There comes a point where you simply have to trust the experts. We are well beyond that..... VERY well beyond that.
Imagine Oppenheimer and Trenberth were surgeons. Then the dialog would go something like this:
OT: You need a costly and risky operation, but we can handle it, trust us.
Patient: What's wrong with me? I don't really feel sick.
OT: You have some kind of tumor, but it's too complicated for you to understand. Just trust us. That cold you had last month, and the headache, and feeling queasy after the Thanksgiving lobster? We can't be 100% sure, but we think they were all probably caused by your disease!
Patient: What's the risk of the operation?
OT: Just trust us that it's less risky to get this expensive operation than not to get it.
Patient: Are there alternative treatments?
OT: None that we recommend. Just trust us, get our operation. We are the experts.
Patient: If I get the operation, how much longer will I live?
OT: Just trust us, you'll live a little longer.
Patient: How much is it going to cost me?
OT: We don't know, but just give us everything you have and we'll see what we can do.
Patient: I'm thinking about getting a second opinion.
OT: Sure, just go down the hall and ask my good friend Dr. Smith about what he thinks about this operation. We are all experts in this disease here and all know this wonderful way of curing it.
Patient: Isn't there some independent doctor I can go to?
OT: No. Everybody who isn't here is a charlatan and you can't trust them. All doctors here agree that this operation is the best thing since sliced bread, even though it's expensive.
Patient: You know, I don't really trust you. I think I'll take my chances and wait a bit longer.
OT: You're obviously in denial. You must be forced to get our operation for your own good. We'll just declare you mentally incompetent, institutionalize you and force you to undergo this procedure. Orderly, put him in a straitjacket.
You don't have to be an expert in a field to conclude that you don't trust someone or their advice.
Therefore, although warming can cause sea level rise and sea levels have risen, there is no conclusive evidence that anthropogenic emissions have contributed significantly to sea level rise.
Had the storm surge not been riding on higher seas, there would have been less flooding and less damage.
True, but that could mean anything from totally insignificant to significant increase in damage; nobody knows how much increase there is. Since the sea level rise isn't attributable to human emissions, however, that point is academic.
The actual problem is that people build in flood plains and too close to the ocean, because Congress bails them out with taxpayer money. That problem is much easier to take care of than carbon emissions.
Warmer air also allows storms such as Sandy to hold more moisture and dump more rainfall, exacerbating flooding.
True, but nobody knows whether that is a significant effect (likely not) either or how much of it is due to human emissions.
So, the scientists actually haven't said much factually wrong, but their statements are misleading and full of weasel words, and their policy recommendations are unfounded and ineffective.
Lamar Smith is right: "wait and see" is the right approach for the US. To that I'd add: eliminate federal flood insurance and disaster aid. If millionaires want to live on the beach, they should self-insure and not have the tax payer assume their risks.
So what now? And please don't tell me to just vote for the "right" party. That doesn't work. Most people will have forgotten Mr. Snowden when it comes to the next votes.
That depends on how big this blows up and how the president and representatives react.
How can I make my government stop bringing 1984 to reality?
Learn more about it, and talk to your friends and family about it. And don't view it or present it as partisan issues; this is a problem with both parties.
And remember that the most important decisions are made during primaries, not during actual elections.
Wow - so the solution is to remove the power to run a country away from the people and instead give it to those that can afford the best lawyers? Can't you see how Feudal that is? Aristocrats running the place in no time - just the thing Washington fought against.
Court cases are not decided by lawyers, they are decided by juries and judges. There is no evidence and no reason to believe that you can buy the outcome of a trial if you just have enough money. And the kinds of cases progressives care most about are frequently done on a contingency basis, so lawyers for the little guy effectively have as much money as their opponents.
What you're really saying is that you don't trust the legal system or juries, but you are praying for some perfect progressive politician, so you just want to eliminate one of our three branches of government by handing its power over to the executive branch. That's unacceptable.
