If you'd rather have the Country capitulate because you buried victory in red-tape
That's a rather unlikely scenario to begin with, even when speaking of the civil war.
Emergency powers exist for a very good reason.
I disagree.
The TSA is not an emergency power.
Maybe not, but it is, however, the result of that sort of thinking.
Please direct your attention there.
No, because I know that once you give power to the government, they will abuse it again and again; Lincoln was no different.
They are not all trying to spy on you, or violate your privacy, or cause you problems.
Those with power will abuse it. It is foolish, in my opinion, to trust them with powers that could easily be used to violate people's fundamental rights.
The government is not composed of perfect beings.
Work with the system. It is your system. If you don't like parts of it then go to a rally, write a letter, call your Senator's office, or whatever you feel comfortable with.
I fail to see what this has to do with the issue at hand.
Yikes man, i never said anything that contradicted what you are supporting. I'm talking about War on US soil.
In that case, you did mention something that contradicts what I was saying. When I claim that I feel that security is less important than individual liberties, that is what I truly mean.
Again, this mentality leads to garbage such as the TSA. Guess who gets to decide when the danger is great enough? The government.
It's probably just that you've never had a feel for what a war would be like.
Whether or not that is true, it is irrelevant to whether or not my argument is wrong.
Then I disagree with Thomas Jefferson on that matter, or rather, spying on everyone to stop a threat is simply not okay to me. The constitution would be, to me, utterly worthless if the government could disregard it as they pleased (which is what such a mentality leads to, and it's happening at this very moment).
If you're saying this sort of spying is okay, then I hope you enjoy getting groped at the airport, spied on, and in the future, abused by those who claim to represent you.
How about finding an argument that won't drive away 99% of the population and make the entire cause look bad?
If claiming that 1 + 1 = 2 drove off most of the population, that would not be any reason to say otherwise; it is simply the truth, after all. Now, this is a subjective matter, but if most people seriously cannot wrap their seemingly feeble minds around the notion that the government is, in fact, not composed of perfect beings, then they shame the very country they claim to adore.
I believe even minimal knowledge of history should tell people that it is foolish to trust the government with such a massive amount of power.
I'm ashamed that so many people here, of all places, possess such mindsets. Here, where people complain about the TSA. Here, where people claim that freedom is more important than security.
To me, you people are at fault for all of the losses of our freedoms as of late. It is my opinion that the TSA and its ilk thrive on your nonsensical mentality and grow larger and larger because of it. Thesecomments are the sort I agree with, and as such, I'd love it if more people stopped trying to defend blatant violations of people's civil liberties, war or no war.
Freedom comes AFTER the fighting, not during. You fight to BE free.
That might be true if there were no constitution or notions of freedom, but that is simply not the case. This sounds like the sort of tripe that politicians spew to take infringe upon our liberties; actually, that's exactly what it is!
Frankly, that just isnt happening. At least not on any sort of large scale. I have heard more stories by Google and phone service provider employees stalking people and reading their convos than I have about NSA employees doing that. We arent "harassing" citizens just because we have the operational means to. Cops arent harassing citizens until they actually do it.
So let's just scrap the constitution and trust the government to do the right thing. After all, since the government is made up of perfect beings, as you apparently believe (and it would be rather strange if you didn't, given what you've said), what use is it?
The government isn't composed of perfect beings. Even minimal knowledge of history should probably tell you that it's not a good idea to give the government such powers. How naive can one be? You don't see the abuses, so it doesn't happen? I think the mere act of collecting that information is an abuse.
Before joining this line of work about 4 years ago I would have had the same feelings about the costs of freedom as you do.
Clearly not; otherwise, you would not have folded so easily when someone offered you a job.
But now I dont because I have first hand knowledge of the amount of unreported
You're irrational. So because it's not happening now (that you see), it can't or won't? You don't think about the future; you only think about what is right in front of you, what benefits you personally, and what is happening in the now.
Isnt there a number of prevented casualties that you could say, 'Ok, in light of new information, I think I can justify this'?
Oh, wow; ethics classes! It was revealed that the NSA collected data on hundreds of millions of Americans; that, I believe, is an abuse of power all by itself. Your ethics classes clearly didn't teach you people that that's bad all by itself.
Furthermore, none of this stops people from abusing their powers in ways the organization agrees with (as long as it's done to 'stop' the terrorists).
Let me ask you this, are you more afraid of government workers, who have had extensive background investigations and have a lot to lose if we ever do something stupid and lose our clearance, or a guy making $15/hr at AT&T?
That question seems irrelevant. How about this? Leave people's data alone and follow the damn constitution. Before you say that the NSA did follow the constitution: No, they didn't; it weaseled its way around it.
Why would we care about Joe Smith? Why does Joe Smith think we have the manpower to listen to his conversations?
