If the government could just decide that every search they wanted to conduct was 'reasonable,' the fourth amendment would be useless, and it would never have to get warrants to begin with.
But even if it couldn't be interpreted that way, I'm not sure how anyone could consider this as anything but unreasonable.
And if they were doing it since about the beginning, that changes absolutely nothing. The fourth amendment actually defines "unreasonable." If they ignored this and decided it was more convenient to just violate people's rights (which would be bad whether or not it's constitutional), then they've been violating the constitution since the beginning. No surprise there.
This attitude is exactly the problem. Free speech zones. The NSA. The TSA. Constitution-free zones. Stop-and-frisk. Many of the problems we're having right now are happening because people are willing to hand over everyone's freedoms to the government and then try to rationalize their nonsensical choice.
No. It also protects me from random or unjustifiable searches. They need probable cause in order for it to be a reasonable search.
If the government can just decide that certain searches are "reasonable" to get around the fourth amendment, then the fourth amendment would be utterly worthless. This would also make the TSA 100% okay, under your reasoning.
The administration and the parents takes education seriously
Whether that's good or not depends on what their idea of education is. If it's more of the same sort of nonsense, I suspect it's only marginally superior.
80 percent of students go to some sort of higher education, graduation rates are above 98%
I see nothing truly impressive here. Quality over quantity. I wonder how much these kids are truly learning? Memorization doesn't really count in most cases.
Stunting them in what way? Why should schools, which are supposed to be educational environments, use taxpayer dollars to buy proprietary software with draconian copyright restrictions, leaving kids unable to study and modify the source code, or even give them the sense that such a thing is acceptable? I do not think it would 'stunt' kids to promote the idea that people should be able to see and modify the source code by using software that actually makes those things possible.
If you're making kids use locked-down garbage, they're going to get used to being prisoners. No educational environment would promote such values. The only thing that's stunting kids are these "Intro to Windows" and "Microsoft Essentials" classes.
I say they shouldn't be able to violate the constitution period, which means all that illegitimate power they've been enjoying for years needs to be stripped away.
Clearly citizens can be smugglers just as easily as non-citizens.
Just as they can be terrorists. But the mere fact that someone could be a criminal or a terrorist doesn't give the government the power to suspend everyone's rights and ignore the constitution, which is what's happening.
All this proves is that the government is the real criminal.
Name one other diagnostic tool which is as powerful as an IQ test that can be given by some who is only certificate in ½ a day.
Nothin'. There is no solution. There is no quick, easy way to determine how intelligent someone is and measure their intelligence using a number.
The only people I recognize as intelligent are those who have solved previously unsolved problems or innovated in important ways, not those who took some crappy test.
I'm not sure either of those things is true. People would have done 'kind'/'evil' things regardless of whether these fairy tail books were around or not, in all likelihood.
As for proof, I put forth the TSA, the NSA, stop-and-frisk, constitution-free zones, modern copyright and patent laws, free speech zones, all the wars we've been fighting lately, DUI checkpoints, and gitmo. That's what I thought of off the top of my head, and whether or not those things qualify as proof to you, they do to me. It mystifies me how anyone could think the government is mostly honest and good when we have such things.
Yeah, I'll try being more logical when you stop resorting to smear tactics using negative fallacies.
There is no fallacy in my assertion; it is an opinion, just like what you said. If my opinion is a fallacy, then so is the following: "or consider that the vast majority of our government is indeed composed of good, honest, tax-paying citizens". I cannot consider people who violate people's rights and the constitution to be good or honest. I vehemently disagree with your assessment.
Second of all, whether I resort to "smear tactics using negative fallacies" or not, that has little to do with whether or not you should strive to be more logical.
they never once stop to ask if they themselves would be any better
That's because it's a completely irrelevant point. Even if they wouldn't be any better, that has nothing to do with whether or not what the government is doing is morally wrong. Try being more logical.
or consider that the vast majority of our government is indeed composed of good, honest, tax-paying citizens
A vast majority of our government is composed of greedy, power-hungry fools who will violate our rights and the constitution if we let them. We've seen this time and time again, and unless you ignore history (and the present) completely, your vision of what the people who make up the government are like is but a mere delusion.