Furthermore, regardless of what the connection between money and legal outcomes may be, the question is which is worse: the influence of lawyers on juries or the influence of lobbyists on politicians. Do you want to argue with a straight face that a fancy, expensive lawyer has more sway over a jury he can't pay or tamper with than a lobbyist has over a politician or regulatory body that he can give millions to or threaten with political attacks? Get real.
How do people get to be so naive? This would be funny if it wasn't so depressing.
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking about people like you. How can you be so naive?
How would "libertarian" politicians be any less corrupt?
Right now, the corruption results from politicians actually making decisions like giving banks and corporations hundreds of billions of dollars in "stimulus" and "bailouts" and similar boondoggles, and to force people to buy from small oligopolies (both of which Obama did). That makes it worth for corporations to spend large amounts of money on corrupting politicians. If politicians lack the power and funds to hand out such vast prizes to corporations, there's less incentive to corrupt them and less damage they can do. It's progressive policies that make it so attractive and lucrative for corporations to corrupt our politicians.
Here's a different question: how are you going to fix this problem with more regulations and more executive powers?
You may call some anarchists but they are very loudly shouting that they are libertarians - plus there are plenty that fit my description (Koch et al) that are a very poor fit for the other characteristics of anarchists.
Yes, the Koch brothers are not anarchists, they are libertarians, and they are consistently so. You reject their program because you erroneously believe it is bad for you and the US. You're wrong.
There are some libertarians who are also anarchists, just like there are some socialists who are also anarchists. But libertarianism is no more about anarchy than socialism is.
"You also keep comparing hypotheticals with the real world." You get that when the people you are asking about their ideology are not actually in charge.
Except we're talking about your hypothetical here. You argue that a hypothetical high quality regulatory regime beats real libertarian government. And you are right: it would. The problem is that such a regulatory regime is unachievable. If you try to achieve it, you get politicians who wreck the economy, enrich their buddies in industry, trample all over civil rights, and start murdering people. You know, people like Obama.
The problem with socialism and progressivism is not that it isn't aiming for the right goals, the problem is that it is so vulnerable to corruption and human error that it doesn't work and will never work.
Individual liberties - like the right to not be ripped off by your employer
What you call a "rip off", namely bad working conditions or low salary, you have an easy remedy: you walk away from it and get another job.
and the right to not drink polluted water?
You do have that right, and you get it by enforcing it in a court of law (often in class action lawsuits), not regulations that are written by corrupt politicians and enforced by corrupt bureaucrats.
Why are you pretending that the two things are not one and the same
Because they aren't the same at all. Regulation is standards set by the government that people have to comply with, usually with a prescribed set of penalties for violating them and usually with only the executive branch having standing to challenge corporations; the same executive branch that receives massive campaign contributions. And the regulations are set by politicians and bureaucrats in backroom deals with industry, and they are enforced and applied by bureaucracies composed of revolving door employees from industry. That is the system you advocate. It's the system that has given us the current financial, banking, and health care messes.
Liability means people holding corporations responsible for actual harm inflicted, with evidence on the table, proper evidentiary procedure, a jury making the decisions, and a judge making sure that the rules are adhered to. Corporations don't get off with politically negotiated penalties ("too big to fail") or the excuse that someone else screwed up the regulations. That is the system libertarians advocate.
What do you mean "The US"? What do you mean "China"? These are big places, with highly unevenly distributed pollution.
You can look at total emissions or particular counts in populated areas, they both tell the same story. Go look it up. It's a standard statistic for air quality.
Don't evade the issue - it was the "libertarians" prized lack of governance that caused the problem so the type of government that was leaving the building owner alone is irrelevant.
You really need to look up what the terms mean that you use. It is anarchists that favor a lack of governance. Libertarians and progressives/socialists both want a functioning, strong government, they just want government do different things: libertarians want it to protect free markets and individual liberties, while progressives want it to protect and regulate classes of people and businesses.
