full brother, or your son or daughter, or your beloved wife, or you intimate friend, entices you secretly to serve other gods, whom you and your fathers have not known, gods of any other nations, near at hand or far away, from one end of the earth to the other: do not yield to him or listen to him, nor look with pity upon him, to spare or shield him, but kill him. Your hand shall be the first raised to slay him; the rest of the people shall join in with you. You shall stone him to death, because he sought to lead you astray from the Lord, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. And all Israel, hearing of this, shall fear and never do such evil as this in your midst."

Christian Bible (Deuteronomy 17:2-5) - "Suppose a man or woman among you, in one of your towns that the LORD your God is giving you, has done evil in the sight of the LORD your God and has violated the covenant by serving other gods or by worshiping the sun, the moon, or any of the forces of heaven, which I have strictly forbidden. When you hear about it, investigate the matter thoroughly. If it is true that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, then that man or woman must be taken to the gates of the town and stoned to death."

The difference between the Christian sects are trivial.... etc. Although I am in agreement with you about bringing peace to the Middle East being more or less futile, at least until the day some faction detonates a nuclear weapon at Mecca and/or Jerusalem.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[crunchygranola]

Excuse me, but where did I advocate for terminating all Sunnis? I advocating for terminating ISIS. There is a difference you know.

Obligatory Godwin time: Not all Germans were members of the SS.

And we executed all the Germans who were?

Words fail me, as well.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[StikyPad]

ISIS is not even close to being defined along ethnic or religious lines.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[tburkhol]

Trying to bring peace to the middle east is as futile as trying to stop the sun from shining.

Wow. I had no idea it was so easy - what's holding the solution back? I mean, have you seen Beijing? The "Stop the sun from shining" problem has been solved for a long time.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[shutdown -p now]

The problem is that "groups" are not some strictly defined entities with fixed membership. A lot of people from FSA have defected to al-Nusra - whole units, in fact. And, more recently, a lot of people from al-Nusra defected to ISIS, and more recently they have been talking about a former merger. And, needless to say, when they defect, they don't leave their equipment behind if they can take it.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[NatasRevol]

Outside of our national borders, we shouldn't be doing anything with our military. That's the non-arbitrary subset.

Fund the red cross, food banks etc. if we want to help.

But why the military?

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[cbiltcliffe]

So basically, they're saying "the land of the free and the home of the brave" should sacrifice our fundamental liberties and allow the government to ignore the constitution to keep us safe. Why don't they just move to North Korea? It has everything they want.

We're all too damned terrified to be brave, so you need to make us non-free, so we can be safe11!!1!11!111eleventy!1!!!

Oh, say can you see
by the dawn's early light.
The terrified people
the government begging.

Oh, please keep us safe
from the big bad meanies
Who you keep on saying
they all want to kill us.

And the rocket's red glare
the bombs bursting in air
We've all never seen them
but you say ISIS has them.

etc.etc.etc.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[LordLimecat]

The passages you quote are referring to OT israel. You'll note that there's basically no regime I can call to mind in the past 2000 years that applied those passages the way you are trying to interpret them.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[dave420]

Because, frequently, to make use of the aid sent it takes people to protect it. The US is affected by every other country on the planet, either directly or indirectly, and it makes sense to deal with issues when they are small and far away than when they are large and close to home. It's both easier and cheaper.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[Pablew Nopl]

So your logic is that if we can't stop all murders, why bother to try to stop some of them?

I think the point is that people should stop being warmongering scumbags playing world police.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[dave420]

I'd honestly like to see some citations for that stuff about the UK & France, especially seeing as the French ran most of the sorties, and that the UK outspent the US by some estimates...

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[dave420]

Which goes to show that judging a religion by the contents of its literature is fraught with danger, and if conducted without any depth, is certain to mislead and disparage.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[Shakrai]

I said logistical support; I didn't claim that we flew more sorties than they did. They needed access to American force multiplers, i.e., air-to-air refueling assets, communications assets, underway replenishment ships, and so on. That was originally to be the extent of our intervention but it expanded beyond that and I believe we did in fact fly more sorties than the British or French. It's hard to find definitive numbers on this since the mission was flown under NATO auspices and the sorties aren't broken out by member in any of the information I've been able to find, they're just listed as "NATO sorties."

Ultimately I don't really care who flew more sorties; I was just pointing out the fact that even the British and French lack the ability to wage an extended campaign beyond their shores without support from the United States. I could tweak British pride further by pointing out that the operation to recover the Falklands would have likewise failed without American logistical support and the British military of 1980 had a lot more capability than the British military of 2014. If that were to happen again today the UK would be royally screwed, they've let their capabilities atrophy that badly.

With few exceptions European countries just don't see the value of investing in defense. NATO members commit to spending at least 2% of their GDP on defense but only five out of twenty eight members (the United States, the United Kingdom, Greece, France, Turkey, and Estonia) actually live up to this obligation. Most of the members of NATO can't even defend themselves, much less contribute to collective defense, and the situation is even worse if you look at the military capabilities of non-NATO EU members.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[Shakrai]

That should have been six members. I guess I overlooked poor Estonia....

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[LordLimecat]

It actually goes to show that you can make anything written by anyone, ever, ridiculous if you disregard context and standard literary techniques.

I could remark that your sentence is absurd because it calls the use of literature "dangerous" when it presents no risk of harm-- but then, that would demonstrate an absurd ignorance of context and colloquialism. Why should we tolerate it when people apply it to religion?

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[argStyopa]

I think the "world police" argument is self-defeating.

First, nobody - even the most ardent interventionist - has ever asserted that the US should send its military to (some godforsaken shithole (GSFH)) because "we're the World Police!".
Suggesting such is prima facie untrue. The only people that even use the term are ironically usually the political left who, if they had their druthers, WOULD enable just such a thing likely under UN auspices. So it's not even the "world police" thing that bothers them, it's that we're pursuing our own interests, because they're presumably too stupid to recognize that every other state on the planet is doing the same thing to the best of their ability. So their real argument isn't that we're acting like "world police" so much as a basic argument against our own success....and that devolves, folks, to simple self-loathing.

US involvement in GFSHs is based on US interests, full stop. Setting aside the public pap of WMDs, it's clear that we went to war in Iraq to protect OIL, because after air, and water, and food, oil's pretty much the most fucking important substance on the planet.

Now, we can argue priorities, cost/benefit, direct self-interests vs enlightened longterm self interest, etc all day long. I might even agree with you on some points, despite our likely opposite political dogma.

But the crux of geopolitics is that EITHER:
- you pursue naked Realpolitik, and act ONLY in your self-interest, or
- you pursue a humanitarian policy of trying to "do good" where you can.

What the naive don't seem to understand is that you don't get to "not play". It's not a choice. If millions are being slaughtered in Rwanda, action OR INACTION is making a statement about US interests, values, and cost/benefit calculations, upon which then other states will plan their expectations about our behavior.

And FWIW, the second policy pole listed above? It's far, far more blood and treasure, intervention, and judgemental side-picking, 'warmongering scumbaggery' than the former.

Basically: grow the fuck up. The world's more complicated than you apparently understand.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[Pablew Nopl]

First, nobody - even the most ardent interventionist

There are people who believe in magical sky daddies. There are people like ISIS. You say that *nobody* has ever advocated such a viewpoint? Nonsense. Such a viewpoint is much less hard to understand than so many other viewpoints that you already know exist.

The only people that even use the term are ironically usually the political left who, if they had their druthers, WOULD enable just such a thing likely under UN auspices.

I'm just someone who wants real small government opposes preemptive warfare and playing world police. People may not admit it, but when they suggest that we invade other countries to try to stop Bad Thing, they are suggesting we play world police. It often isn't even in our best interest. We could keep invading the middle east forever and it would change little, as history (the thing the world police advocates hate) has proven time and time again.

