Hillary Clinton isn't a progressive in any way at all. She pushed the actual progressives, especially Sanders, out of the way during the primaries because it was her turn. She's a neocon and her time in office would have been filled with more middle eastern wars (or maybe an exciting war with Russia!) and corporate hegemony-building. Nothing about her political past suggests that she's every even tried to be a progressive. Where are you getting this from?
Progressives didn't fail to vote for her out of apathy, but because she had nothing of substance to offer them. The only votes she got were from party loyalists who looked no farther than the "D" and from lesser-of-two-evils votes against Trump. Very very few people voted for her.
Lessig isn't a communist. He's just a partisan, though and through. If Trump still had a D after his name, he'd support him 100%. The fact that he wants a corrupt warmonger like Clinton in office, after running a campaign to get money out of politics, demonstrates this pretty handily.
The biggest irony in all of this is that Lessig argued that money wins elections and even ran a campaign to try to end that.
That irony was pretty apparent during his Mayday campaign. While he was arguing against the influence of money in politics (a noble goal), he was putting forth politicians like Bloomberg and Clinton as examples of ideal candidates (even though they have a history of using money to try to influence elections).
You're getting closer, but your thinking is still too clouded by party politics.
"Us" means everyone other than the entire ruling class and their cronies. If you're seeing huge differences between Clinton and Trump, D and R, etc in their disregard for the average citizen then you're still falling for their "divide and rule" BS.
In fact, it's kind of interesting that you assume all this stuff about me, even when I'm telling you that I don't hold those opinions and didn't mean what you thought I meant.
His last post was very insightful and it's sad to see that you aren't taking it to heart at all. He's not accusing you of lying, but of not fully considering the implications of your arguments (when you actually make arguments and not just call people names and attempt to shame them). The fact that you don't recognize your own arguments and seem to often feel misinterpreted supports his assessment.
Even if you need to respond to this post denying everything, please do take the time to do a little introspection.
There already are laws in most of the US against distracted driving. The issue is enforcement and I don't think we'll ever see any enforcement of any traffic laws besides speeding and the occasional DUI. If it involves any effort besides sitting on the side of the road with a radar gun, it's simply not going to be enforced.
The devil is in the details. For what specific crime would Obama preemptively grant a reprieve or pardon to Snowden? And wouldn't that just open up the ability for law enforcement to charge Snowden with a related crime?
He could pardon Snowden for "all offenses that he has committed or may have committed or taken part in", just like Ford pardoned Nixon:
Now, therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from July (January) 20, 1969, through August 9, 1974.
It was well regarded by the establishment, who also applauded Obama's continuation of the more heinous of Bush's domestic and foreign policies. The citizenry originally voted for Obama based on his promise that he would put a stop to that stuff. It's a mystery why the DRC decided to run a candidate who was thoroughly steeped in such policies against a "change" candidate and after a successful "change" win by their own party.
You can say that again! My brother-in-law ruined a pretty good coffee maker of mine that way. Thankfully, I was able to stop him before he tried to do the same thing with the espresso machine. My wife revoked his coffee-making privileges after that.
Mishandling classified materials is a crime and there are quite a few people in prison for that right now (as is perjury and destruction of evidence). Rape and fraud (and maybe grouping, whatever that is) are also crimes and should result in prison time. Actual trials are called for in either case and my point is that a civilized society doesn't let certain people get away with crimes because they're "special".
If you're imagining that I give a shit about your stupid political parties and am ready to forgive certain politicians of their crimes because of the letter behind their name, then you didn't read my original post very well. I think that the gentleman's agreement described upthread is a sign of a corrupt and uncivilized society.
Did it? In the bluest city of a blue state, my (very feminist) wife and every woman I know voted against Clinton (saying things like, "I'd love to see a woman as president, but not her."). Some of them even voted for Trump.
Trump may have an "R" after his name now, but he seems to be politically to the left of Hillary Clinton, and was a card-carrying Democrat until very recently. He's a NYC boy through-and-through and is certainly not a bible thumper.
Civilized candidates don't threaten jail for the other ones.