You could use the same logic to justify any government action. Why would the government care about Joe Smith? Why does Joe Smith think the government cares about him enough to break into his house for no reason to conduct a search? Even if you as an individual do not get harassed, it is, in my opinion, still just as terrible if someone else does. It's called selective harassment.
but this shit makes a large difference.
What you and I consider "big" differ.
Perhaps you're in the wrong country. Here, I expect people to be at least somewhat brave by realizing that freedom is more important than security.
As someone who is a NSA contractor, I would retort that we do a lot more good than bad
Of course.
so I think the ends justify the means.
Of course you do.
I don't know about you, but it is my firm believe that individual liberties should take precedence over safety. If you can't save people without violating their rights, then perhaps you should simply accept the casualties.
That's silly. If you want to needlessly get yourself killed (I'm not saying he'd be killed), go ahead, but don't call others cowards simply because they don't want to follow suit. Dying for ideals is all well and good, but in this case, it simply isn't necessary.
That's why we have checks and balances, so that politicians keep each other in check. The problem we're experiencing right now is that these checks and balances are at risk from executive overreach.
You're saying that the fault with government (and you are clearly unhappy about it) is that we elect the wrong presidents
I'm saying the president is only one part of the problem.
and if people only paid more attention and elected better people and maybe we got a few more parties, things would improve.
If by "better people," you're referring to better congressmen, representatives, and other public officials all around, then yes.
It doesn't matter who we put in the White House
Of course it does, but electing a president who is willing to advocate for change and not abuse the powers that we currently give presidents is only one of the steps. You're acting like it's the entire plan, but it's not. I believe electing greedy, power-hungry imbeciles is bad no matter how much power presidents have.
I think that's what he was pointing out: copyrights and patents don't seem to be promoting the progress of science and useful arts any longer (putting aside that there's no real evidence that they ever did so in this day and age), and since that's the entire reason they exist, the laws could be considered unconstitutional.
It's not a terrible system if those two parties actually represent the will of the American people.
You can only represent the will of a majority (which can be as few as more than 50%) of the American people, not all of them.
And they do
No, they represent some of what the people want. Hot button issues get all the attention and everything else is shoved into the back of a closet. Plenty of people likely vote for the two main parties because they're afraid the Worst Party will win if they don't vote for the 'lesser of two evils,' and they're too ignorant to realize that that attitude is partly what causes the problem to begin with.
you tend to have half a dozen parties, each with their own extremist positions, and there is little reason to pay attention to what the mainstream wants
Same here, but because people are afraid to vote for third parties because they feel it will increase the likelihood of their most hated party winning. They have free reign unless they really, really anger people, but they know the other guys will eventually do the same. The system is broken, I think.
We voted for a "better" president last time around: a Harvard educated constitutional scholar, Nobel prize winner, and community organizer who talked the talk and walked the walk... until he became president, started having delusions of grandeur, and became intoxicated with his own power and myth.
If we really wanted the kind of do-good-activist-president you imagine
What? I'm not saying that electing different presidents is all we should do, though. I just think that people definitely should not vote for the lesser of two 'evils.' They should vote for better parties/candidates all around, too.
And of course you are so much smarter than they all, right? I don't think so.
Well, I do. If you don't think that most people are unintelligent, I invite you to look at how easily manipulated so many people were after 9/11 (which is just one example of chronic stupidity).
It's not difficult to be smarter than most people, but it is difficult to be so intelligent that you became a noteworthy individual, but I did not claim to be such a person anyway.
Actually, not voting at all is entirely rational if you look at return on time invested.
Only if you also disregard any possible benefits that change could bring. It isn't even that time-consuming compared to other things that people do, even if you actually take the time to research the candidates.
And, more generally, the low voter turnout in US elections tells you that most people just don't give a sh*t. They have low expectations of the government, but they are personally doing well enough that they don't really care.
It almost seemed like you disagreed with me that most people are unintelligent. Your reply is a mystery to me.
But it's thanks to that nonsense that we have abominations like the Patriot Act, the TSA, free speech zones, and all that other garbage. I'm not exactly sure what the solution is, but I don't like this "living document" nonsense that pretty much gives them free reign. Want change? Amend it, but don't outright ignore it.
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If you'd rather have the Country capitulate because you buried victory in red-tape
That's a rather unlikely scenario to begin with, even when speaking of the civil war.
Emergency powers exist for a very good reason.
I disagree.
The TSA is not an emergency power.
Maybe not, but it is, however, the result of that sort of thinking.
Please direct your attention there.
No, because I know that once you give power to the government, they will abuse it again and again; Lincoln was no different.
They are not all trying to spy on you, or violate your privacy, or cause you problems.
Those with power will abuse it. It is foolish, in my opinion, to trust them with powers that could easily be used to violate people's fundamental rights.