You also keep comparing hypotheticals with the real world. You assume that more regulation prevents more building collapses, but that's obviously false. What induces people to spend the money to make things safer is not regulation, it's strict and enforceable legal liability. But regulation tends to weaken, rather than strengthen, legal liability, since the usual deal is that if businesses comply with regulation, they are exempt from liability.
Pretending I'm "ignorant" because I'm aware of a problem is a bit much isn't it?
You're ignorant because you keep confusing libertarianism and anarchism.
It doesn't make sense to compare actual sentences (and in this case juvenile sentences!) with theoretical maximums for adult defendants. So, knock off the fabricated outrage and let's wait for the outcome of the case. You can still get outraged after the actual facts are in.
it's a con-job to make you think that your interests align with theirs, that what is good for them is good for you.
Unfortunately, you've been suckered by a con-job, believing that if you just pay ever more in taxes and make ever more rules and regulations, your life will get better and better. In fact, what you are doing is supporting rent seeking on a massive scale, both legally and financially. Just look at how Obama has handed out favors to corporations left and right.
I mean, what does it take for you to face reality? We have an intelligent, Harvard educated, multi-racial, Nobel peace price winning self-proclaimed progressive and left-wing president, and he has handed out trillions to industry and banks with nothing to show for it, uses drone kills with impunity, has worsened the war on drugs, and invades privacy on a massive scale. He dropped out of the public campaign finance system, has $40000/plate fund raising dinners with billionaires, and even made purchase of an overpriced and inferior product mandatory for every American.
How exactly is that magic progressive nirwana supposed to come about? The problem with progressives (as with Christians) is not their good intentions, it is the fact that their actions make the problems worse not better.
I see an aristocracy as the inevitable outcome of a system that concentrates power into the hands of those that already have resources and prevents others from having much say in how the place is run
I see that too. And that is unfortunately what progressives are trying to create.
If you want something to really rub it in, consider the building collapse in Bangladesh where there was the "libertarian" wet dream of no government enforcing safety standards on the building owner.
Bangladesh has been governed for years by a left-wing, socialist party, and you see the results.
As for your characterization of libertarianism, you really need to read up on it because you are totally ignorant.
See, the way this works is: (1) take a large collection of randomly varying measurements, loosely and intuitively related to climate, (2) select the subset that correlates vaguely with some aspect of human behavior or economics you are ideologically opposed to, (3) write a paper about how the behavior causes the measurements and proclaim that it is a statistically and scientifically proven fact that one causes the other.
Coal burning is not the problem by itself; coal power plants in the US have pretty effective particular filters. The US has lower particulate counts than Switzerland or Luxembourg, and about a third of the particulate count of China.
Well, the problem here is that you equate libertarianism with "fuck you, I've got mine". That's merely a testament to your ignorance.
An "aristocracy" means a form of government where all power is concentrated in a small, privileged ruling class. Libertarianism is about limiting the power of government (to the minimum necessary to enforce contracts and punish criminal offenses against persons and property). They are polar opposites.
Progressivism and socialism are trying to create an "aristocracy of intellectuals". But that fails as miserably as the older divine or economic aristocracies, because intellectuals are just as corrupt and selfish as the members of the old aristocracies. The only way to limit corruption and selfishness is to give people the liberty to walk away from it.
What does have most concerned is the disproportionate gains that the super rich are getting just because they are rich. Rent seeking is the economic term. And what the Kochs and their ilk are doing is rigging the game.
Whatever gives you that idea? Opposition to rent seeking is probably the primary defining characteristic of libertarianism, and the Koch brothers support numerous causes and organizations that strongly oppose rent seeking.
You see, back in the 19th century, many of the "Robber Barons"
The 19th century robber barons weren't unfettered free marketeers, they were people who translated a high level of political influence and corruption into personal fortunes. This is exactly what libertarianism opposes.
The Kochs want the 19th century gilded age back when there wasn't income taxes and the rich got richer and the poor just died.