"Civilized candidates" don't commit crimes and expect to get away with them. Civilized societies don't respect, or expect, this sort of Gentleman's agreement between candidates where they let each other get away with crimes that ordinary citizens would be prosecuted for.
Yes, she is so unpopular she won the popular vote.
By a fraction of a percent and, more importantly, against Trump. That's pretty much the definition of unpopular.
She's probably the only candidate that the Democrats could have run that could lose to Trump and Trump is the only candidate that would have a close call beating Clinton. "Popular" doesn't describe any aspect of this situation.
He'll likely end up effecting real change as much as Obama did (ie, none), but his platform was still based on "change". Running a status quo candidate after Obama was elected by representing change and the very popular Sanders was pushing change was a foolish move.
Do you really think that I said that most public servants are crooks, or do just wish that I said that because it's easier to argue against?
One of the defining characteristics of banana republics is class stratification and unequal application of the law, so what you're endorsing sounds pretty damn similar to a banana republic.
In modern America, "Justice for all" is negative thing and widespread acceptance of corruption is the sign of a thriving democracy!
I think that it's worth the risks. I'd honestly like to transition to a system like the apocryphal Ancient Greek one where public officials leave office and are promptly put on trial.
The fact that we have a long history of public officials breaking the law and getting away with it is a pretty shitty excuse for allowing corruption to continue to grow in our government. There may be a rocky transition when we ever break with our noble tradition of allowing politicians to commit serious crimes with impunity, but eventually we'd hopefully establish that holding office doesn't mean that you can go right ahead and undermine the society that you're supposed to be serving and then get away with it.
Imagine a bright future where our "public servants" weren't just expected to be a bunch of crooks and should-be-felons.
Yes, we desperately need this, but we need to make sure that there's a tailored subscription process before use so that the "correct" facts are used by the checking process. I want to make sure that my specific political views, religion, and cultural expectations are reflected in the "objective truth" as shown by teh interwebs.
That's how politics works these days: if someone doesn't agree with you, then they are an idiot, a monster, or both. There's no point in actually engaging them intellectually and debating the merits of your particular position.
It's all about the use of emotion to generate a desired response, to the complete exclusion of intelligent thought. The term "anti-intellectualism" may be thrown about as a means to belittle an opponent or paint them as a disingenuous monster, but the entire approach is anti-intellectual.
You don't really believe that Putin has the best interests of the American voters in mind, do you?
Frankly, I don't think that either of the major party candidates (or most of the party leadership) have the best interests of the American voters in mind. From my perspective, any additional accurate information is helpful, even if it comes from distasteful sources.
Rewriting the Constitution is an even higher bar than just changing the law.
If Trump is able to come up with a Constitutional Amendment that actually has a chance of passing, then it is almost certainly a very very popular idea (across all parties and states). Why would that hypothetical amendment be a bad thing, just because it came from Trump's twisted brain?
Further, while the court (and maybe you) would get to see what information was being gathered, the company would likely insist that what information is being gathered is a confidential trade secret. The court would probably agree and would not allow you to disclose it to the public.
The only barrier is the cultural issue you so eloquently pointed out: [it] bothers a lot of people who like to take the position that the only moral way to survive is to work.
The culture also prefers that the work be somewhat unpleasant, degrading, physically exhausting, etc. Enjoying your work is seen as a lucky thing and, at least here in academia, is seen as a reason to ask for less of the money that you are responsible for producing.
From that perspective, a starving artist getting to quit his horrible retail job to produce his art would not be approved of by most people, even if it ultimately enriched our society, both monetarily and culturally.
$4800 a year is $400 a month, for "the mortgage for the home, retirement planning, gas, electric, water and food." That doesn't add up at all. I've lived in much much cheaper places than Chicago and all of my (fairly austere) living expenses added up to more than $400 a month.
Not good for everyone's economy in the US by the way. Craftsmanship used to be a sought after trait and those people are out of work.
Short term. What they don't see is those out of work workers are no longer buying cars, or appliances, or most of the consumer products that keeps the economy humming.
Oh they see it, they just personally get rewarded more for ignoring it and playing the short game. Our incentive system is set up to reward a few individuals for selling out our long-term collective well-being, so that's exactly what happens.
