Then you wont even know what you are missing out on.
Well there is a much deeper problem... A very prominent US Senator — with, no doubt, unobstructed access to both classified "national security" information and less important secrets — said less than 4 months ago on national TV:
When we kicked -- along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and Barack said, "Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don't know -- if you don't, Hezbollah will control it." Now what's happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel.
Now Bush had plenty of funny misstatements ("nukular", "misudnerstimate"), but what he meant to say was always completely clear to all listeners. What the above-quoted statement regarding Hezbollah meant, however, remains a mistery:
Nobody has ever kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon — or anywhere else, for that matter.
Nobody has even tried, except Israel (in 2006) — unsuccessfully.
Last time US was in Lebanon, Reagan was President, Hezbollah did not exist, and Barack was still in college.
Last time France was in Lebanon was between World Wars.
Lebanon is not a NATO member, and neither is Israel — the supposed beneficiary of the Senator's advice. There would be no justification to use NATO forces to secure the Hezbollah-free Lebanon, even if the first four issues did not exist.
And yet, despite all of these facts the Senator's statements went down really well — he was not taken away by mental professionals. In fact, he is now a Vice-President (picked for his supposed "foreign policy expertise").
A population, that votes this way, has far deeper problems than (un)availability of research data — all of the facts, I enumerated, are very well known and available to everyone — no need to bother "leaking" them. And yet, the senile lunatic moved from the Senate not to a retirement facility, but to within "heart-beat away" from the most powerful office on the planet.
The Bush administration cost America something like $15 Trillion in lost equity value in just its last 4 months.
Awesome... Despite the crisis being repeatedly tracked right to the sadly-successful efforts by Democratic Party and "community organizers" to loosen lending standards to provide mortgages to people, who can't pay them off, out comes someone like yourself to lay the blame on the Republican administration...
The 1999 article, which NYT has completely forgotten about, of course, reads: Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people [...] there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required
Ten years later Clinton's chickens are back to roost... Bush's they aren't.
Congress gave the incumbent telephone companies those breaks for the express purpose building out a next-generation nationwide fiber network. They then proceeded to pocket the money and deliver squat for it.
Sorry, but in my book that makes them bloodsucking leeches, not to mention amoral, immoral and outright criminal.
Yeah, "criminal" — for spending their own money, which Congress was kind enough to leave them, their own way. That must be some book you have there...
Not millions, billions, some two hundred of them (albeit in tax breaks, not cash) and I'm still waiting to see the results from that before I want any more tax money going to those bloodsuckers.
When you give someone a tax break, you become less of a bloodsucker, than you were before, when you were taxing them higher... Or did you call telcos "bloodsuckers" over something else?
You are still permitted to keep 2%. Under socialism you are permitted to keep 0%.
No, actually, not 0%. For example, some state enterprises in the USSR had "profit sharing" of sorts with the workers — including management...
Now here you confuse "socialism" with "protectionism". Forcing you to limit vendors or materials is a form of protection not socialism.
The regulations I was talking about could only partially be described as "protectionism". There are also things like "minimum wage", "workplace safety", "health care" etc. All of them sounded most reasonable, when first put in place, but can be (and are) used to tighten up the restrictions on how a (supposedly) free enterprise is run. The more such regulations are imposed, the less discretion owners have over how their firms are run — the closer a regime is to Socialism.
left wing + Authoritarian = Communism, right wing + Authoritarian = Fascism
The above "formula" is wrong in that it seems to consider Communism and Fascism as opposites. They aren't... Both are Statist with observable distinctions easier explainable by differences in national characters and other circumstances, than If you read Hitler's programme, you'd be surprised to see, how close it is to the Democratic Party's core, or their far-left (a.k.a. "progressive") illiberal friends. Here are the particularly striking points:
We demand that the State shall make it its primary duty to provide a livelihood for its citizens.