I can't stand pieces of garbage who claim they want small government but want anything but. Also, "the left" (i.e. mostly fools who for The One Party, much like "the right") has so many warmongers as well, as we see with the whole ISIS nonsense. Anti-war my ass. Show these gullible fools some emotional imagery and you can get them to support any war, regardless of how useless it is or how bad it is in other places that we completely ignore.

So contrary to what you've said, there are many people who advocate such a thing. No, they don't usually explicitly state they want us to be the world police, but it is reflected in their actions. When they want us to engage in preemptive warfare and hunt down maniacs in desert countries, you know they want us to be the world police.

What the naive don't seem to understand is that you don't get to "not play". It's not a choice. If millions are being slaughtered in Rwanda, action OR INACTION is making a statement about US interests, values, and cost/benefit calculations, upon which then other states will plan their expectations about our behavior.

I do not have a problem with making statements. Here it is: Let's not play world police or engage in preemptive warfare. Our self-interest can be that we will stick with our principles.

Basically: grow the fuck up. The world's more complicated than you apparently understand.

Would you say the same to me if I said I'm against mass surveillance, the TSA, and a number of either violations of our fundamental liberties? I oppose such things out of sheer principle. I would oppose all of them even if they did keep us safe.

My point is that even if our actions did have some beneficial effect, I would still oppose them out of principle, because preemptive warfare and playing world police is nonsense. It's a shame that so many people in "the land of the free and the home of the brave" don't seem to have an ounce of principle.

It's not like I'm opposed to defending ourselves from an actual country who attacked us in some significant way, but when you suggest that we hunt down maniacs in desert countries because they blew up a few buildings, when you suggest that we declare war on the very concept of terrorism, when you suggest that we screw with a sovereign country for trying to get WMDs, or when you suggest that we attack other countries because they might attack us at some unspecified point in the future, you're an authoritarian scumbag.

Re:Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[meustrus]

I said logistical support

It's a real shame that most people don't understand the vast majority of military action is logistics. I know it's off topic, but I would really, really love to play a strategy game that at least gave a nod to this huge facet of all military operations larger than border skirmishes.

Delicious

[Anonymous Coward]

I am filled with a deep sense of schadenfreude as I watch the US drive itself into the ground.

Re:Delicious

[Nidi62]

I am filled with a deep sense of schadenfreude as I watch the US drive itself into the ground.

At some point the Republicans and Democrats got the strange idea in their heads that the last party in charge before the country collapses wins.

Re:Delicious

[gmhowell]

I am filled with a deep sense of schadenfreude as I watch the US drive itself into the ground.

You oughta temper your glee; we go down, we're taking the whole ball of mud with us.

How did your senator vote?

[khasim]

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=2&vote=00282

As you can see, it was pretty much along party lines.

Re:How did your senator vote?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well hooray for Ted Cruz, apparently one of only four Republicans in favor of taking away Obama's surveillance state.

Re:How did your senator vote?

[stealth.c]

I'm afraid the Republican Party has always been the party of empire. Recall that the first Republican President waged the country's bloodiest war to prevent the central government's domain from shrinking. The war turned a federation of sovereign states into a compulsory chain of provinces. There is no "smaller government" party in the US, because Americans would never vote for one.

Re:How did your senator vote?

[rwa2]

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=2&vote=00282

That's cool... is there some sort of OKCupid interface to it yet, so you can see which representatives match your interests the best, and alerts you when they vote against what you say you're interested in?

Re:How did your senator vote?

[hondo77]

Recall that the first Republican President waged the country's bloodiest war to prevent the central government's domain from shrinking. The war turned a federation of sovereign states into a compulsory chain of provinces.

Have you always been a southern apologist jerk-off or was it something you picked up in college?

Re:How did your senator vote?

[Eristone]

That actually wouldn't be that bad an app to build - hmmm.

Re:How did your senator vote?

[Pope Hagbard]

The Civil War was totally about states' rights... to enable rich planters to own other human beings because it was cheaper than paying for labor.

Re:How did your senator vote?

[neoritter]

The war turned a federation of sovereign states into a compulsory chain of provinces.

You mean the Revolutionary War? I think you're confused as to the nature of this country's formation.

Texas v White may clarify things for you.

The Union of the States never was a purely artificial and arbitrary relation. It began among the Colonies, and grew out of common origin, mutual sympathies, kindred principles, similar interests, and geographical relations. It was confirmed and strengthened by the necessities of war, and received definite form and character and sanction from the Articles of Confederation. By these, the Union was solemnly declared to 'be perpetual.' And when these Articles were found to be inadequate to the exigencies of the country, the Constitution was ordained 'to form a more perfect Union.' It is difficult to convey the idea of indissoluble unity more clearly than by these words. What can be indissoluble if a perpetual Union, made more perfect, is not?

Re:How did your senator vote?

[Frobnicator]

https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=2&vote=00282

That's cool... is there some sort of OKCupid interface to it yet, so you can see which representatives match your interests the best, and alerts you when they vote against what you say you're interested in?

Bills are not that simple. By the time they are entered into THOMAS for tracking they have already been through many different groups. Lots of fun little additions have been made. Also by design it is extremely difficult to track down who added what and when; there is no button to track down the details of an individual line like you get with version control; it becomes "these were attached by someone" rather than "Sen. Johnson added line 47 requiring additional oversight, then Sen Smith modified line 47 to remove the oversight". Common citizens do not see the change log, they are only allowed to see specific checkpoints.

Critically, these are NOT little 10-line precise changes. Instead, this is a bill that adds some limits to NSA spying, and a bill that re-authorizes the patriot act, and a bill that gives the Attorney General the ability to rubber stamp "emergency production" of business records acquisition without a judge, and a bill that grants immunity ("liability protection") to those who hand over records without a court order, and a bill that pays people under the table for giving information to the government if they bypass the courts and just hand it over, and a bill that allows the DNI and AG to bypass the requirement to declassify information, that is, a bill to decrease transparency and remove important data from federal reports. And more.

It is 7000 words and 46 pages. Many similar bills exceed 100 pages. Some bills, especially those with critical financial items, grow into the thousand page range with all kinds of ugly growths attached.

Hooking that up with an OKCupid style is quite difficult. Did they reject it because of the NSA spying portion? Did they reject it because of the pen register changes? Did they reject it because of the declassification portion? Did they reject it because of the additional ability to bypass the courts? Did they reject it because it re-authorizes the USA PATRIOT act?

Trying to match it more in an OKCupid style, you may really like the beautiful eyes, but find the cluster of moles and cracked teeth rather ugly, the personal history of high school dropout insufficient, the three aborted teenage pregnancies and collection of STD's rather bothersome, and the extensive criminal history and drug additions are not exactly spouse material ... but those eyes, they are really quite lovely.

Re:How did your senator vote?

[Bartles]

I've got an idea. How about we get President Obama to take away Obama's surveillance state. Is it to difficult to actually blame the guy in charge? Or does that just make you a racist?

Re:How did your senator vote?

[AK Marc]

Nah, it was about the industrialized North controlling the raw resources of the south. Slavery is a convenient surrogate to ignore the oppression by the winners. Like every other war, the cause was written by the winners.

Re:How did your senator vote?

[dave420]

No, it just makes you wrong because it's not his. It's everyone's. It was started before him, and will continue after him, because USA! USA! USA! Enjoy!

Re:How did your senator vote?

[Pope Hagbard]

You're full of shit.

Confederate Constitution: Article 1, section 9, clause 4: "No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed."

Same, Article 4, section 2: "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States; and shall have the right of transit and sojourn in any State of this Confederacy, with their slaves and other property; and the right of property in said slaves shall not be thereby impaired."

Same, Article 4, section 3, clause 3: "The Confederate States may acquire new territory; and Congress shall have power to legislate and provide governments for the inhabitants of all territory belonging to the Confederate States, lying without the limits of the several States; and may permit them, at such times, and in such manner as it may by law provide, to form States to be admitted into the Confederacy. In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to such Territory any slaves lawfully held by them in any of the States or Territories of the Confederate States."