I realize that people feel the need to attack these programs by saying they're not effective, but I feel that framing the debate this way is harmful in the long run. Our objection should be that we're not willing to sacrifice freedom for safety, even if these programs are effective. We should stress that any other objections we have are less important than the issue of freedom.
They might reasonably have a say, don't you think?
Not from what I've seen, no. Look, it's clear from the rest of your comment that you're the type of person who has no mind of your own and instead just blindly believes everything authority figures tell you, at least on certain issues. On other issues, however, you distrust the perfect beings who work in government for inexplicable reasons. Ah, well.
I don't care about your precious legal precedent.
It still hasn't.
Of course you'd feel that way. Nothing your superheroes do is a crime. Because they say so.
He also let Iran, China, Russia, and al Qaeda in on the specific.
In case you haven't noticed, I'm more concerned about freedom.
The NSA was acting within its constitutional bounds.
Only if you ignore the constitution completely and instead choose to appeal to authority figures and believe government propaganda.
he could have gone to a congressman
Would that have resulted in the American people becoming aware of their government's crimes? The answer is, without a doubt, "no." I applaud the fact that Snowden let the American people in on the specifics.
But violating the constitution doesn't? Weakening encryption standards doesn't? If it's treason to reveal the government's heinous crimes, then we need to redefine treason.
Slashdot Mirror
If the government could just decide that every search they wanted to conduct was 'reasonable,' the fourth amendment would be useless, and it would never have to get warrants to begin with.
But even if it couldn't be interpreted that way, I'm not sure how anyone could consider this as anything but unreasonable.
And if they were doing it since about the beginning, that changes absolutely nothing. The fourth amendment actually defines "unreasonable." If they ignored this and decided it was more convenient to just violate people's rights (which would be bad whether or not it's constitutional), then they've been violating the constitution since the beginning. No surprise there.
This attitude is exactly the problem. Free speech zones. The NSA. The TSA. Constitution-free zones. Stop-and-frisk. Many of the problems we're having right now are happening because people are willing to hand over everyone's freedoms to the government and then try to rationalize their nonsensical choice.
No. It also protects me from random or unjustifiable searches. They need probable cause in order for it to be a reasonable search.
If the government can just decide that certain searches are "reasonable" to get around the fourth amendment, then the fourth amendment would be utterly worthless. This would also make the TSA 100% okay, under your reasoning.
The administration and the parents takes education seriously
Whether that's good or not depends on what their idea of education is. If it's more of the same sort of nonsense, I suspect it's only marginally superior.
80 percent of students go to some sort of higher education, graduation rates are above 98%
I see nothing truly impressive here. Quality over quantity. I wonder how much these kids are truly learning? Memorization doesn't really count in most cases.
Higher education has many of the same problems.
Stunting them in what way? Why should schools, which are supposed to be educational environments, use taxpayer dollars to buy proprietary software with draconian copyright restrictions, leaving kids unable to study and modify the source code, or even give them the sense that such a thing is acceptable? I do not think it would 'stunt' kids to promote the idea that people should be able to see and modify the source code by using software that actually makes those things possible.
If you're making kids use locked-down garbage, they're going to get used to being prisoners. No educational environment would promote such values. The only thing that's stunting kids are these "Intro to Windows" and "Microsoft Essentials" classes.
What should the mechanism be?
The same as it is normally when this sort of thing happens in the country. This isn't difficult.
I say they shouldn't be able to violate the constitution period, which means all that illegitimate power they've been enjoying for years needs to be stripped away.
Clearly citizens can be smugglers just as easily as non-citizens.
Just as they can be terrorists. But the mere fact that someone could be a criminal or a terrorist doesn't give the government the power to suspend everyone's rights and ignore the constitution, which is what's happening.