It must be the first duty of every citizen to perform physical or mental work. The activities of the individual must not clash with the general interest, but must proceed within the framework of the community and be for the general good.
The abolition of incomes unearned by work.
In view of the enormous sacrifices of life and property demanded of a nation by any war, personal enrichment from war must be regarded as a crime against the nation. We demand therefore the ruthless confiscation of all war profits.
We demand the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations (trusts).
We demand profit-sharing in large industrial enterprises.
We demand the extensive development of insurance for old age.
We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class
The State must consider a thorough reconstruction of our national system of education (with the aim of opening up to every able and hard-working German the possibility of higher education and of thus obtaining advancement). The curricula of all educational establishments must be brought into line with the requirements of practical life. The aim of the school must be to give the pupil, beginning with the first sign of intelligence, a grasp of the nation of the State (through the study of civic affairs). We demand the education of gifted children of poor parents, whatever their class or occupation, at the expense of the State.
The State must ensure that the nation's health standards are raised by protecting mothers and infants, by prohibiting child labor
We demand the abolition of the mercenary army and the foundation of a people's army
There is more, but this is enough... Now, to avoid the Godwin's Law trap, I must point out, that I don't accuse the contemporary American Left of preparing labor camps or gas-chambers. Their regime would be more like that of Mussolini, or Franco, or Brezhnev — not especially evil, just horribly inefficient.
Taking an overly holistic view of weather a government is socialist or capitalist is bad as it neglects the details.
You went off-tangent here. My point was simply, that regardless of whether a regime can be declared "socialist", it is valid to compare regimes and conclude, that one is more (or less) socialist, than another.
The dilemma involved in balancing "security vs. freedoms".
The dilemma certainly exists, but I don't see it in this particular case. Although I too find the idea of the universal DNA database repulsive, I can not rationalize my own negative reaction. What exactly is wrong with such a database? It is not even like a camera on every corner, leaving no room to kiss a girl without somebody watching...
Perhaps, the correct question to pose is this: "Do we want 100% of the crimes solved?" Or do we want to leave some wiggle room left for some future revolutionary to be able to undermine some distopian totalitarian government?
he better dispense with the near-Socialist proclamations...
Bill Gates, richest man in the world, and widely derided for his destructive business practices declared a Socialist by internet "blogger".
First, I didn't say "Socialist", I said: "near-Socialist". Second, I applied the term to his rhetoric — during this particular presentation — not himself. Could you be any more wrong?
So in your estimation is anyone who gives a bum on the street a dime a "socialist".
To qualify for the label, giving one's own dime (as Bill Gates is famously doing, God help him) is neither sufficient, nor required. Standing next to the bum and shaming passers-by into sparing their dimes — as Bill Gates just did — gets closer, but is still Ok. Forcing the tax-payers, as some of the politicians impressed by Bill Gates' trick might attempt to do, will qualify...
When they let you run your business, and only ask for a cut, it's still capitalism. It only becomes socialism when they come and take your business away entirely.
What if
the "cut" is 98%?
the regulation "they" enforce upon you (how much to pay the workers, use only certain materials, buy only from certain vendors, etc.) leaves you fewer and fewer choices in how to run "your" business?
No, I do not think, it is as "black and white" as you describe. Some regimes can be less and others — more socialist without factories being outright owned by the government.
There is no reason only poor people should be infected.
Yes, there is — the richer people can afford both the knowledge of the danger, and the means of defense.
Other things being equal, poor people will always have it worse, than the rich. Bill Gates' trick — and the accompanying rhetoric — certainly made news already and will continue to do so &mdash as he intended. But it is just a buzz-generating trick — not unlike the naked PETA protesters.
His main message — that having vast numbers of people suffer and die from preventable and treatable diseases (like malaria) sucks — is quite correct and on-target. But if he wants my money (or other, non-monetary, assistance) to help with it, he better dispense with the near-Socialist proclamations...