South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, and Texas cited the preservation of slavery as a cause for their secession from the USA. Texas went so far as to say that the US and state governments were established exclusively for whites, and that ending black slavery would bring inevitable calamities upon blacks and whites, and desolation upon the slave states.

You've drunk the southern kool-aid, sonny.

Re:How did your senator vote?

[david_thornley]

The Civil War was about secession. Secession was largely about slavery. This can be seen from the declarations of secession, the Confederate constitution, and the tendency of areas to be more or less enthusiastic about secession depending on the amount of slavery going on. That it was a real hot button issue can be seen from the "Bleeding Kansas" shenanigans going on, and the Southern insistence that states be admitted to keep the same number of free and slave states.

Northern economic development certainly put additional stresses on the Union, but the tipping point was the election of an abolitionist President.

The Civil War was certainly not about slavery when it was fought. There were Union states that allowed slavery, and a great many Northerners were strongly into racial prejudice.

Re:How did your senator vote?

[Bartles]

Not if he were to use his newly discovered executive authority to stop it. It's all being perpetrated by agencies he controls. None of the previous presidents have the power to stop it. Only he does. I take it you voted for him twice. It's your fault.

Where are the vote results?

[turp182]

Just wondering, I can't seem to find them.

I found this, but the last action mentioned was when it was introduced on 10/29/2013.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/...

Seems like the right link, I'm guessing it hasn't been updated.

Re:Where are the vote results?

[q4Fry]

I believe the bill in question is S. 2685, as found at Congress.gov or GovTrack.us.

It was a little trickier than usual because there are now several bills called "USA FREEDOM" in various permutations (H.R. 3361 as well as the S. 1599 that you found). The backronyms vary a bit.

stupid bullshit

[slashmydots]

Here's a question? How many terrorists are stupid enough to discuss their plans on Facebook, Myspace, and freaking Instagram? Not to mention unencrypted cell phones and texts? NOBODY is that stupid!

Re:stupid bullshit

[meta-monkey]

Yeah, everybody knows the terrorists use Pintrest.

Re:stupid bullshit

[Maritz]

NOBODY is that stupid!

While I think you have a point, I just don't think this bit above is something anyone should ever say.

Re:stupid bullshit

[king neckbeard]

Actually, most terrorists are probably that stupid, but so are most agents for TLAs (which is how morons like the underwear bomber managed to not get caught before they tried to attack). Gross incompetence is the lion's share of what keeps us safe from terrorists.

Well of course...

[advocate_one]

ISIS will be running amok in the US... the FBI and CIA will be recruiting and funding gullible fools to do these "acts"... all so they can catch them and say look ISIS is running amok...

Re:Well of course...

[Maritz]

To be honest I don't really think they need to do that. So far, doing jazz hands and saying 'TERRORISTS!' seems to be perfectly sufficient.

Re:Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Dems (including Obama) expanded and extended the patriot act at a time when they could have pushed it through with little resistance.
 
As much as the talking heads are going to try to make this seem like a partisan issue the fact of the matter is that there is heavy bi-partisan support for controlling the slaves of the USA and any resistance to this is largely lip service to keep the sheep filling the party coffers.
 
How many times do we have to go through the "It's the Democrats!" "No, no, it's the Republicans" mantra before we get sick of the game and smash the established sacred idols of the jackass and the elephant? We, The People, have become of the dog chasing its own tail. The sad thing is that the vast majority think that they're fighting the good fight when they're just being kept busy while the real powers that be loot and pillage.

Beware the T E R R O R I S T S !!

[Anonymous Coward]

Those dummies.

From the WSJ article: "the former head of the National Counterterrorism Center, Matthew Olsen, disclosed in September that terrorists tracked by U.S. intelligence services have started encrypting their communications in ways that defeat detection, and that the government has lost track of several."

Not sure how the continued bulk collection is going to help anyone.

Re:Bill Rejected with Bi-Partisan agreeemnt

[Saunalainen]

A couple more Republican's voted against it than Democrats.

"insightful"?

If you look at the data (scroll down to "grouped by vote position", all but three Republicans voted against it, and all but one democrats in favour of it. So, a lot more than "a couple".

Re:Why?

[i kan reed]

Well sort of.

It's so that they can politically grandstand coming and going: "democrats brought a bill helping terrorists" and simultaneously to other voters "We blocked that bill because it was watered down and wouldn't protect the country".

And if it wasn't for the numerous powerful members of their party who'll be delivering that first argument, the second would be a pretty valid fucking point.

Re:pro/con

[The Grim Reefer]

pro: did not extend the USA PATRIOT Act

Except it left section 215 of the patriot act in place. You know, the one that lets the FBI collect data on you w/o probable cause, or even believe you are doing anything wrong.

freedom

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that people need to understand the dynamics of the nation as it's currently structured. It's not a nation-state, it's become a full-fledged empire while retaining the symbols and trappings of being a nation, and this distinction needs to be internalized before trying to understand the incongruity of how things are done these days. Neither political party will take even the first step to dismantling that power structure, for many reasons which are beyond the scope of this post. Suffice it to say that it would be unrealistic to expect much significant "change" out of the Republicans over the next couple of years, and even if they manage to take the presidency while holding onto Congress, things are unlikely to change. It will not be until we come to the end of our ability to sustain the American empire that we will see a drastic shift in how things are done, because they will no longer be able to ignore reality and force their will on the world.

Re:Bill Rejected with Bi-Partisan agreeemnt

[asylumx]

Obamacare passed without one Republican vote in the House or the Senate. When was that last called a Strictly Partisan Bill?

Um... every day?

Re:Bill Rejected with Bi-Partisan agreeemnt

[thaylin]

Ummm I think you are confused.. It had ONE democrat who voted against it, and only 4 repubs and 2 independants for it:

It was also a Republican in the white house who started this expansion...

Sigh.

[rogoshen1]

I always identified as a republican.. a moderate -- but still republican.

Not anymore. :(

Re:Sigh.

[Pope Hagbard]

The hell took you so long to start paying attention? Seriously.

suicide

[slashmydots]

Hey guys, Obama's approval rating is in the toilet partially because of the NSA scandal? You know what we should do? HOP ON BOARD!

Re:suicide

[bugs2squash]

I can't help but think that any lame duck president should be burning approval karma in favor of doing "the right thing". I'm not saying that Obama is, but if he were sitting on a huge approval rating I would consider him to be ducking unpopular, but vital, decisions.

How is that even legal?

[Hamsterdan]

Seriously. (and it's not only in US). If *any* person did the same thing, the courts would be all over them. But when NSA or CSIS do it it's OK?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S...

Re:Bill Rejected with Bi-Partisan agreeemnt

[thaylin]

Wait so he id fooled into thinking 40 is only a "few" more than 1?

I think the problem may be you.

You can call for a vote on something even if you disagree with it. In fact that should be how the government is ran. If you like something or not, if it has the votes to go to the floor bring it to the floor.

DID ANYONE READ THE ARTICLE?

[operagost]

Again, I ask you: did anyone read the article?

Both Democrats and Republicans voted against this bill. So this was, tongue in cheek, a bipartisan effort against liberty. For what it's worth, Democrat Mark Udall seems to have opposed it because it doesn't do enough, which can be a frustrating, yet respectable position.

But the days when at least every other Slashdot headline and summary actually reflected what was contained in the article are gone. So you TL;DR types dominate the discussion with nonsense partisanship that is not based on fact. And that fact is that, as usual, the schmucks in charge value their power over liberty and do not serve us.

Re:DID ANYONE READ THE ARTICLE?

[jandrese]

One Democrat and almost every Republican is not "bipartisan effort against liberty".

Re:DID ANYONE READ THE ARTICLE?

[Maritz]

Just to clarify, are we talking about the article entitled "Senate Republicans block USA Freedom Act surveillance reform bill"?