The government is not composed of perfect beings.
Work with the system. It is your system. If you don't like parts of it then go to a rally, write a letter, call your Senator's office, or whatever you feel comfortable with.
I fail to see what this has to do with the issue at hand.
people can understand things over time.
Most people can understand simple things, yes.
Yikes man, i never said anything that contradicted what you are supporting. I'm talking about War on US soil.
In that case, you did mention something that contradicts what I was saying. When I claim that I feel that security is less important than individual liberties, that is what I truly mean.
Again, this mentality leads to garbage such as the TSA. Guess who gets to decide when the danger is great enough? The government.
It's probably just that you've never had a feel for what a war would be like.
Whether or not that is true, it is irrelevant to whether or not my argument is wrong.
Then I disagree with Thomas Jefferson on that matter, or rather, spying on everyone to stop a threat is simply not okay to me. The constitution would be, to me, utterly worthless if the government could disregard it as they pleased (which is what such a mentality leads to, and it's happening at this very moment).
If you're saying this sort of spying is okay, then I hope you enjoy getting groped at the airport, spied on, and in the future, abused by those who claim to represent you.
How about finding an argument that won't drive away 99% of the population and make the entire cause look bad?
If claiming that 1 + 1 = 2 drove off most of the population, that would not be any reason to say otherwise; it is simply the truth, after all. Now, this is a subjective matter, but if most people seriously cannot wrap their seemingly feeble minds around the notion that the government is, in fact, not composed of perfect beings, then they shame the very country they claim to adore.
I believe even minimal knowledge of history should tell people that it is foolish to trust the government with such a massive amount of power.
When it comes to winning an acute war, I'm open to compromising on civil liberties
Such a shame.
What if he did not vote for the cowards of which you speak?
I'm ashamed that so many people here, of all places, possess such mindsets. Here, where people complain about the TSA. Here, where people claim that freedom is more important than security.
To me, you people are at fault for all of the losses of our freedoms as of late. It is my opinion that the TSA and its ilk thrive on your nonsensical mentality and grow larger and larger because of it. These comments are the sort I agree with, and as such, I'd love it if more people stopped trying to defend blatant violations of people's civil liberties, war or no war.
Freedom comes AFTER the fighting, not during. You fight to BE free.
That might be true if there were no constitution or notions of freedom, but that is simply not the case. This sounds like the sort of tripe that politicians spew to take infringe upon our liberties; actually, that's exactly what it is!
And no one really has any reason to trust you, either.
Frankly, that just isnt happening. At least not on any sort of large scale. I have heard more stories by Google and phone service provider employees stalking people and reading their convos than I have about NSA employees doing that.
We arent "harassing" citizens just because we have the operational means to. Cops arent harassing citizens until they actually do it.
So let's just scrap the constitution and trust the government to do the right thing. After all, since the government is made up of perfect beings, as you apparently believe (and it would be rather strange if you didn't, given what you've said), what use is it?
The government isn't composed of perfect beings. Even minimal knowledge of history should probably tell you that it's not a good idea to give the government such powers. How naive can one be? You don't see the abuses, so it doesn't happen? I think the mere act of collecting that information is an abuse.
Before joining this line of work about 4 years ago I would have had the same feelings about the costs of freedom as you do.
Clearly not; otherwise, you would not have folded so easily when someone offered you a job.
But now I dont because I have first hand knowledge of the amount of unreported
You're irrational. So because it's not happening now (that you see), it can't or won't? You don't think about the future; you only think about what is right in front of you, what benefits you personally, and what is happening in the now.
Isnt there a number of prevented casualties that you could say, 'Ok, in light of new information, I think I can justify this'?
No.
Most people still hold out the hope that normal democratic process' can be used to fix the problem
And yet they still vote for the same idiots again and again.
Oh, wow; ethics classes! It was revealed that the NSA collected data on hundreds of millions of Americans; that, I believe, is an abuse of power all by itself. Your ethics classes clearly didn't teach you people that that's bad all by itself.
Furthermore, none of this stops people from abusing their powers in ways the organization agrees with (as long as it's done to 'stop' the terrorists).
Let me ask you this, are you more afraid of government workers, who have had extensive background investigations and have a lot to lose if we ever do something stupid and lose our clearance, or a guy making $15/hr at AT&T?
That question seems irrelevant. How about this? Leave people's data alone and follow the damn constitution. Before you say that the NSA did follow the constitution: No, they didn't; it weaseled its way around it.
Why would we care about Joe Smith? Why does Joe Smith think we have the manpower to listen to his conversations?
You could use the same logic to justify any government action. Why would the government care about Joe Smith? Why does Joe Smith think the government cares about him enough to break into his house for no reason to conduct a search? Even if you as an individual do not get harassed, it is, in my opinion, still just as terrible if someone else does. It's called selective harassment.
but this shit makes a large difference.