I just don't believe that the world is so easily divisible into good vs evil.
Indeed, some people/countries/things aren't easily determinable. Iran's regime, however, is not one of them. It is quite obviously evil. And aggressively so.
How different are Ahmadinejad's speeches regarding the US from say, Reagan's speech about the "evil empire" (USSR)?
The difference, obviously, is in that Reagan was talking about the truly evil regime, while Ahmadinejad is talking about a free nation and Middle East's only real Democracy...
Thank you for admitting, though, that Ahmadinejad's speeches are, indeed, as threatening, as Reagan's were. This is in welcome contrast to your earlier insistence, Iran's motives are purely peaceful.
I would like you to actually point me to the text of any speech of Ahmadinejad's where he threatens any state with military action. Just one.
Iran is one of the few countries, which has yet to recognize Israel — their foreign policy is that there is merely a "Zionist entity", which temporarily occupies "Northern Palestine". Their current president's rhetoric certainly matches that. You preemptively reject the most infamous quote regarding the "wiping out off the map" as "mistranslated", but here are two more:
That shit you link to in your sig is utter racism.
No, it is not... There is, no doubt, the thing called "Arab identity" and "Arab culture". Discussing such things in positive light is always welcome (i.e. "Black History Month"). Logically, criticizing them ought to be valid too.
Lumping all Arabs in as one group and making them liable for the crimes of a few is no better than saying all Caucasians are responsible for Hitlers crimes.
(
Your comparison with Hitler, actually, disqualifies you immediately, but I'll pretend, Bush is still president, and that Godwin's Law is still suspended.)
It is not "few" — I'm talking about the vast numbers of murderous rapists calling themselves Janjaweed, of the overwhelming majorities freely electing and otherwise supporting Hamas and Hezbollah, and the "civilized elites" comprising the Arab League — one which instructs member countries to not give citizenship to the Palestinians.
There is simply no denying, that Israel is held to the very high standards, even by the people, who apply such standards neither to themselves (like Hamas) nor to others. "The shit" you were referring to is simply pointing out the hypocrisy — with very concrete examples. I'm glad it struck your nerve.
I am a Caucasian, but I have Jewish and Arabic friends
Sure, sure. No problem with particular representatives of any demos. If you, actually, read "the shit", you would've found out — from the very first sentence — that it is talking about Arab states, not your friendly Halal meat seller.
If someone managed to publish my personal identity from my Slashdot alias, I'd have little chance of getting any law enforcement to act in any way
If, as is the case in TFA, the publishing was done with the intent of harassment and making death threat, I think, you'd have a fairly good chance.
In fact, in my sordid youth I did have a run-in with a certain Cook (of the Month and subsequently that of the Year) calling himself Right Reverend Colin James III. All I did was post an April 1st announcement of his committing a suicide... The cook managed to get the police departments of both his town in Colorado and my ISP's in Massachusetts to telephone my then-ISP (gis.net) to make inquiries.
Police never contacted me over the matter, of course, but the phone calls were enough for the chicken-shit proprietor (Bob Carp, spit) to terminate my service. The frantic voice-mail he left me said: "For $10/month, we don't want calls from police".
This same chicken-shit Bob Carp is now running an IP-telephony business, BTW. Called "Galaxy-something"...
I think the British police are a bit touchy about web pages with personal information included.
I am too. Maybe, it is because I'm a Nazi as well. Or, maybe, I have something else "to hide".
When even such powerful people people as the crown prince can lose his wife because the tabloids get proof of his affairs, well, that government is going to be a bit touchy about anonymous news services that encourage revealing secrets of those in power.
When even such powerful people people as the crown prince can lose his wife because the tabloids get proof of his affairs, well, the less powerful people will be even more anxious about their privacy and want the government to crack down on criminal invasion of it.