Re:DID ANYONE READ THE ARTICLE?

[fustakrakich]

Yeah, it is. They watered it down together and voted it down together. They collude on these things like with the ACA. The republicans wanted that (particularly the mandate) as much as the democrats but could not vote for it because of appearances. With enough democrats to pass the bill without their votes, they come out lookin' pretty damn good to their rubes back home. Now, with Keystone and TPP, the democrats don't want to be held responsible, so with a lousy campaign and a few minor scandals, they 'lose' the majority to the republicans and get the bills passed. Look up "rotating villain". It's an age old trick..

You're right though. It's hard to be 'bipartisan' when they are only one.

Re:DID ANYONE READ THE ARTICLE?

[EverlastingPhelps]

Really? Because when only one Republican voted for the healthcare disaster in the House, it was called a "bipartisan bill".

PATRIOT Act

[Gary Perkins]

I wonder if maybe attaching a PATRIOT extension to the bill might have anything to do with it dying.

Re:PATRIOT Act

[Anonymous Coward]

I know Rand Paul voted against it for that reason. Not that he speaks for many in Wash DC except himself

Re:PATRIOT Act

[Lumpy]

yet none of those senators have the guts to bring up repealing PATRIOT.

That needs to be repealed, it's 100% evil and they all know it.

Re:PATRIOT Act

[spacepimp]

It sunsets itself, if it is not extended. Why conjure up repeals etc, when sunsetting accomplishes this with out having many messy acts, with equally dubious add-ons tied in to sneak other powers.
All things considered the simpler of two methods is better.

Re:PATRIOT Act

[phantomfive]

yet none of those senators have the guts to bring up repealing PATRIOT.

Fortunately it has an expiration date. The worst portions will expire June 1, 2015, unless they are extended. I suspect there will be more subterfuge in an attempt to get the extensions passed by then, but opposition is growing. It will be interesting to see if they can get it passed.

Re:Bill Rejected with Bi-Partisan agreeemnt

[LF11]

According to Dr. Paul, the bill didn't go far enough (I agree). It also extended the PATRIOT act. Are you really led around that easily, to think that helping to kill this bill somehow makes him an authoritarian stooge?

Failure to pass this bill means we'll get another chance. The pressure is on. Once they pass a bill, nobody is going to want to pass another one for a while, so the first one has to get it right. The ACA is an example of a bill that was slammed through, and got a lot of things wrong. Let's not do the same thing with limiting the NSA.

Also, Rand Paul does not claim to be a libertarian, and if you actually knew anything about libertarians you should have known that libertarians tend to give him a giant stink-eye.

Re:Dems who held the Senate for SIX FUCKING YEARS

[bobbied]

Oh, and need we point out that Republican votes were required to get it out of the house and all that failed was a cloture vote to cut off debate...

Not to mention that a number of Republicans actually voted FOR cloture...

Re:Bill Rejected with Bi-Partisan agreeemnt

[nine-times]

Yeah, but they didn't just vote against it, they filibustered it. Yet again, Republicans won't even allow a vote to take place, forcing people to get 60 votes to get anything done.

Re:But I thought...

[bobbied]

The article is misleading. Some Republican Senators voted for cloture. This bill also was passed by the Republican controlled house. It's failure to proceed was bipartisan, and included a number of democrats not voting for cloture. Like it or not, Republicans are NOT YET in control of the Senate. The new congress is not seated until January 2015.

red herrings create false dichotomy

[Anonymous Coward]

your first two lines, regardless of validity/lack thereof, automatically caused ~1/2 the population to emotionally dig in to protect their "guy" and/or pet cause.

regardless of where one stands on immigration, healthcare or even terrorism for that matter it is a simple question of FACT that the NSA is an agency of the executive branch therefore curtailing their power/practices requires nothing more than a phone call stating: "stop doing x or I'll fire you & replace you w/someone who will!".

that's it! it's literally that simple! google Harry Truman pimp slapping Douglas MacArthur...

there is no law (including the infamous patriot act) that explicitly requires the NSA to do what they're doing! this collection is a matter of "interpretation" & the fact that Obama has been unwilling to clarify the bounds of the 4th amendment is 100.0% on HIM, not congress...

Re:Why?

[operagost]

Indeed. People like Rand Paul voted against it because it EXTENDED THE PATRIOT ACT while leaving the worst parts of it in place. But no, the Slashdot hive mind thinks, "OMG LIBBERTERIANS JUST WANT GUBBERMINT, INC."

Re:Bill Rejected with Bi-Partisan agreeemnt

[pr0t0]

I'll start this off by stating I'm non-partisan and have no particular party affiliation. That said, the AC above is being disingenuous at best.

Domestic surveillance of the American populace by the NSA as almost certainly been in place since its inception, but it didn't really come into full-force until Bush signed the order to begin domestic spying on Oct.4, 2001. (see https://www.eff.org/nsa-spying... say that its reached "new and unimagined levels" under the current administration is true, but only because the program has grown and expanded steadily since 2001.

But all of that is history to be rewritten by those with the motivation to do so, and relearned by those with short memories. As Americans, our forefathers built a nation upon the idea that we could create and maintain a country free of political tyranny; that those with power could not subjugate those without; that as humans, we have the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that its laws will provide justice and protection for all its citizenry; and that those citizens will be brave in the face of those who would try to take those ideas from us, and fight to preserve what we have built.

The Senate had the chance to take a stand to honor the sacrifices made by so many, and everything that we've fought and bled for 238 years; but they did not. Perhaps that is fine. Perhaps ISIS, and Al-Qaeda before them, have shown us that the idea of America is a false one. That all it takes to shake our country to its foundation is to sneak in and blow up some buildings. Maybe we were delusional in thinking that we could really ever be free? Maybe it's all been romanticized through movies, literature, and rewritten history books; and that we never really were a "land of the free and home of the brave". Maybe that's just song lyrics. Maybe it is the best form of government on the planet, or maybe that doesn't matter because it's government of and by an animal driven by greed and fear. And maybe it's always been that way since we came out of the caves.

That's what I take away from this vote, and all the other votes on all the other measures that either erode our freedoms, or prevent that erosion from happening. That it doesn't matter what we do, no form of government can overcome our failings as species.

To be fair

[StikyPad]

They might not have succeeded with more attention to the issue. If, for example, Slashdot had posted the story, we might be reading a different story today.

Re:slashdot this article title should be changed

[Maritz]

You don't see how mass Internet and telephony surveillance is relevant news if you're a nerd? You don't see any relevance with respect to the NSA weakening encryption algorithms and putting backdoors in network gear, and hoarding zero-days?

NSA supported this bill, whistleblowers didn't

[raymorris]

The NSA supported this bill. Various whistle blowers signed a joint letter against it.
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.c...

The original version several months ago had some significant good points, but after negotiations with the administration removed the primary protections, what was left was mostly a bill extending the Patriot Act. Republicans might be right to vote against this and let the Patriot Act expire.

Only two votes were needed and one was a Democrat

[Danathar]

Geeze, we couldn't get TWO votes...one of which was a Democrat? (Nelson of Florida)?

Re:Dems who held the Senate for SIX FUCKING YEARS

[nucrash]

Two things you never want to see manufactured. Sausage, and Legislation.

Lawmakers get paid to apply an angle to anything to get legislation that benefits them and screws everyone else through all the time. That is their role. You can attack the Affordable Care Act all day long, but how much has the public been lied to over the Invasion of Iraq, The PATRIOT Act, and so many many more pieces of legislation over the years.

Lincoln's most recent film exposed deception back in the Civil War to free the slaves.

Social Security was built around the idea that the average life span was 64 years old, so if you happen to be one of the lucky few that make it that far, congratulations, you earned a check. For those who passed away before then, too bad, so sad.