All this proves is that the government is the real criminal.
When you cross the border to a country, you have no reasonable expectation of privacy of items on your person.
Your first sentence is already absurd. Trying to cross a border does not mean you have no fourth amendment rights.
Being better and cheaper than public education isn't much of an accomplish. It's still garbage.
Name one other diagnostic tool which is as powerful as an IQ test that can be given by some who is only certificate in ½ a day.
Nothin'. There is no solution. There is no quick, easy way to determine how intelligent someone is and measure their intelligence using a number.
The only people I recognize as intelligent are those who have solved previously unsolved problems or innovated in important ways, not those who took some crappy test.
I'm not sure either of those things is true. People would have done 'kind'/'evil' things regardless of whether these fairy tail books were around or not, in all likelihood.
As for proof, I put forth the TSA, the NSA, stop-and-frisk, constitution-free zones, modern copyright and patent laws, free speech zones, all the wars we've been fighting lately, DUI checkpoints, and gitmo. That's what I thought of off the top of my head, and whether or not those things qualify as proof to you, they do to me. It mystifies me how anyone could think the government is mostly honest and good when we have such things.
Yeah, I'll try being more logical when you stop resorting to smear tactics using negative fallacies.
There is no fallacy in my assertion; it is an opinion, just like what you said. If my opinion is a fallacy, then so is the following: "or consider that the vast majority of our government is indeed composed of good, honest, tax-paying citizens". I cannot consider people who violate people's rights and the constitution to be good or honest. I vehemently disagree with your assessment.
Second of all, whether I resort to "smear tactics using negative fallacies" or not, that has little to do with whether or not you should strive to be more logical.
Personally, I think the solution is keep the capability
You have already failed.
they never once stop to ask if they themselves would be any better
That's because it's a completely irrelevant point. Even if they wouldn't be any better, that has nothing to do with whether or not what the government is doing is morally wrong. Try being more logical.
or consider that the vast majority of our government is indeed composed of good, honest, tax-paying citizens
A vast majority of our government is composed of greedy, power-hungry fools who will violate our rights and the constitution if we let them. We've seen this time and time again, and unless you ignore history (and the present) completely, your vision of what the people who make up the government are like is but a mere delusion.
I realize that people feel the need to attack these programs by saying they're not effective, but I feel that framing the debate this way is harmful in the long run. Our objection should be that we're not willing to sacrifice freedom for safety, even if these programs are effective. We should stress that any other objections we have are less important than the issue of freedom.
You can't lose something you never had, and you can't lose something that was never yours (other people's money).
True, the plastic garbage brain people dont.
From what I've seen, they make up the majority.
They might reasonably have a say, don't you think?
Not from what I've seen, no. Look, it's clear from the rest of your comment that you're the type of person who has no mind of your own and instead just blindly believes everything authority figures tell you, at least on certain issues. On other issues, however, you distrust the perfect beings who work in government for inexplicable reasons. Ah, well.
I don't care about your precious legal precedent.
It still hasn't.
Of course you'd feel that way. Nothing your superheroes do is a crime. Because they say so.
He also let Iran, China, Russia, and al Qaeda in on the specific.
In case you haven't noticed, I'm more concerned about freedom.
The NSA was acting within its constitutional bounds.
Only if you ignore the constitution completely and instead choose to appeal to authority figures and believe government propaganda.
he could have gone to a congressman
Would that have resulted in the American people becoming aware of their government's crimes? The answer is, without a doubt, "no." I applaud the fact that Snowden let the American people in on the specifics.
IQ is garbage to begin with.
Just like you don't have to enter an airport. Therefore, when you do enter an airport, you consent to being molested by the TSA.
Sorry, but I don't buy that sort of logic.
and it would be acceptable for the government to use any tool at its disposal - including martial law and concentration camps for foreign nationals.
No, it would not. The end.
But violating the constitution doesn't? Weakening encryption standards doesn't? If it's treason to reveal the government's heinous crimes, then we need to redefine treason.