The only reason for Google to do this is to be able to study, what people are archiving and to be able to present them with valuable unobtrusive advertisements. Later. An encrypted file is no good for such purpose, and when people start doing so in earnest (we will, wouldn't we?) Google will attempt to limit the file types to the "known extensions" (.mp3,.doc,.txt).
At best, people uploading encrypted data (especially those savvy enough to name the files.txt) will be viewed with the same contempt, the advertisers have for AdBlock users...
My point is that they took away a very valuable piece of equipment without any sort of judicial oversight.
This, unfortunately, is a major problem with the "British Law" — in both UK and the US. While one's person enjoys significant protection, one's property can be ceased without much trouble. Towing illegally parked cars is the most glaring example — the illegality is determined by the policeman at best, and sometimes even by the driveway's owner.
Also, if a policeman becomes suspicious, that the $50K in your trunk are "drug money", he can seize it on the spot. You will then be saddled with the burden of proof, that the money is honestly gained.
This has nothing to do with IndiMedia or freedom of speech, though...
Because they will do them again and again, if nobody is ever prosecuted for them. I'm not sure, what your background is, but there is a distinct difference in computer-scheduler designs between low and idle priorities. The idle is, actually, quite dangerous...
I think the misunderstanding here is that of quantification though
Of quantification and classification. The G..GP implied, that the particular protests he had in mind were all peaceful and utterly benign. If you scratch such a person, you'll find out, that Weatherman Underground were, in their opinion, "peaceful" too.
The police have seized a single server to find out who posted the article.
Which they were absolutely correct to do — if there is, indeed, a fair hope of extracting such information this way. In either case, there is nothing similar to what the grandstanding "administrator" is alleging in their/.-submission:
the UK establishment does not want political content, legitimate or otherwise [emphasis mine -mi], hosted from these shores
They sure don't want the "otherwise" content, and, if someone posts it anyway, they'll try to find them, even if it means ceasing a server or two...
The truly funny thing is, people of the Bush-is-an-idiot persuasion (like yourself) never seem to disagree with the Bush-is-Hitler crowd, despite having near-opposite opinions on the matter...
First of all, one's "peaceful" (such as rock-throwing so common among Arab youth) is another's "violent" (each rock is, actually, a deadly weapon — especially, when thrown with a sling). Or potentially violent. But violence during a protest is a simple matter for the local police.
Where FBI can be more justifiably involved, are cases of serious (even if non-violent) disruptions, such as when protesters chain themselves to the rail-tracks to stall transportation of nuclear waste. Or damaging military equipment? Preventing such sabotage before it happens and punishing the conspirators (and would-be saboteurs) is a perfectly legitimate job. Another is protecting the military bases — both from mere disruptions and from actual threats.
Who can be sure, whether the mouth-foaming youth is "peaceful" or preparing to bomb the recreation hall? If there are credible suspicions towards the latter (and public expressions of sympathy with an enemy: "Al Qaeda has won! Kill the pigs!" — though not illegal, are one of the tell-tale signs), then an investigation is warranted, however peaceful the suspects have been so far.
But if said crimes are actually harmless like those the parent cited then what's the problem with them being more commonplace exactly when more harmful crimes are being dealt with instead?
FBI, being part of the Executive Branch are not (and ought not) to decide, what's "harmless" and what is not. If the Legislature has made something illegal, then it is the Executive's duty to enforce it. Now, given limited resources the can (and ought to) prioritize certain things up and down. But they should prioritize anything down to zero.
The parents point isn't that people should be able to break the law and get away with it
Yes, actually, that was his point — that "peaceful protesters" and "benign hackers" should be able to get away with it. He didn't say it outright, but was nevertheless quite explicit. I don't know, how anyone could've missed it...
You're effectively saying we should ignore say, a few rape cases, because little Billy being allowed to get away with downloading some MP3s might cause it to become more widespread.
Rapes (and murders) aren't, actually, a typical FBI fare — unless a federal official is involved or in cases of organized crime.