Insurance is built around the same principle by default. The key problem with Insurance is that the younger generation didn't have enough money to keep the Insurance companies afloat and because many younger people such as myself see insurance as not all that important, we would skip on that until it was needed. Fortunately I managed to gain employment at a company that will provide coverage before I needed any serious surgery.

Re:Hmmm ....

[Maritz]

My answer is that both parties have decided that security at any costs, and privacy be damned is the way of the future.

While I hope my cynicism is misplaced, I personally don't think they give a fuck about security. If they did, they'd do the math and realise there are higher priorities in terms of preventable deaths. What they give a fuck about is power. Specifically, getting it, keeping it, and increasing its scope.

Senate Rules require 60 to pass

[hymie!]

It's probably important to note that the vote was not 58 against and 42 for. It was 58 for and 42 against, with 60 "yes" votes needed for passage.

Re:Senate Rules require 60 to pass

[jimbolauski]

This was not a vote for passage but a vote to end debate, cloture. If you read the bill you will see it essentially grants the AG the power to search if the AG thinks it's an emergency, I personally think that needs to be debated and fixed.

Re:Bill Rejected with Bi-Partisan agreeemnt

[mrego]

Much more valid than "Dr. Jill Biden"

Re:Wait a min....

[digsbo]

Once you oversimplify things enough, you get broad support from either brainless socialists or xenophobic evangelicals. Take your pick.

Bad bill.

[Chas]

Honestly? In its final form? The FREEDOM act was BADLY compromised. To the point where it would, in some ways, be achieving the OPPOSITE of the bill's original intent and could compromise our rights

I'd rather a bill like that get left on the floor.

Re:Bad bill.

[DamnOregonian]

Yes, because the status quo is better.
Fuck a watered down Patriot Act, let's just keep the full she-bang.
Because there's no way both houses controlled by the Republicans aren't going to push through an extension, sans reform, with ease, once it's tacked to something non-filibusterable.

No progress until Victory!

Re:Bad bill.

[Stormy Dragon]

Yes the status quo is better because in the status quo the PATRIOT Act automatically expires earlier than it would have under the "FREEDOM" Act.

Re:Bad bill.

[Chas]

Seriously?

You'd take ANYTHING, regardless of how badly it fucks people over, SIMPLY FOR THE SAKE OF "CHANGE"?

Re:Bad bill.

[ToddInSF]

Yes, that's how some "Progressives" are; they're just as horrible as the extremists on the far right.
"A provision to extend the controversial USA Patriot Act to 2017 was also appended by the House of Representatives."
No wonder people are disgusted with Congress, what a bunch of incompetent fools.

Re:Bad bill.

[DamnOregonian]

I'm going to give you a list of Bush laws with sunset provisions that were allowed to sunset:

There you go. That's the whole list.

You were saying?

Re:Bad bill.

[DamnOregonian]

No, I said I'd take an improvement over no improvement.
How is that "ANYTHING", and why is pragmatism so hard for you to comprehend?
If you believe for a second that a Republican controlled congress is going to allow the PATRIOT Act (their fucking baby!) to sunset- you're beyond dense. Who is it, you think, who added the amendment extending it?

Let me try, now:

Seriously?

You'd stop ANY PROGRESS, regardless of how badly the status quo fucks people over, SIMPLY FOR THE SAKE OF STOPPING CHANGE?

Time to take the gloves off

[nehumanuscrede]

It is at this point where any remaining heavy hitting documents within the Snowden cache should start surfacing. ( assuming any with any weight still remain undisclosed )

Our leadership loves to promise one thing and always deliver another if left to their own decisions. The only way things will get fixed is via major pressure from all angles. Sadly, one of the few ways left to us is through the disclosure of incredibly damning evidence until they start doing the jobs they are supposed to be doing.

The other method involves the Second Amendment, but no reason to go there yet if we still have other options open to us :)

So ! That said, to the folks who control the box of secrets, it's time to let another Genie out of the bottle so the folks in charge get it through their head we want this fixed.

Re:Extended Patriot Act

[archmcd]

Because everybody is too swept up in party politics to care about content and actually fixing things. It's much more fun to be part of a rivalry.

Seriously, this bill was bad, but too many people here on Slashdot are incapable of seeing how. It AUTHORIZES mass data collection and surveillance, just puts some extra parameters around it. Shouldn't our goal be to shut down mass data collection and surveillance?

Re:Bill Rejected with Bi-Partisan agreeemnt

[JackieBrown]

Keystone is just political grandstanding.

Big oil doesn't care about it anymore because we have all the oil needed from fracking.

The people running the environmental groups don't care but know that enough people are uniformed that they will poor their own dollars to those causes.

Re:Bill Rejected with Bi-Partisan agreeemnt

[mrjimorg]

Odd, I've never heard it be referred to as Partisan on CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN or in the NY Times, LA Times, ..... You must watch one of this extremist 'fringe' channels to have heard this

Watered down for white house support

[fustakrakich]

Are you people going to blame the republicans for that too? They work together, people. Republican and democrat are one, a monolithic entity. Notice you don't have one single independent in the house. May as well be Russia or China. Get over this crap. If you want anything to happen at all, you have to vote the party out of power. That thought shouldn't be too difficult to comprehend.

Blaming Republicans, huh?

[mi]

Prior to this vote, the bill had already been stripped of privacy protections in aid of gaining White House support

Sounds like the most crucial parts were stripped out to get the President's pre-approval. What party is Obama from, again?

Re:Blaming Republicans, huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Pretty sure he's a Republican, I just don't see why the rest of his ilk hate him so.

Surveillance Achieves Nothing

[balajeerc]

Governments everywhere in the world demanding or assuming massive surveillance powers to employ a massive dragnet on communications of their own citizens are lying if they say they are doing it to protect them against enemies of the state. Enemies of the state who actually are interested in subversion are already using a 2048-bit PGP encryption, and then embedding the encrypted text using steganography in an image of Santa Claus on his sleigh flying over snowy hills and sending that as a season's greeting email. The government is never going to break the encryption even if Santa Claus left the self portrait in a stocking over the defense/home ministry's fireplace. The people that they really are targeting are you and me - ordinary people on whom they want leverage, just in case we turn troublemakers.

Re:Surveillance Achieves Nothing

[spacepimp]

There is no amount of freedoms they can take away which will actually make us safer. There is always a way around their plans to be destructive. In the end we are no longer free and we are not safer. Al we have are systems of control and power that we cannot hide from.

Re:Surveillance Achieves Nothing

[JustNiz]

This.
If I had mod points you'd get them.

Re:Hmmm ....

[fustakrakich]

The truth about these people is not cynical in any way. It's the simple truth about people and /wealth/power. The cynicism is in the voters who believe their lies. They have made the system into a complete fraud with their misplaced, blind faith, hoping for some trickle down. Very cynical indeed they are. The politician is a perfect reflection of the voters' own corruption. 95% reelection rate should speak volumes, but nobody's listening... Eh, too bad.. Waddya gonna do?

Re:Dems who held the Senate for SIX FUCKING YEARS

[fustakrakich]

How is this 'offtopic'??? The damn summary singles out the republicans. Why do people insist on carrying on this charade? The ruling party in DC is a monolithic party, with factional bickering being foisted on the public as actual opposition. How silly can you get?

Re:Actually, Democrats blocked it

[BenSchuarmer]

That's not how the Senate works. For most things, you need 60 votes to "end debate" before a real vote happens. I can't find the official votes, but most Democrats voted for it, and most Republicans voted against it.

Re:Actually, Democrats blocked it

[BenSchuarmer]

Here's the link: http://www.senate.gov/legislat...

From a quick scan of the yeas and nays, I only found one Democrat who voted against it and four Republicans voted for it.

Re:Bill Rejected with Bi-Partisan agreeemnt

[sociocapitalist]

That it doesn't matter what we do, no form of government can overcome our failings as species.

Obligatory:
I for one, welcome our AI overlords...

Re:Hmmm ....