Do have even the slightest idea what you're saying? Do you really think anybody who is rich is affected by income taxes at all? Rich people don't have income, they mostly just own untaxable assets. Income tax is primarily a burden on the middle class and professionals, not "the rich".
Furthermore, the 19th century was a period of great improvement in the standard of living for everybody, not a period of economic and social decline the way you falsely portray it.
Not at all. I agree that markets are not sufficiently competitive for market mechanisms to work; the reason that they are not sufficiently competitive is usually government interference. Advocates of regulation have taken a few cases where regulation is genuinely warranted and then extended those valid arguments to numerous domains where they simply don't apply.
Why is it that nobody seems to care that phone companies and ISPs have been collecting and selling exactly the same information to marketing companies for years?
Your premise is wrong; phone companies and ISPs cannot and do not sell this information. If they did, you'd know about it because they'd actually be offering it for sale and they couldn't enforce secrecy.
But even if your ridiculous premise were true, it would be much less harmful: marketing companies don't try to throw you into jail for terrorism, ban you from all flights, or blackmail you to change your political positions. All they do is try to sell stuff to you, which is generally harmless.
The only thing draconian about this is that the government is too broke to just buy the data like everyone else, so they strong-arm the companies into giving it up for free.
The US government spending is 40% of GDP (a mind-boggling figure); of course it can buy this stuff, and it does so in large amounts (usually through shell companies): it's called "open source intelligence" (the original meaning of "open source"). They use these sources and tactics for additional information they can't buy on the market. The fact that they go through the trouble of getting this through letters rather than buying tells you they can't get it on the open market.
(Your world-view is totally out of touch with reality.)
If you read European laws, this kind of spying on citizens by governments has been permitted for a long time, and appears to be widely practiced. Countries like Germany even have state security services spy on parliamentarians regularly and infiltrate political parties.
I'm just asking that I have the information available to make an informed choice.
You do. It's just a question of defaults: right now, if it's not labeled, assume that it says "may contain GMO". If you don't want that, buy something that explicitly says "organic" or "no GMO".
I'm not using sustainable in the environmentalist, you-shouldnt-hurt-the-mother-earth sense. I'm talking about the ability to grow crops without requiring a high-tech herbicide and pesticide regimen being needed just to bring a crop to harvest when fighting against the resistant breeds of pests and weeds we are indirectly breeding.
Glyphosate was developed by Monsanto, so were glyphosate resistant crops. You are no worse off than if Monsanto hadn't developed either.
There's a valid question whether companies ought to be able to clone something like Bt and increase resistance, a free and organic pesticide, but those cases are far and few between and don't affect most GMO crops.
Can you imagine the point where it becomes too time consuming and expensive to find that next new thing?
Not really; biotech is just in its infancy and resistance tends to go away over time. But if we ever reach that point, we can worry about it. We don't lose anything by taking advantage of what we have now.
That's not an "anarchist quote", it's a quote from 1984, a book about totalitarianism. How dumb do you have to be to think that the only alternative to totalitarianism is lawlessness and anarchy? And even if the guy were an anarchist, anarchy rejects hierarchical, centralized state power, not voluntary associations and self-governance.
Slashdot Mirror
Imagine Oppenheimer and Trenberth were surgeons. Then the dialog would go something like this:
OT: You need a costly and risky operation, but we can handle it, trust us.
Patient: What's wrong with me? I don't really feel sick.
OT: You have some kind of tumor, but it's too complicated for you to understand. Just trust us. That cold you had last month, and the headache, and feeling queasy after the Thanksgiving lobster? We can't be 100% sure, but we think they were all probably caused by your disease!
Patient: What's the risk of the operation?
OT: Just trust us that it's less risky to get this expensive operation than not to get it.
Patient: Are there alternative treatments?
OT: None that we recommend. Just trust us, get our operation. We are the experts.
Patient: If I get the operation, how much longer will I live?
OT: Just trust us, you'll live a little longer.
