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The NSA Would Be Eliminated Under President Gary Johnson (thehill.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson says he'd sign an executive order eliminating America's National Security Agency if he wins the 2016 election. And he's also forcefully arguing that domestic surveillance of internet activity and phone calls in the United States is worse than in China. Johnson took issue with an interviewer at The Daily Beast who pointed out that China monitors political dissidents, saying "What do you call the NSA and the satellites that are trained on us and the fact that 110 million Verizon users are having everything we do on our cell phones being data-collected?"
Johnson also wants to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, replacing both income taxes and corporate taxes with a single federal consumption tax, and says he'd be willing to sign legislation eliminating the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Department of Commerce, which he says fuels "crony capitalism". "I'll sign legislation to eliminate any federal agency that they present me with."
Johnson has also said that if he were elected President, he'd pardon Edward Snowden.
Johnson also wants to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, replacing both income taxes and corporate taxes with a single federal consumption tax, and says he'd be willing to sign legislation eliminating the Department of Education, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the Department of Commerce, which he says fuels "crony capitalism". "I'll sign legislation to eliminate any federal agency that they present me with."
Johnson has also said that if he were elected President, he'd pardon Edward Snowden.
Far more likely that the NSA would eliminate him.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
He knows, we know, he will never have to make good on any of his campaign promises or boasts. He is 100% certain to lose the election.
He can promise anything he wants and it's meaningless. So why not go for the big ones: abolish the IRS but bring a efficient and fair tax enforcement, dismantle the Fed and have a strong monetary policy, kill off Wall Street and at the same time promote free enterprise, yadda, yadda.
Singling out only the universally unpopular NSA ist what a coward would do.
Personal point:
keeping the secret agencies in check & under control = good/wise
abolishing everything = idiotic
bolstering secret agencies further = equally idiot as abolishing them
Hint:
Never choose an extreme, because you can certainly be sure that you are wrong even when you are right.
Eh I dunno, I think it's probably best to just look at a political candidate for what they can do rather than what they say they'll do. For example, he can't abolish either the NSA or the IRS; the former is within the domain of the senate, and the later is within the domain of congress. He can pardon Edward Snowden however, which is basically the only sane thing I've heard out of any of the major candidates for this election year.
If on the one hand we have a giant douche, and on the other we have a turd sandwich, I think a third party candidate could succeed if he's a tic-tac.
Still, voting for him could be the "sensible" thing to do. Especially if you're a in a state where it's already more or less a given how the election will end.
If you're in a red|blue state where the outcome is roughly 70/30 in every election, it doesn't really matter whether you cast your vote for Hillary|Trump. It doesn't even matter whether the state is for or against the candidate you're for or against. Your vote simply does not matter.
You now essentially have three choices. Either you can say "fuck this shit" and stay at home, knowing that it doesn't matter anyway. You can participate in the circus and vote for Hillary|Trump. Or you can show that yes, you would've gone there, you wanted to participate but neither of the two clowns is good enough for your vote, but there is someone who voices your concerns, and he got your vote because of this.
No, this will not change anything. At the very least not immediately. The most you could hope for is that in further elections politicians will try to gain votes and check what agendas moved people. If you can get 5% more votes by catering to the anti-surveillance crowd, they'll go for this.
But then again, since your vote is for the toilet anyway, why not be creative with it?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There is no "capitalism" under "libertarianism". Without government to enforce laws, it all devolves into "strong man with big stick takes everything".
Because he's not a criminal or a raving nut. Sad but necessary.
Second, a federal consumption tax. Now normally a consumption tax is regressive: if you spend your whole pay check, as a poor person, then you are paying a greater share of the tax.
You mean you have a higher tax rate - not pay a greater share of the tax. One purchase of a Bentley by a rich person would cover the consumption taxes of 10 average families...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
No, the key word is not "share". The key word is not even mentioned.
Yes, the wealthier will pay a lower proportion of their income as taxes, but why is it relevant? They will still pay more taxes. The question is : what is fair? Is it fair for someone to pay more taxes simply because he's more successful? And if a person pays more taxes, will he get something in return for his greater contribution to society?
The idea that people should pay taxes according to their abilities and receive services from society according to their needs is communism. To me, communism is "regressive".
The problem with the people you're arguing with is they are skipping over the 50th to 99th percentile of the people to complain about the 1% at the top - and they're willing to "punish" all the people in the middle just to get at that 1%. They say "look at Bill Gates" or "look at Paris Hilton," not look at the people making six figures that are having as much problem putting their kids through college because they're ineligible for ANYTHING because they make "too much." They get ZERO benefits because of their incomes, but are paying top or near top effective income tax rates. In the U.S. you are punished the most for making more up until you get that 1%, who only pay capital gains (if that) and have the means to avoid taxes. That's not how it should be, but god forbid Paris Hilton can flash her money around.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
To my mind SELinux's value comes from it being free software. The freedoms of free software allow us to vet, run, share, and modify SELinux and make sure it does what we need it to do. Coming from NSA is nice because I'm sure the NSA hires skilled programmers who worked on SELinux, but I'm not going to trust any non-free software coming from the NSA because non-free software (regardless of purpose or stated intent) is untrustworthy.
The drug war (the US's longest war?), which seems intimately tied to the Drug Enforcement Agency, certainly is a horror.
Digital Citizen
What, like Guantanamo Bay was going to be closed under President Obama?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
If the laws violate the Constitution, then the Judiciary will point that out, and those bad laws will be invalidated
+5 Funny?