[Pablew Nopl]

I dunno, it looks like there were 58 senators looking to limit surveillance

This bill did not do that, and in fact extended the Unpatriotic Act. Unconstitutional mass surveillance would have continued as usual.

The true colors of The One Party is shown if you just look at all the people who voted for the Unpatriotic Act the first time around, when it was easy to take advantage of the ignorant general public's emotions: Nearly everyone, regardless of party. They will do anything to maintain power, and do not care one bit about our fundamental liberties or the constitution. Any time they look like they care, it's just a ploy for more votes. In this case, the bill was just ineffectual and had some nasty things in it, so voting for it isn't a vote for freedom.

Re:Actually, Democrats blocked it

[radarskiy]

This was not the vote on the bill. This was the vote for cloture.

Cloture is a vote to end debate and call the question. Under current US Senate rules it takes 60 votes for cloture where it applies. A bill take 51 votes to pass.

Of the 42 votes against cloture, 1 was a Democrat. Of the 58 votes for cloture, 4 were Republicans.

Since the Republicans had enough votes to block cloture, the question could not be called. This means that either debate must continue until quorum fails (fillibuster) or debate is tabled with no vote and the agenda proceeds to the next item.

good!

[silfen]

This was not the "limit the NSA" act, it was the "extend the PATRIOT bill" act. It's a good thing that it got killed.

Let's try again for something better in the next Congress.

Facile nonsense

[fyngyrz]

The nicest thing you can say about libertarian philosophies is that they aren't as ignorant and poorly thought out as modern conservative ones.

That is just hand-wavy nonsense.

Take libertarian issues honestly one by one, and some are demonstrably quite reasonable, while others are about as screwed up as anything in the Democratic or Republican plank collection. And vice-versa.

For instance, on the Libertarian side, take agency. Let's see you reasonably defend policy that takes agency away from a person when the act at hand is personal (or consensual) and properly informed. Libertarians don't think you can do it (and so far, they've been right... there isn't a reasonable defense for this that's ever been penned to date.)

And in case that's too wordy, here: "You, competent-and-suppposedly-free-adult-person, you want a pizza? No, sorry, we've decided (though in many instances it's perfectly clear we're just lying) it's bad for you. Absolutely no pizza. Furthermore, if you do have one, or make one, or sell one, you're going to jail. For years." Defend that position.

On the Democratic side, the argument is that a healthy nation is a better nation, and it is worth a very significant cost to achieve that. Argue that it isn't.

On the Republican side, one plank states "We oppose the creation of any new race-based governments within the United States." Make an argument for a race-based government. Go ahead, try.

Re:Facile nonsense

[i kan reed]

Take them honestly, and they still fucking come with neo-liberal "market will generically solve human problems" bullshit just-worldism.

You take that part out and you end up with a very different philosophy.

Re:Facile nonsense

[fyngyrz]

I think you need to take a breath and realize that there are people trying to enable corporate power, and there are people trying to enable responsible agency for intelligent beings, and that they are not the same people, but they both find themselves under the libertarian banner. Small l. Because that's the closest fit. Just like gun nuzzlers go republican because of the gun plank in the party (some of them would be very happy to have race-based governments.)

Sigh. Maybe we -- or I, at least -- just need a new 'ism.

Re:Facile nonsense

[Jane Q. Public]

I think you need to take a breath and realize that there are people trying to enable corporate power, and there are people trying to enable responsible agency for intelligent beings, and that they are not the same people, but they both find themselves under the libertarian banner.

NO, they don't. At all. The former are not even remotely Libertarians, even if they are trying to associate themselves with the Libertarian name.

Those are Republicans trying to pretend to be Libertarians. And by the way: progressives over the last years (Obama and friends are great examples) have been as supportive of "corporate power" as the Republicans. Just usually different corporations. But it's all the same game.

And honest Libertarian, however, is for free markets, with reasonable antitrust laws to keep the markets free. The latter part is integral to the capitalist system, and when it is lacking (as it has been under both Democratic and Republican rule since at least the late 90s), then what you have is oligopoly and monopoly (i.e., "corporate power"), not free markets.

So don't be fooled. Corporatists are NOT Libertarians. If they claim they are, show them where the Libertarian philosophy actually supports free competitive markets, not corporatism. They are not the same things.

Re:Facile nonsense

[Jane Q. Public]

First you say

while others are about as screwed up as anything in the Democratic or Republican plank collection

then you give examples of Democrats and Republicans. You left the part quoted above unsupported.

At any rate, I am quite happy that this bill was killed, because it was another whitewash job, like the original Patriot Act. In fact it would have extended some of the worst provisions of the Patriot Act, while not really curbing NSA much at all. It would in fact have codified into explicit law some of the surveillance and FISA court BS we have been trying to get rid of.

Re:Facile nonsense

[i kan reed]

Oh, those quotes were to syntactically contain the idea in a manner that ascribes it. It's not intended to be a direct quote.

Re:Facile nonsense

[Sri Ramkrishna]

Yet they exist. Almost like a religion.

Re:Facile nonsense

[mjm1231]

On the Republican side, one plank states "We oppose the creation of any new race-based governments within the United States." Make an argument for a race-based government. Go ahead, try.

I have no idea what this is even supposed to mean, but if they oppose the creation of four dimensional three headed goats with frog legs, it would be just as relevant. Well, I suppose someone might actually be working on a design for the goats.

Re:Facile nonsense

[TechyImmigrant]

>take agency.

I presume this is one of those words that means something other than what it appears to mean. I don't own an agency and I don't fear it being taken away from me. Agency in the sense of 'capacity to act' is hopelessly non specific for what ever the hell is is you were referring to.

Re:Facile nonsense

[garyebickford]

Sigh. Maybe we -- or I, at least -- just need a new 'ism.

Your -ism is wrong. :) Sorry, they all are. Every -ism is an attempt to impose a (usually) rational construct on an inherently arational system to which measures of rationality do not apply. IMHO this is especially true of any social or biological system. The best models of these are more closely related to neural networks and similar bottom-up decision systems based on convergence toward an apparent/semi-local optimum. As the number of nodes increases, the math increasingly looks like fluid dynamics.

Re:Facile nonsense

[Cyberax]

So don't be fooled. Corporatists are NOT Libertarians. If they claim they are, show them where the Libertarian philosophy actually supports free competitive markets, not corporatism. They are not the same things.

They are very demonstrably the very same thing. That's why Sherman Antitrust Act has been enacted loooong time ago.

Re:Facile nonsense

[mi]

On the Democratic side, the argument is that a healthy nation is a better nation, and it is worth a very significant cost to achieve that. Argue that it isn't.

It is very easy to argue, actually. By demonstrating, what "healthy nation" means in the Democratic speak. It is not, where fewer people are sick — it is one, where everyone has health-insurance. Now, that I've rephrased their point closer to reality: "A nation, where everybody has a health-insurance is a better nation," — it is slightly less unassailable.

But they don't mean even that. As Obama and his kept saying, if he had a choice, he'd have a single-payer health-system — and that is very easy to attack. Especially for people like myself, who grew-up in such a "worker's paradise"...

And the more cynical among us (and you can't be too cynical discussing the government's intentions) would argue, that Obamacare was designed to fail to make the single-payer system more palatable to the tired electorate.

Re:Facile nonsense

[AK Marc]

Ah, so we've moved on from abusing the word "liberal" so much we've invented new boogeymen, and call the new one "neo-liberal"?

Re:Facile nonsense

[Richy_T]

The you fail to understand your subject matter. Likely because you view it through your own biases and not honestly.

Re:Facile nonsense

[Jane Q. Public]

They are very demonstrably the very same thing. That's why Sherman Antitrust Act has been enacted loooong time ago.

WHOOOOOSH!!!

Get a clue. It was corporatists who created the "trusts" that needed to be busted. The antitrust laws were not made to protect us from Libartarians.

Go read Adam Smith.