Patient: How much is it going to cost me?
OT: We don't know, but just give us everything you have and we'll see what we can do.
Patient: I'm thinking about getting a second opinion.
OT: Sure, just go down the hall and ask my good friend Dr. Smith about what he thinks about this operation. We are all experts in this disease here and all know this wonderful way of curing it.
Patient: Isn't there some independent doctor I can go to?
OT: No. Everybody who isn't here is a charlatan and you can't trust them. All doctors here agree that this operation is the best thing since sliced bread, even though it's expensive.
Patient: You know, I don't really trust you. I think I'll take my chances and wait a bit longer.
OT: You're obviously in denial. You must be forced to get our operation for your own good. We'll just declare you mentally incompetent, institutionalize you and force you to undergo this procedure. Orderly, put him in a straitjacket.
You don't have to be an expert in a field to conclude that you don't trust someone or their advice.
Unfortunately, climate scientists rarely show even that modest degree of scientific care and honesty. Don't believe me? Just RTFA.
Well, you aren't giving it.
True, but incomplete. Sea levels have been rising steadily since long before industrialization:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png
Therefore, although warming can cause sea level rise and sea levels have risen, there is no conclusive evidence that anthropogenic emissions have contributed significantly to sea level rise.
True, but that could mean anything from totally insignificant to significant increase in damage; nobody knows how much increase there is. Since the sea level rise isn't attributable to human emissions, however, that point is academic.
The actual problem is that people build in flood plains and too close to the ocean, because Congress bails them out with taxpayer money. That problem is much easier to take care of than carbon emissions.
True, but nobody knows whether that is a significant effect (likely not) either or how much of it is due to human emissions.
So, the scientists actually haven't said much factually wrong, but their statements are misleading and full of weasel words, and their policy recommendations are unfounded and ineffective.
Lamar Smith is right: "wait and see" is the right approach for the US. To that I'd add: eliminate federal flood insurance and disaster aid. If millionaires want to live on the beach, they should self-insure and not have the tax payer assume their risks.
That depends on how big this blows up and how the president and representatives react.
Learn more about it, and talk to your friends and family about it. And don't view it or present it as partisan issues; this is a problem with both parties.
And remember that the most important decisions are made during primaries, not during actual elections.
Court cases are not decided by lawyers, they are decided by juries and judges. There is no evidence and no reason to believe that you can buy the outcome of a trial if you just have enough money. And the kinds of cases progressives care most about are frequently done on a contingency basis, so lawyers for the little guy effectively have as much money as their opponents.
What you're really saying is that you don't trust the legal system or juries, but you are praying for some perfect progressive politician, so you just want to eliminate one of our three branches of government by handing its power over to the executive branch. That's unacceptable.
Furthermore, regardless of what the connection between money and legal outcomes may be, the question is which is worse: the influence of lawyers on juries or the influence of lobbyists on politicians. Do you want to argue with a straight face that a fancy, expensive lawyer has more sway over a jury he can't pay or tamper with than a lobbyist has over a politician or regulatory body that he can give millions to or threaten with political attacks? Get real.
Yeah, that's what I'm thinking about people like you. How can you be so naive?
Right now, the corruption results from politicians actually making decisions like giving banks and corporations hundreds of billions of dollars in "stimulus" and "bailouts" and similar boondoggles, and to force people to buy from small oligopolies (both of which Obama did). That makes it worth for corporations to spend large amounts of money on corrupting politicians. If politicians lack the power and funds to hand out such vast prizes to corporations, there's less incentive to corrupt them and less damage they can do. It's progressive policies that make it so attractive and lucrative for corporations to corrupt our politicians.
Here's a different question: how are you going to fix this problem with more regulations and more executive powers?
Yes, the Koch brothers are not anarchists, they are libertarians, and they are consistently so. You reject their program because you erroneously believe it is bad for you and the US. You're wrong.