Slashdot Mirror
Hillary Clinton isn't a progressive in any way at all. She pushed the actual progressives, especially Sanders, out of the way during the primaries because it was her turn. She's a neocon and her time in office would have been filled with more middle eastern wars (or maybe an exciting war with Russia!) and corporate hegemony-building. Nothing about her political past suggests that she's every even tried to be a progressive. Where are you getting this from?
Progressives didn't fail to vote for her out of apathy, but because she had nothing of substance to offer them. The only votes she got were from party loyalists who looked no farther than the "D" and from lesser-of-two-evils votes against Trump. Very very few people voted for her.
Lessig isn't a communist. He's just a partisan, though and through. If Trump still had a D after his name, he'd support him 100%. The fact that he wants a corrupt warmonger like Clinton in office, after running a campaign to get money out of politics, demonstrates this pretty handily.
The biggest irony in all of this is that Lessig argued that money wins elections and even ran a campaign to try to end that.
That irony was pretty apparent during his Mayday campaign. While he was arguing against the influence of money in politics (a noble goal), he was putting forth politicians like Bloomberg and Clinton as examples of ideal candidates (even though they have a history of using money to try to influence elections).
You're getting closer, but your thinking is still too clouded by party politics.
"Us" means everyone other than the entire ruling class and their cronies. If you're seeing huge differences between Clinton and Trump, D and R, etc in their disregard for the average citizen then you're still falling for their "divide and rule" BS.
In fact, it's kind of interesting that you assume all this stuff about me, even when I'm telling you that I don't hold those opinions and didn't mean what you thought I meant.
His last post was very insightful and it's sad to see that you aren't taking it to heart at all. He's not accusing you of lying, but of not fully considering the implications of your arguments (when you actually make arguments and not just call people names and attempt to shame them). The fact that you don't recognize your own arguments and seem to often feel misinterpreted supports his assessment.
Even if you need to respond to this post denying everything, please do take the time to do a little introspection.
There already are laws in most of the US against distracted driving. The issue is enforcement and I don't think we'll ever see any enforcement of any traffic laws besides speeding and the occasional DUI. If it involves any effort besides sitting on the side of the road with a radar gun, it's simply not going to be enforced.
The devil is in the details. For what specific crime would Obama preemptively grant a reprieve or pardon to Snowden? And wouldn't that just open up the ability for law enforcement to charge Snowden with a related crime?
He could pardon Snowden for "all offenses that he has committed or may have committed or taken part in", just like Ford pardoned Nixon:
It was well regarded by the establishment, who also applauded Obama's continuation of the more heinous of Bush's domestic and foreign policies. The citizenry originally voted for Obama based on his promise that he would put a stop to that stuff. It's a mystery why the DRC decided to run a candidate who was thoroughly steeped in such policies against a "change" candidate and after a successful "change" win by their own party.
That coffee maker was never right again.
You can say that again! My brother-in-law ruined a pretty good coffee maker of mine that way. Thankfully, I was able to stop him before he tried to do the same thing with the espresso machine. My wife revoked his coffee-making privileges after that.
Mishandling classified materials is a crime and there are quite a few people in prison for that right now (as is perjury and destruction of evidence). Rape and fraud (and maybe grouping, whatever that is) are also crimes and should result in prison time. Actual trials are called for in either case and my point is that a civilized society doesn't let certain people get away with crimes because they're "special".
If you're imagining that I give a shit about your stupid political parties and am ready to forgive certain politicians of their crimes because of the letter behind their name, then you didn't read my original post very well. I think that the gentleman's agreement described upthread is a sign of a corrupt and uncivilized society.
As most of the anti-trump vote came from women
Did it? In the bluest city of a blue state, my (very feminist) wife and every woman I know voted against Clinton (saying things like, "I'd love to see a woman as president, but not her."). Some of them even voted for Trump.
Trump may have an "R" after his name now, but he seems to be politically to the left of Hillary Clinton, and was a card-carrying Democrat until very recently. He's a NYC boy through-and-through and is certainly not a bible thumper.
Civilized candidates don't threaten jail for the other ones.
"Civilized candidates" don't commit crimes and expect to get away with them. Civilized societies don't respect, or expect, this sort of Gentleman's agreement between candidates where they let each other get away with crimes that ordinary citizens would be prosecuted for.
