I too have a problem with the lack of transparency of "security" measures recently implemented. But that is the case regardless of this particular proposal because, as you said, it can already happen. If anything, this proposal seems to be rather redundant.
No, I don't trust this administration any more than I would a Hillary/Kerry administration. I just think this proposal is a non-story, given the existing laws in place.
Your issue seems to be more with the terms I use than with whatever ideology you believe I espouse. Do I lean more towards Republicans than Democrats? Yes. Have I voted for Libertarian candidates? Yes. Do I think that makes me a "closet Republican"? No.
But then none of that really matters, because you're going to stake me to the ideology of George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove because you want to. I haven't once defended the current administration's agenda in this conversation, yet you have apparently interpreted my criticism of the "left" as de-facto support for the "right". In fact, I suspect you tend to see things only in terms of "right" and "left" so that you don't have to defend your own ideology against more than 1 opposing perspective. How lazy of you.
1. I use "leftist" instead of "liberal" because I think it is a more accurate term. Liberal (in the Ben Franklin sense of the word) implies limited government power and more personal freedom and responsibility. The left (mostly democrats and greens) often stand for ideals that expand government power and remove individual responsibility; namely social welfare programs. They also are often associated with efforts to regulate speech and thought with terms like "hate speech" and "political correctness".
2. The "right" (neoconservatives/republicans) aren't doing us any favors either. They're doing as much harm to our civil liberties as the left, IMHO. They've abandoned the ideal of limited government under the guise of moral leadership. The result is the same.
It might surprise you that I didn't vote for Bush in either election, and don't plan on voting for Rick Santorum on Tuesday. I don't plan on voting for democrats either.
"The crucial issue is that government watch lists are classified with no recourse for those misidentified. This is an important human rights and constitutional issue which has nothing to do with conspiracy theories."
I agree 100%.
However it's also a far cry from the assertion that people are forbidden to leave the country without explicit permission from DHS. That's a specious interpretation of the proposal. A link to the actual proposal is nowhere to be found in the linked article (or the linked.PDF). That tells me they don't really want people to read the original proposal; just their biased interpretation.
The primary purpose of this proposed rule is to prevent passengers that have been identified as high-risk on government watchlists from boarding aircraft bound for or departing from the United States and to prevent passengers and crew so identified from departing on vessels leaving the Unites States.
In other words, people on terrorist watch lists should be prevented from entering or leaving the U.S. via commercial airlines until their threat status can be evaluated and corrected if necessary. That's a DAMN FAR CRY from requiring EVERY U.S. CITIZEN to ask DHS for permission to leave the country.
Yes, leftist groups. Unless you're suggesting it was conservative circles encouraging people to be skeptical of the "evidence" that got us involved in Iraq.
I'm simply not inclined to believe everything I read on the Internet, especially when it lacks any supporting documentation. Are you saying I should simply accept such notions unquestioningly? Wouldn't that make me a sheep?
I find it odd that a quick Google of those numbers only points back to the same conspiracy theory web sites and resultant blogs and discussion threads. Not a single government source references those numbers. Care to explain?
You seem to assume that my skepticism is a sign of approval for such erosions of our liberties. I can assure you that's not the case.
But isn't it possible that the same dubious tactics that have whipped so many people into a panic over terrorists are being used to make people suspect the government of things that aren't simply aren't true?
If you're suggesting that every decision every government agency makes should be subject to referendum, that kind of system would be so unworkable as to render those agencies untenable....not that that would be such a bad thing:)
I just think we could have more civil, reasonable, intellectual discussions if people weren't so quick to compare everything and everyone they are against to Nazis. Is that too much to hope for?
Last I heard (from many leftist groups, IIRC) skepticism isn't un-American. Show me the congressional bill that would have to be in the works for this entire story to deserve any credibility.
Unless, of course, you believe laws are being enacted completely outside of the constitutional legislative process. If that's the case, you have much bigger things to be worried about.
I'm afraid I don't take these "Friends of Liberty" folks at face value. Their assertions are backed up by a volume of evidence found in similar conspiracy theories. NONE WHATSOEVER.
It would be nice if we actually had a choice. Ya get the exact same thing from republicans and democrats, and third-party/independent candidates have an uneven playing field on which to compete.
Something shocking has to happen before we're going to get any real change. Something much bigger than 9/11.
How DARE the military try to present their side of the story! Just because they feel misrepresented, what right do they have to state their case if it conflicts with what bloggers and corporate media are saying? Doesn't the DoD know that these people are beyond reproach?
Get my point yet? I'm sure if YOU felt somebody was publicly saying things about you that you felt weren't true, you'd want to tell your side of the story. That's the American way; it's freedom of speech. You people are going on about this as if the Pentagon were shutting down news outlets and blogs that don't conform with the administration's agenda. There's a BIG difference, and all the Big-Brother hyperbole in the world doesn't change that.
Besides, if you are so certain about the "truthiness" of your favorite news outlet, why are you so afraid of a challenge to it?