There are some libertarians who are also anarchists, just like there are some socialists who are also anarchists. But libertarianism is no more about anarchy than socialism is.
Except we're talking about your hypothetical here. You argue that a hypothetical high quality regulatory regime beats real libertarian government. And you are right: it would. The problem is that such a regulatory regime is unachievable. If you try to achieve it, you get politicians who wreck the economy, enrich their buddies in industry, trample all over civil rights, and start murdering people. You know, people like Obama.
The problem with socialism and progressivism is not that it isn't aiming for the right goals, the problem is that it is so vulnerable to corruption and human error that it doesn't work and will never work.
What you call a "rip off", namely bad working conditions or low salary, you have an easy remedy: you walk away from it and get another job.
You do have that right, and you get it by enforcing it in a court of law (often in class action lawsuits), not regulations that are written by corrupt politicians and enforced by corrupt bureaucrats.
Because they aren't the same at all. Regulation is standards set by the government that people have to comply with, usually with a prescribed set of penalties for violating them and usually with only the executive branch having standing to challenge corporations; the same executive branch that receives massive campaign contributions. And the regulations are set by politicians and bureaucrats in backroom deals with industry, and they are enforced and applied by bureaucracies composed of revolving door employees from industry. That is the system you advocate. It's the system that has given us the current financial, banking, and health care messes.
Liability means people holding corporations responsible for actual harm inflicted, with evidence on the table, proper evidentiary procedure, a jury making the decisions, and a judge making sure that the rules are adhered to. Corporations don't get off with politically negotiated penalties ("too big to fail") or the excuse that someone else screwed up the regulations. That is the system libertarians advocate.
You can look at total emissions or particular counts in populated areas, they both tell the same story. Go look it up. It's a standard statistic for air quality.
You really need to look up what the terms mean that you use. It is anarchists that favor a lack of governance. Libertarians and progressives/socialists both want a functioning, strong government, they just want government do different things: libertarians want it to protect free markets and individual liberties, while progressives want it to protect and regulate classes of people and businesses.
You also keep comparing hypotheticals with the real world. You assume that more regulation prevents more building collapses, but that's obviously false. What induces people to spend the money to make things safer is not regulation, it's strict and enforceable legal liability. But regulation tends to weaken, rather than strengthen, legal liability, since the usual deal is that if businesses comply with regulation, they are exempt from liability.
You're ignorant because you keep confusing libertarianism and anarchism.
It doesn't make sense to compare actual sentences (and in this case juvenile sentences!) with theoretical maximums for adult defendants. So, knock off the fabricated outrage and let's wait for the outcome of the case. You can still get outraged after the actual facts are in.
Unfortunately, you've been suckered by a con-job, believing that if you just pay ever more in taxes and make ever more rules and regulations, your life will get better and better. In fact, what you are doing is supporting rent seeking on a massive scale, both legally and financially. Just look at how Obama has handed out favors to corporations left and right.
I mean, what does it take for you to face reality? We have an intelligent, Harvard educated, multi-racial, Nobel peace price winning self-proclaimed progressive and left-wing president, and he has handed out trillions to industry and banks with nothing to show for it, uses drone kills with impunity, has worsened the war on drugs, and invades privacy on a massive scale. He dropped out of the public campaign finance system, has $40000/plate fund raising dinners with billionaires, and even made purchase of an overpriced and inferior product mandatory for every American.
How exactly is that magic progressive nirwana supposed to come about? The problem with progressives (as with Christians) is not their good intentions, it is the fact that their actions make the problems worse not better.
I see that too. And that is unfortunately what progressives are trying to create.
Bangladesh has been governed for years by a left-wing, socialist party, and you see the results.
As for your characterization of libertarianism, you really need to read up on it because you are totally ignorant.
See, the way this works is: (1) take a large collection of randomly varying measurements, loosely and intuitively related to climate, (2) select the subset that correlates vaguely with some aspect of human behavior or economics you are ideologically opposed to, (3) write a paper about how the behavior causes the measurements and proclaim that it is a statistically and scientifically proven fact that one causes the other.