Yes, she is so unpopular she won the popular vote.
By a fraction of a percent and, more importantly, against Trump. That's pretty much the definition of unpopular.
She's probably the only candidate that the Democrats could have run that could lose to Trump and Trump is the only candidate that would have a close call beating Clinton. "Popular" doesn't describe any aspect of this situation.
He'll likely end up effecting real change as much as Obama did (ie, none), but his platform was still based on "change". Running a status quo candidate after Obama was elected by representing change and the very popular Sanders was pushing change was a foolish move.
Do you really think that I said that most public servants are crooks, or do just wish that I said that because it's easier to argue against?
One of the defining characteristics of banana republics is class stratification and unequal application of the law, so what you're endorsing sounds pretty damn similar to a banana republic.
In modern America, "Justice for all" is negative thing and widespread acceptance of corruption is the sign of a thriving democracy!
I think that it's worth the risks. I'd honestly like to transition to a system like the apocryphal Ancient Greek one where public officials leave office and are promptly put on trial.
The fact that we have a long history of public officials breaking the law and getting away with it is a pretty shitty excuse for allowing corruption to continue to grow in our government. There may be a rocky transition when we ever break with our noble tradition of allowing politicians to commit serious crimes with impunity, but eventually we'd hopefully establish that holding office doesn't mean that you can go right ahead and undermine the society that you're supposed to be serving and then get away with it.
Imagine a bright future where our "public servants" weren't just expected to be a bunch of crooks and should-be-felons.
Yes, we desperately need this, but we need to make sure that there's a tailored subscription process before use so that the "correct" facts are used by the checking process. I want to make sure that my specific political views, religion, and cultural expectations are reflected in the "objective truth" as shown by teh interwebs.
That's how politics works these days: if someone doesn't agree with you, then they are an idiot, a monster, or both. There's no point in actually engaging them intellectually and debating the merits of your particular position.
It's all about the use of emotion to generate a desired response, to the complete exclusion of intelligent thought. The term "anti-intellectualism" may be thrown about as a means to belittle an opponent or paint them as a disingenuous monster, but the entire approach is anti-intellectual.
You don't really believe that Putin has the best interests of the American voters in mind, do you?
Frankly, I don't think that either of the major party candidates (or most of the party leadership) have the best interests of the American voters in mind. From my perspective, any additional accurate information is helpful, even if it comes from distasteful sources.
Rewriting the Constitution is an even higher bar than just changing the law.
If Trump is able to come up with a Constitutional Amendment that actually has a chance of passing, then it is almost certainly a very very popular idea (across all parties and states). Why would that hypothetical amendment be a bad thing, just because it came from Trump's twisted brain?
Further, while the court (and maybe you) would get to see what information was being gathered, the company would likely insist that what information is being gathered is a confidential trade secret. The court would probably agree and would not allow you to disclose it to the public.
The only barrier is the cultural issue you so eloquently pointed out: [it] bothers a lot of people who like to take the position that the only moral way to survive is to work.
The culture also prefers that the work be somewhat unpleasant, degrading, physically exhausting, etc. Enjoying your work is seen as a lucky thing and, at least here in academia, is seen as a reason to ask for less of the money that you are responsible for producing.
From that perspective, a starving artist getting to quit his horrible retail job to produce his art would not be approved of by most people, even if it ultimately enriched our society, both monetarily and culturally.
$4800 a year is $400 a month, for "the mortgage for the home, retirement planning, gas, electric, water and food." That doesn't add up at all. I've lived in much much cheaper places than Chicago and all of my (fairly austere) living expenses added up to more than $400 a month.
Ha! Looks like xkcd was caught up in the GlobalSign intermediate cert revocation snafu, too.
Not good for everyone's economy in the US by the way. Craftsmanship used to be a sought after trait and those people are out of work.
Short term. What they don't see is those out of work workers are no longer buying cars, or appliances, or most of the consumer products that keeps the economy humming.
Oh they see it, they just personally get rewarded more for ignoring it and playing the short game. Our incentive system is set up to reward a few individuals for selling out our long-term collective well-being, so that's exactly what happens.