What you and I consider "big" differ.
Perhaps you're in the wrong country. Here, I expect people to be at least somewhat brave by realizing that freedom is more important than security.
As someone who is a NSA contractor, I would retort that we do a lot more good than bad
Of course.
so I think the ends justify the means.
Of course you do.
I don't know about you, but it is my firm believe that individual liberties should take precedence over safety. If you can't save people without violating their rights, then perhaps you should simply accept the casualties.
That's silly. If you want to needlessly get yourself killed (I'm not saying he'd be killed), go ahead, but don't call others cowards simply because they don't want to follow suit. Dying for ideals is all well and good, but in this case, it simply isn't necessary.
What an eyesore.
That's why we have checks and balances, so that politicians keep each other in check. The problem we're experiencing right now is that these checks and balances are at risk from executive overreach.
Yeah, okay. I had no idea.
You're saying that the fault with government (and you are clearly unhappy about it) is that we elect the wrong presidents
I'm saying the president is only one part of the problem.
and if people only paid more attention and elected better people and maybe we got a few more parties, things would improve.
If by "better people," you're referring to better congressmen, representatives, and other public officials all around, then yes.
It doesn't matter who we put in the White House
Of course it does, but electing a president who is willing to advocate for change and not abuse the powers that we currently give presidents is only one of the steps. You're acting like it's the entire plan, but it's not. I believe electing greedy, power-hungry imbeciles is bad no matter how much power presidents have.
I think that's what he was pointing out: copyrights and patents don't seem to be promoting the progress of science and useful arts any longer (putting aside that there's no real evidence that they ever did so in this day and age), and since that's the entire reason they exist, the laws could be considered unconstitutional.
It's not a terrible system if those two parties actually represent the will of the American people.
You can only represent the will of a majority (which can be as few as more than 50%) of the American people, not all of them.
And they do
No, they represent some of what the people want. Hot button issues get all the attention and everything else is shoved into the back of a closet. Plenty of people likely vote for the two main parties because they're afraid the Worst Party will win if they don't vote for the 'lesser of two evils,' and they're too ignorant to realize that that attitude is partly what causes the problem to begin with.
you tend to have half a dozen parties, each with their own extremist positions, and there is little reason to pay attention to what the mainstream wants
Same here, but because people are afraid to vote for third parties because they feel it will increase the likelihood of their most hated party winning. They have free reign unless they really, really anger people, but they know the other guys will eventually do the same. The system is broken, I think.
We voted for a "better" president last time around: a Harvard educated constitutional scholar, Nobel prize winner, and community organizer who talked the talk and walked the walk... until he became president, started having delusions of grandeur, and became intoxicated with his own power and myth.
Not really what I'm talking about, but okay.
The US system is a good one
What part of the system? The voting system? Because any system that tends towards two parties is pretty terrible in my eyes.
If we really wanted the kind of do-good-activist-president you imagine
What? I'm not saying that electing different presidents is all we should do, though. I just think that people definitely should not vote for the lesser of two 'evils.' They should vote for better parties/candidates all around, too.
And of course you are so much smarter than they all, right? I don't think so.
Well, I do. If you don't think that most people are unintelligent, I invite you to look at how easily manipulated so many people were after 9/11 (which is just one example of chronic stupidity).
It's not difficult to be smarter than most people, but it is difficult to be so intelligent that you became a noteworthy individual, but I did not claim to be such a person anyway.
Actually, not voting at all is entirely rational if you look at return on time invested.
Only if you also disregard any possible benefits that change could bring. It isn't even that time-consuming compared to other things that people do, even if you actually take the time to research the candidates.
And, more generally, the low voter turnout in US elections tells you that most people just don't give a sh*t. They have low expectations of the government, but they are personally doing well enough that they don't really care.
It almost seemed like you disagreed with me that most people are unintelligent. Your reply is a mystery to me.
That's why you get so few third party votes.
And because most people are unintelligent and apathetic.
You are simply barking up the wrong tree.
I did not say that we can only do a single thing to solve the problem.
Why don't you tell us what you meant instead of giving us this roundabout bullshit?
Obviously, I meant to say that people should vote for a third party rather than voting for those who they consider to be a 'lesser evil.'
In your opinion, what should people have done in the 2012 presidential election to "throw out Obama"?
If you mean get rid of him, then not much. But it is not even remotely intelligent to vote for either of the two main parties.
But it's thanks to that nonsense that we have abominations like the Patriot Act, the TSA, free speech zones, and all that other garbage. I'm not exactly sure what the solution is, but I don't like this "living document" nonsense that pretty much gives them free reign. Want change? Amend it, but don't outright ignore it.