Coal burning is not the problem by itself; coal power plants in the US have pretty effective particular filters. The US has lower particulate counts than Switzerland or Luxembourg, and about a third of the particulate count of China.
Well, the problem here is that you equate libertarianism with "fuck you, I've got mine". That's merely a testament to your ignorance.
An "aristocracy" means a form of government where all power is concentrated in a small, privileged ruling class. Libertarianism is about limiting the power of government (to the minimum necessary to enforce contracts and punish criminal offenses against persons and property). They are polar opposites.
Progressivism and socialism are trying to create an "aristocracy of intellectuals". But that fails as miserably as the older divine or economic aristocracies, because intellectuals are just as corrupt and selfish as the members of the old aristocracies. The only way to limit corruption and selfishness is to give people the liberty to walk away from it.
Whatever gives you that idea? Opposition to rent seeking is probably the primary defining characteristic of libertarianism, and the Koch brothers support numerous causes and organizations that strongly oppose rent seeking.
The 19th century robber barons weren't unfettered free marketeers, they were people who translated a high level of political influence and corruption into personal fortunes. This is exactly what libertarianism opposes.
Do have even the slightest idea what you're saying? Do you really think anybody who is rich is affected by income taxes at all? Rich people don't have income, they mostly just own untaxable assets. Income tax is primarily a burden on the middle class and professionals, not "the rich".
Furthermore, the 19th century was a period of great improvement in the standard of living for everybody, not a period of economic and social decline the way you falsely portray it.
Perhaps people are coming to their senses. As a former liberal, I certainly have.
Not at all. I agree that markets are not sufficiently competitive for market mechanisms to work; the reason that they are not sufficiently competitive is usually government interference. Advocates of regulation have taken a few cases where regulation is genuinely warranted and then extended those valid arguments to numerous domains where they simply don't apply.
Your premise is wrong; phone companies and ISPs cannot and do not sell this information. If they did, you'd know about it because they'd actually be offering it for sale and they couldn't enforce secrecy.
But even if your ridiculous premise were true, it would be much less harmful: marketing companies don't try to throw you into jail for terrorism, ban you from all flights, or blackmail you to change your political positions. All they do is try to sell stuff to you, which is generally harmless.
The US government spending is 40% of GDP (a mind-boggling figure); of course it can buy this stuff, and it does so in large amounts (usually through shell companies): it's called "open source intelligence" (the original meaning of "open source"). They use these sources and tactics for additional information they can't buy on the market. The fact that they go through the trouble of getting this through letters rather than buying tells you they can't get it on the open market.
(Your world-view is totally out of touch with reality.)
If you read European laws, this kind of spying on citizens by governments has been permitted for a long time, and appears to be widely practiced. Countries like Germany even have state security services spy on parliamentarians regularly and infiltrate political parties.
You do. It's just a question of defaults: right now, if it's not labeled, assume that it says "may contain GMO". If you don't want that, buy something that explicitly says "organic" or "no GMO".
Glyphosate was developed by Monsanto, so were glyphosate resistant crops. You are no worse off than if Monsanto hadn't developed either.
There's a valid question whether companies ought to be able to clone something like Bt and increase resistance, a free and organic pesticide, but those cases are far and few between and don't affect most GMO crops.
Not really; biotech is just in its infancy and resistance tends to go away over time. But if we ever reach that point, we can worry about it. We don't lose anything by taking advantage of what we have now.
Sounds like he's saying iOS should look a whole lot more like Android. Well, sounds like they already copied Android's and Windows' flat themes.
That's not an "anarchist quote", it's a quote from 1984, a book about totalitarianism. How dumb do you have to be to think that the only alternative to totalitarianism is lawlessness and anarchy? And even if the guy were an anarchist, anarchy rejects hierarchical, centralized state power, not voluntary associations and self-governance.