Re:Facile nonsense

[dunkelfalke]

"neoliberal" is an european term meaning purely economic liberals (freedom for business aka free market fundamentalists).

Re:Facile nonsense

[david_thornley]

Last I read a Libertarian platform, it said that pollution should not be regulated by the government, but that landowners should sue when pollution gets into their property. That's as stupid a platform plank as I've ever seen. Civil suits are expensive, slow, troublesome, and uncertain, and having all those lawsuits going on would require massive government infrastructure and intervention.

Re:Facile nonsense

[Jane Q. Public]

Last I read a Libertarian platform, it said that pollution should not be regulated by the government, but that landowners should sue when pollution gets into their property.

Hey... there are extreme Libertarians who are out of touch with reality, in exactly the same way there are extreme Democrats and Republicans who are out of touch with reality. There is nothing unique about Libertarians in that regard, and judging them all by the positions of an extreme few is as erroneous as judging all Democrats and Republicans the same way.

The actual Libertarian principle in regard to that subject is that polluting somebody's back yard is doing them harm. Another of the central principles is that one of the primary functions of government is to prevent people from doing harm to other people. Further, contrary to what many people say, the Libertarian principle regarding government regulation is that government should regulate only when it's necessary to do so.

But if you put those together, the result is that if it is necessary for government to regulate pollution in order to prevent people from polluting other peoples' back yards, then it should. Ideally that should be voluntary, but if voluntary doesn't work then the government must regulate it.

Does that really sound so outrageous to you?

Re:Facile nonsense

[Cyberax]

So what's the difference between 'corporatists' and 'libertarians'? I fail to see any.

Vote for cloutre, not the bill

[radarskiy]

What every article seems to bury if not outright ignore is that this was the vote for cloture, not the bill itself.

Cloture is a vote to end debate and call the question. Under current US Senate rules it takes 60 votes for cloture where it applies. A bill take 51 votes to pass.

Of the 42 votes against cloture, 1 was a Democrat. Of the 58 votes for cloture, 4 were Republicans.

Since the Republicans had enough votes to block cloture, the question could not be called. This means that either debate must continue until quorum fails (fillibuster) or debate is tabled with no vote and the agenda proceeds to the next item.

However, whether the votes against cloture were because the individual senator felt work on the bill is not complete and it would be worse than the status quo or that the individual senator desired to just stall the vote cannot be determined only from the vote results.

False axioms

[fyngyrz]

Corporations are private individuals.

No. They aren't. Neither individual, or private. Other than as completely batshit legal fictions which no one with an honest interest in individual agency would support for a moment. Corporations, frankly, are imaginary constructs and as such deserve very little legal status, if any (I can't think of any they deserve, actually.)

People are inherently private individuals. Corporations are artificial constructs than have no fundamental initial merit of their own, and at most, they are/become what we make them. If we make more of them than they should be, then we've screwed up. Which is an excellent description of the present situation.

In fact, libertarians, much like conservatives, praise powerful corporations

Wrong. I'm a libertarian, and I don't praise corporations at all. Powerful or otherwise. I praise right action and properly allocated responsibility, things that have been excised from almost all corporate behavior by the error path created by the constant need to grow to satisfy shareholder interest, and in no way constrained by the libertarian idea that the corporation's ability to act, along with any person's ability to act in the corporation's stead, should be absolutely firewalled where it causes non-consenting individuals any direct harm, be it physical or in the pocketbook. Or severely punished if it breaches that firewall.

You want to be very careful when you start thinking you know what others consider fundamental based on just a label or two.

Re:False axioms

[DamnOregonian]

I think he's generalizing based on self-identified libertarian voting habits, as polled.
I know a lot of good libertarians, seemingly like yourself, but you all still vote Republican. I'm not saying you should have voted Democrat instead, but fuck, Republicans seem to be banking that the megatrusts they're working for will eventually get powerful enough to ensure their power forever.

Re:False axioms

[fyngyrz]

...but you all still vote Republican.

No. We don't. I have not voted republican since well into the last century. Basically since I developed the perception that republicans don't give the south end of a northbound rat for the health of the nation as a whole - economically, biologically, ecologically. I find their "me first and the rest of you can DIAF" attitude to be as utterly reprehensible as it is dependable.

I vote Democrat and will continue to vote Democrat as long as the hint of humanity they exhibit exceeds that demonstrated by the republicans. Right now, the republicans are at an epic low in this regard, consequently them getting my vote is basically an outright impossibility.

I do not consider optimum agency (personal liberty) and comprehensive safety nets to be at worthy odds in a wealthy society. Which we are. That's me. The broad outcry against the ACA has taught me a great deal about how others think. I used to think I was too pessimistic, that everyone had a core of generally extendable compassion within them, no matter what it looked like.

Nope. Then there are the "little" lessons...

Some unmentionable person(s) ran over a kitten in the middle of the wide-open parking lot at the grocery store here six weeks ago. When Deb and I rolled up, all we could see was a little head sticking up from the crushed body, frantically swiveling around like it would do it some good to see the next filthy scumbag coming. The little wretch was in plain view of at least a hundred people, and somehow, not a one of them could seem to see it. Whereas it was the only thing we could see. Crushed pelvis, completely broken front leg, broken tail, abrasions... broke my heart -- and at the same time, it's really fortunate for me that I didn't see it happen, or I'd probably be in jail right now.

Instead, we saved the kitten... cast comes off this Friday, and although the pelvis will never be right, she can walk again. But I will never, ever, forget the lesson.

Re:False axioms

[DamnOregonian]

/thread.

Humbling. You're good people.

It's the congress. Congress. CONGRESS!

[fyngyrz]

one of only four Republicans in favor of taking away Obama's surveillance state.

If you want to characterize the surveillance state as "Obama's", just remember, it was Bush's first -- it took a huge leap with the PATRIOT act which was instantiated (inflicted, more like) on his watch, and if the Republicans manage to put an electable candidate up next time around, it'll be theirs. None of which actually solves the problem, because it isn't a presidential issue.

The honest way to characterize it is as Congress's surveillance state since they're the ones who defined it, passed it into law, have not ameliorated it, and will continue it as long as the American Couch Potato Collective keeps leaving them in office.

Re:It's the congress. Congress. CONGRESS!

[danbert8]

That's right, the surveillance state is a bipartisan effort. They only vote along party lines to show their voters that they don't get along even though they do.

Expires? LIke a zombie, keeps coming back

[fyngyrz]

Well, let's just see if they actually let it expire. So far, their record of keeping intrusive, unconstitutional surveillance in place is pretty consistent. For the children, you know. And terrorists! And OMG immigrants!

But yeah, it'd be awesome if some of this utter crap just went away into the (a) sunset (clause.)

So, so bright...

[fyngyrz]

Those shades are really helping you with your feelings about the future, eh?

Something else you should know

[fyngyrz]

The funny thing is that congress has set a huge precedent of roundly ignoring the constitution. Ex post facto laws, innumerable tramplings of the bill of rights, effective inversion of the commerce clause, boatloads of laws that are in no way specified or even implied in their enumerated powers... so if the President wants to say "Hey, you, know, you guys simply aren't doing your job, and so [insert action here]" there really isn't much of a reasonable leg to stand on to pose an objection.

And if the country likes what he does, it'll stick, too.

Re:Bill Rejected with Bi-Partisan agreeemnt

[cyberchondriac]

You're not saying anything everyone didn't already know. Yes, NSA surveillance went crazy after 9-11. But yet, from 2008 til the present, Obama and the democrat led Senate (and close to parity in the House, until this January) could've put their money where their mouth is and scaled the Patriot Act back, or expired it even if the republicans fought to keep it alive, yet it was always renewed with non-partisan flying colors.

Re:Bill Rejected with Bi-Partisan agreeemnt

[orgelspieler]

Even NPR calls the Affordable Care Act by the moniker "Obamacare." If that's not tying it with one party (hence "partisan"), I don't know what is.