How much more such operations could they conduct if they weren't so clueless by having agents investigate peaceful protesters and non-criminal **HACKERS**
All crimes or suspected crimes deserve thorough investigation. Ruling certain kinds of crimes out-of-reach of the FBI simply due to resource-constraints is equivalent to encouraging the said crimes.
Slashdot Mirror
Well there is a much deeper problem... A very prominent US Senator — with, no doubt, unobstructed access to both classified "national security" information and less important secrets — said less than 4 months ago on national TV:
Now Bush had plenty of funny misstatements ("nukular", "misudnerstimate"), but what he meant to say was always completely clear to all listeners. What the above-quoted statement regarding Hezbollah meant, however, remains a mistery:
And yet, despite all of these facts the Senator's statements went down really well — he was not taken away by mental professionals. In fact, he is now a Vice-President (picked for his supposed "foreign policy expertise").
A population, that votes this way, has far deeper problems than (un)availability of research data — all of the facts, I enumerated, are very well known and available to everyone — no need to bother "leaking" them. And yet, the senile lunatic moved from the Senate not to a retirement facility, but to within "heart-beat away" from the most powerful office on the planet.
Awesome... Despite the crisis being repeatedly tracked right to the sadly-successful efforts by Democratic Party and "community organizers" to loosen lending standards to provide mortgages to people, who can't pay them off, out comes someone like yourself to lay the blame on the Republican administration...
The 1999 article, which NYT has completely forgotten about, of course, reads: Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people [...] there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required
Ten years later Clinton's chickens are back to roost... Bush's they aren't.
Yeah, "criminal" — for spending their own money, which Congress was kind enough to leave them, their own way. That must be some book you have there...
When you give someone a tax break, you become less of a bloodsucker, than you were before, when you were taxing them higher... Or did you call telcos "bloodsuckers" over something else?
No, actually, not 0%. For example, some state enterprises in the USSR had "profit sharing" of sorts with the workers — including management...
The regulations I was talking about could only partially be described as "protectionism". There are also things like "minimum wage", "workplace safety", "health care" etc. All of them sounded most reasonable, when first put in place, but can be (and are) used to tighten up the restrictions on how a (supposedly) free enterprise is run. The more such regulations are imposed, the less discretion owners have over how their firms are run — the closer a regime is to Socialism.
The above "formula" is wrong in that it seems to consider Communism and Fascism as opposites. They aren't... Both are Statist with observable distinctions easier explainable by differences in national characters and other circumstances, than If you read Hitler's programme, you'd be surprised to see, how close it is to the Democratic Party's core, or their far-left (a.k.a. "progressive") illiberal friends. Here are the particularly striking points:
There is more, but this is enough... Now, to avoid the Godwin's Law trap, I must point out, that I don't accuse the contemporary American Left of preparing labor camps or gas-chambers. Their regime would be more like that of Mussolini, or Franco, or Brezhnev — not especially evil, just horribly inefficient.
You went off-tangent here. My point was simply, that regardless of whether a regime can be declared "socialist", it is valid to compare regimes and conclude, that one is more (or less) socialist, than another.
The dilemma certainly exists, but I don't see it in this particular case. Although I too find the idea of the universal DNA database repulsive, I can not rationalize my own negative reaction. What exactly is wrong with such a database? It is not even like a camera on every corner, leaving no room to kiss a girl without somebody watching...
Perhaps, the correct question to pose is this: "Do we want 100% of the crimes solved?" Or do we want to leave some wiggle room left for some future revolutionary to be able to undermine some distopian totalitarian government?
First, I didn't say "Socialist", I said: "near-Socialist". Second, I applied the term to his rhetoric — during this particular presentation — not himself. Could you be any more wrong?
To qualify for the label, giving one's own dime (as Bill Gates is famously doing, God help him) is neither sufficient, nor required. Standing next to the bum and shaming passers-by into sparing their dimes — as Bill Gates just did — gets closer, but is still Ok. Forcing the tax-payers, as some of the politicians impressed by Bill Gates' trick might attempt to do, will qualify...