Re:Why?

[cmdr_klarg]

The Dems (including Obama) expanded and extended the patriot act at a time when they could have pushed it through with little resistance.

As much as the talking heads are going to try to make this seem like a partisan issue the fact of the matter is that there is heavy bi-partisan support for controlling the slaves of the USA and any resistance to this is largely lip service to keep the sheep filling the party coffers.

How many times do we have to go through the "It's the Democrats!" "No, no, it's the Republicans" mantra before we get sick of the game and smash the established sacred idols of the jackass and the elephant? We, The People, have become of the dog chasing its own tail. The sad thing is that the vast majority think that they're fighting the good fight when they're just being kept busy while the real powers that be loot and pillage.

Granted. Do not mistake my post as support for Obama and the Democrats. Merely pointing out that the GOP need no other reason to oppose something than the fact that Obama supports it. Look back at the last 6 years and tell me I'm wrong.

Re:Hmmm ....

[DamnOregonian]

A little research would tell you where the extension to the Patriot Act came from. Poison pill, or true intentions?

Re:Sample letter for those that voted against it

[Bob the Super Hamste]

Apart from the first question these are questions that should have been asked of every one of them about 4 weeks ago and the results published by the media.

Re:But I thought...

[DamnOregonian]

Well, 1 is a number, so I guess what you said is technically accurate.
It also didn't pass the House until the amendment extending the Patriot Act until 2017 was added.
Calling the failure to proceed bipartisan is either stupidity or deliberately disingenuous.

What I can't figure out is if it was intended to fail, and who out-gamed the other to make it fail. Let's be realistic, it was filibustered by the Republicans. I'm not going to count the 4 Republican yays for cloture or the 1 democratic nay as anything but statistical noise. There's a puzzle in the life of this bill, and I wish it made sense to me.

Re:Party of Fear

[DamnOregonian]

Fascists have a long and glorious history of pointing their finger at other fascists and saying their real cause is to prevent the country from falling to Them.

Re:Umm, what?

[DamnOregonian]

Agreed. Why aim for better if perfection is out of reach. Much better to let the status quo lay still. I love conservative ideology.
I do give the guy credit for sticking to his probably honest-felt convictions, even if pragmatism is a dirty word to him.

It's also a good thing that the Patriot Act won't be extended in 2015 anyway, when the House attaches it to an education bill.

Re:Wait a min....

[DamnOregonian]

Republicans did in fact block the bill... It is precisely because they're still the minority that they did this, instead of simply voting it down (the vote was for cloture, not passage)...
There was 1 Democrat who did not vote for cloture. That's even less significant than the 4 republicans that voted FOR it. Woe for common sense.

You are right that it passed the Republican controlled house, after they added an amendment extending the Patriot Act until 2017. The Senate Republicans simply filibustered so they can wait until they've got a majority, and the extension can be passed through on something that won't be filibustered by the minority at that time, thus keeping the reform away from reality.

FREEDOM Act Did Not Curb NSA Power

[Stormy Dragon]

You can't stop the abuses of authorized by the PATRIOT Act by extending the deadline for its expiration. That was the true purpose of this bill: a trojan horse to renew that abomination by burying it in a bunch of beuracracy that does nothing to reign in the government.

Bipartisanship

[MrKaos]

It would seem that even the possibility of bipartisanship is completely dead in America and that the possibility of actually resolving and solving the structural issues is lost in a ratcheting of political "solutions" designed to conceal their real intentions.

It's such a disappointing thing for such a great country when the political parties responsible for the stewardship of the nation can only look after their interests at the expense of everything else.

Re:Republicans?

[BenSchuarmer]

Since it was a Senate cloture vote, 60 votes were needed instead of a simple majority.

Republicans were 41 out of the 42; Democrats were 54 of the 58. Four Republicans and One Democrat crossed party lines.

http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=2&vote=00282

Re:Bill Rejected with Bi-Partisan agreeemnt

[RyoShin]

On Slashdice, an "Insightful" vote is used to say "this aligns with my worldview and so I approve of it even if it is logically inconsistent/fallacious or based on demonstrably false data or notions"

Re:Logic fail. No OT, no NT.

[LordLimecat]

Jesus death is recorded in the NT; there were no scriptures for several hundred years between the OT and NT, so its kind of hard to muddy the disctinction.

Im not discounting the OT either, just remarking that it is a mistake to assume that everything that applied to Israel as a covenant nation applies to gentiles across the earth (it does not).

Moreover, the only supernatural being that appears in the NT is Satan.

Thats not true, and even if it were true...

Therefore if you exclude the OT, you are a satanist.

that does not logically follow. Even if we were to assume that there are no other supernatural beings in the NT -- if we were to ignore the angel outside the tomb, the risen Christ, the holy spirit in dove form, the demon called leigon -- simply ignoring the OT would not imply an allegiance to Satan. Not only that, Satanists dont actually worship Satan.

But if you drop the OT,

Which I dont, but even if I did.....

then you have no divinity in christ

Mark 14:60-62
And the high priest stood up in the midst and asked Jesus, “Have you no answer to make? What is it that these men testify against you?”g 61But he remained silent and made no answer. Again the high priest asked him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” 62And Jesus said, “I AM, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.”
I dont know, that seems like a pretty clear declaration of his divinity. The Christ? The Son of the Blessed? The evocative "I AM" (compare with Exodus, where the Lord identifies Himself as "I AM who I AM")?

I have found it to generally be true that people who think Christ's divinity is not spoken of in the New Testament, have not read the New Testament. Even if you wanted to skip the gospels (John 1 for example) I could point you at the entire book of Hebrews (devoted to proving that Jesus is divine, and superior to all priests, kings, and angels), Galatians, Acts, and so on.

Look at the whole picture

[markdavis]

>"Republicans Block Latest Attempt At Curbing NSA Power"

Really? But let's see how it did in the House:

R yes: 179 D yes: 124
R no: 51 D no: 70

So in the house, a lot more Republicans voted yes than Democrats. And a lot less Republicans voted no than Democrats. So it seems like if there were a powerful Republication partisanship agenda on this, how does one explain the vote in the House?

In matters such as these (government spying, civil liberties, etc), I have noticed that things are rarely clearly partisan.

Re:Bill Rejected with Bi-Partisan agreeemnt

[david_thornley]

More to the point, Obama could stop the excesses by executive order. The executive branch works for him, and he has tremendous discretion in how it works within the law. The NSA does what it does because both Bush and Obama wanted it to.

Re:Democrats still control the Senate.

[BenSchuarmer]

Nobody is in control of the Senate. It takes 60 votes to "end debate", so most of the time if 41 out of 45 Republicans want to block something, it'll be blocked.

That happened in this case; 41 Republicans and 1 Democrat voted against it, and that's how come the Republicans are being blamed.

Did any of you stop to think that...

[Methadras]

There are things in the bill that they might not wanted to support? Read the bill or look and see if there things in there that may have been even worse. Things get crammed into bills like this all the time and no one knows about them until it's too late.

Confused

[MooseMiester]

The headline says "Rethugnicans BLOCK BILL!"

Uh, the Democrats control the Senate and have a majority. The Republicans don't take over until 2015. Or are we already blaming them for everything?

Oh, wait, sorry... that's what we've been doing all along, even when the Democrats could pass bills without a single Republican vote (2008-2010).

Re:Democrats still control the Senate.

[MooseMiester]

So the Republicans are to blame for the 370 bills that Harry Reid refuses to bring to the floor, too? This whole blame thing, it's so complicated. I guess the Republicans "blocked" the ACA with their zero votes?

Re:pro/con

[cbiltcliffe]

You got that *half* right...

From the freaking summary:
"A provision to extend the controversial USA Patriot Act to 2017 was also appended by the House of Representatives."

Which also didn't pass, as it was part of the same bill. Hence, why it was a "pro" that the Patriot Act didn't get extended.

Duuh.