What if
No, I do not think, it is as "black and white" as you describe. Some regimes can be less and others — more socialist without factories being outright owned by the government.
Yes, there is — the richer people can afford both the knowledge of the danger, and the means of defense.
Other things being equal, poor people will always have it worse, than the rich. Bill Gates' trick — and the accompanying rhetoric — certainly made news already and will continue to do so &mdash as he intended. But it is just a buzz-generating trick — not unlike the naked PETA protesters.
His main message — that having vast numbers of people suffer and die from preventable and treatable diseases (like malaria) sucks — is quite correct and on-target. But if he wants my money (or other, non-monetary, assistance) to help with it, he better dispense with the near-Socialist proclamations...
Indeed, some people/countries/things aren't easily determinable. Iran's regime, however, is not one of them. It is quite obviously evil. And aggressively so.
The difference, obviously, is in that Reagan was talking about the truly evil regime, while Ahmadinejad is talking about a free nation and Middle East's only real Democracy...
Thank you for admitting, though, that Ahmadinejad's speeches are, indeed, as threatening, as Reagan's were. This is in welcome contrast to your earlier insistence, Iran's motives are purely peaceful.
Iran is one of the few countries, which has yet to recognize Israel — their foreign policy is that there is merely a "Zionist entity", which temporarily occupies "Northern Palestine". Their current president's rhetoric certainly matches that. You preemptively reject the most infamous quote regarding the "wiping out off the map" as "mistranslated", but here are two more:
Well, as transpired last year, words matter, although, maybe, not always.
"Hope" is funny enough, but if Iranian (or, say, North Korean) next claim to fame is named "Change", I'll become really suspicious...
No, it is not... There is, no doubt, the thing called "Arab identity" and "Arab culture". Discussing such things in positive light is always welcome (i.e. "Black History Month"). Logically, criticizing them ought to be valid too.
(
Your comparison with Hitler, actually, disqualifies you immediately, but I'll pretend, Bush is still president, and that Godwin's Law is still suspended.)
It is not "few" — I'm talking about the vast numbers of murderous rapists calling themselves Janjaweed, of the overwhelming majorities freely electing and otherwise supporting Hamas and Hezbollah, and the "civilized elites" comprising the Arab League — one which instructs member countries to not give citizenship to the Palestinians.
There is simply no denying, that Israel is held to the very high standards, even by the people, who apply such standards neither to themselves (like Hamas) nor to others. "The shit" you were referring to is simply pointing out the hypocrisy — with very concrete examples. I'm glad it struck your nerve.
Sure, sure. No problem with particular representatives of any demos. If you, actually, read "the shit", you would've found out — from the very first sentence — that it is talking about Arab states, not your friendly Halal meat seller.
If, as is the case in TFA, the publishing was done with the intent of harassment and making death threat, I think, you'd have a fairly good chance.
In fact, in my sordid youth I did have a run-in with a certain Cook (of the Month and subsequently that of the Year) calling himself Right Reverend Colin James III. All I did was post an April 1st announcement of his committing a suicide... The cook managed to get the police departments of both his town in Colorado and my ISP's in Massachusetts to telephone my then-ISP (gis.net) to make inquiries.
Police never contacted me over the matter, of course, but the phone calls were enough for the chicken-shit proprietor (Bob Carp, spit) to terminate my service. The frantic voice-mail he left me said: "For $10/month, we don't want calls from police".
This same chicken-shit Bob Carp is now running an IP-telephony business, BTW. Called "Galaxy-something"...
I am too. Maybe, it is because I'm a Nazi as well. Or, maybe, I have something else "to hide".
When even such powerful people people as the crown prince can lose his wife because the tabloids get proof of his affairs, well, the less powerful people will be even more anxious about their privacy and want the government to crack down on criminal invasion of it.
The only reason for Google to do this is to be able to study, what people are archiving and to be able to present them with valuable unobtrusive advertisements. Later. An encrypted file is no good for such purpose, and when people start doing so in earnest (we will, wouldn't we?) Google will attempt to limit the file types to the "known extensions" (.mp3, .doc, .txt).
At best, people uploading encrypted data (especially those savvy enough to name the files .txt) will be viewed with the same contempt, the advertisers have for AdBlock users...
This, unfortunately, is a major problem with the "British Law" — in both UK and the US. While one's person enjoys significant protection, one's property can be ceased without much trouble. Towing illegally parked cars is the most glaring example — the illegality is determined by the policeman at best, and sometimes even by the driveway's owner.
Also, if a policeman becomes suspicious, that the $50K in your trunk are "drug money", he can seize it on the spot. You will then be saddled with the burden of proof, that the money is honestly gained.
This has nothing to do with IndiMedia or freedom of speech, though...
Because they will do them again and again, if nobody is ever prosecuted for them. I'm not sure, what your background is, but there is a distinct difference in computer-scheduler designs between low and idle priorities. The idle is, actually, quite dangerous...
Of quantification and classification. The G..GP implied, that the particular protests he had in mind were all peaceful and utterly benign. If you scratch such a person, you'll find out, that Weatherman Underground were, in their opinion, "peaceful" too.
See my other post in this thread on the matter...
Which they were absolutely correct to do — if there is, indeed, a fair hope of extracting such information this way. In either case, there is nothing similar to what the grandstanding "administrator" is alleging in their /.-submission:
They sure don't want the "otherwise" content, and, if someone posts it anyway, they'll try to find them, even if it means ceasing a server or two...
The truly funny thing is, people of the Bush-is-an-idiot persuasion (like yourself) never seem to disagree with the Bush-is-Hitler crowd, despite having near-opposite opinions on the matter...
That said, MAD is not the only struggling publication — seems like getting Obama elected was their swan-song...
First of all, one's "peaceful" (such as rock-throwing so common among Arab youth) is another's "violent" (each rock is, actually, a deadly weapon — especially, when thrown with a sling). Or potentially violent. But violence during a protest is a simple matter for the local police.
Where FBI can be more justifiably involved, are cases of serious (even if non-violent) disruptions, such as when protesters chain themselves to the rail-tracks to stall transportation of nuclear waste. Or damaging military equipment? Preventing such sabotage before it happens and punishing the conspirators (and would-be saboteurs) is a perfectly legitimate job. Another is protecting the military bases — both from mere disruptions and from actual threats.
Who can be sure, whether the mouth-foaming youth is "peaceful" or preparing to bomb the recreation hall? If there are credible suspicions towards the latter (and public expressions of sympathy with an enemy: "Al Qaeda has won! Kill the pigs!" — though not illegal, are one of the tell-tale signs), then an investigation is warranted, however peaceful the suspects have been so far.
FBI, being part of the Executive Branch are not (and ought not) to decide, what's "harmless" and what is not. If the Legislature has made something illegal, then it is the Executive's duty to enforce it. Now, given limited resources the can (and ought to) prioritize certain things up and down. But they should prioritize anything down to zero.
Yes, actually, that was his point — that "peaceful protesters" and "benign hackers" should be able to get away with it. He didn't say it outright, but was nevertheless quite explicit. I don't know, how anyone could've missed it...
Rapes (and murders) aren't, actually, a typical FBI fare — unless a federal official is involved or in cases of organized crime.
All crimes or suspected crimes deserve thorough investigation. Ruling certain kinds of crimes out-of-reach of the FBI simply due to resource-constraints is equivalent to encouraging the said crimes.
Yes, it would've... You would've checked in the store elsewhere.
It is not sufficient. Even you wouldn't claim, your case is typical.