I suppose you never considered doing without entirely. This is entertainment, not something you -must- have.
Imagine how the civil rights movement would have turned out if the participants in the Montgomery bus boycott suffered from a similar lack of conviction.
An important message sent by a boycott is that we can do without Sony's product.
A boycott is a tempting justification for copyright infringement. But all piracy does is tell Sony that their product is still in demand, and in turn gives them justification for additional heavy-handed measures.
In this context, piracy is the easy, selfish way to protest. Do the truly principled thing and do without these products entirely. It sends a much more effective message.
Someone who is anti-immigration would want ALL immigration to cease, and probably want immigrants, legal or not, deported. That's a far cry from wanting restricted immigration.
I can see this is going nowhere. It's easier to blame everything on the single object of your hatred than it is to consider each situation individually and assign blame to the factors directly responsible for them.
If you fuck up at work, who should get fired? You or your boss?
This isn't about Bush's agenda. This is about problems with the Space Shuttle that has nothing to do with administrative policy or NASA budgets.
1. The shuttle's design was flawed right from the beginning. While the program has been a success despite that fact, there's a reason why engineers are going back to the old rocket-and-capsule design: it's simpler, cheaper, and safer.
2. The shuttles are aging. Columbia was over 20 years old when it exploded in 2002. No amount of presidential prowess can reverse the effects time has on delicate and roughly-used spacecraft.
Now you can try to blame the culture of laziness within NASA on Bush, but again you would have very little evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship there.
And George W. Bush doesn't 'run' NASA, the NASA Administrator does. You could try to make another tie there, but it too would be tenuous at best.
You hate Bush; I get that. Maybe it's time you look at more plausible explanations for some of the world's problems.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, I didn't know that RMS read and posted to Slashdot!
I too have a problem with the lack of transparency of "security" measures recently implemented. But that is the case regardless of this particular proposal because, as you said, it can already happen. If anything, this proposal seems to be rather redundant.
No, I don't trust this administration any more than I would a Hillary/Kerry administration. I just think this proposal is a non-story, given the existing laws in place.
Your issue seems to be more with the terms I use than with whatever ideology you believe I espouse. Do I lean more towards Republicans than Democrats? Yes. Have I voted for Libertarian candidates? Yes. Do I think that makes me a "closet Republican"? No.
But then none of that really matters, because you're going to stake me to the ideology of George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove because you want to. I haven't once defended the current administration's agenda in this conversation, yet you have apparently interpreted my criticism of the "left" as de-facto support for the "right". In fact, I suspect you tend to see things only in terms of "right" and "left" so that you don't have to defend your own ideology against more than 1 opposing perspective. How lazy of you.
This is getting WAY offtopic, but I'll bite.
1. I use "leftist" instead of "liberal" because I think it is a more accurate term. Liberal (in the Ben Franklin sense of the word) implies limited government power and more personal freedom and responsibility. The left (mostly democrats and greens) often stand for ideals that expand government power and remove individual responsibility; namely social welfare programs. They also are often associated with efforts to regulate speech and thought with terms like "hate speech" and "political correctness".
2. The "right" (neoconservatives/republicans) aren't doing us any favors either. They're doing as much harm to our civil liberties as the left, IMHO. They've abandoned the ideal of limited government under the guise of moral leadership. The result is the same.
It might surprise you that I didn't vote for Bush in either election, and don't plan on voting for Rick Santorum on Tuesday. I don't plan on voting for democrats either.
"The crucial issue is that government watch lists are classified with no recourse for those misidentified. This is an important human rights and constitutional issue which has nothing to do with conspiracy theories."
.PDF). That tells me they don't really want people to read the original proposal; just their biased interpretation.
I agree 100%.
However it's also a far cry from the assertion that people are forbidden to leave the country without explicit permission from DHS. That's a specious interpretation of the proposal. A link to the actual proposal is nowhere to be found in the linked article (or the linked
And from the executive summary:
In other words, people on terrorist watch lists should be prevented from entering or leaving the U.S. via commercial airlines until their threat status can be evaluated and corrected if necessary. That's a DAMN FAR CRY from requiring EVERY U.S. CITIZEN to ask DHS for permission to leave the country.
Yes, leftist groups. Unless you're suggesting it was conservative circles encouraging people to be skeptical of the "evidence" that got us involved in Iraq.
I'm simply not inclined to believe everything I read on the Internet, especially when it lacks any supporting documentation. Are you saying I should simply accept such notions unquestioningly? Wouldn't that make me a sheep?
I find it odd that a quick Google of those numbers only points back to the same conspiracy theory web sites and resultant blogs and discussion threads. Not a single government source references those numbers. Care to explain?
You seem to assume that my skepticism is a sign of approval for such erosions of our liberties. I can assure you that's not the case.
But isn't it possible that the same dubious tactics that have whipped so many people into a panic over terrorists are being used to make people suspect the government of things that aren't simply aren't true?
If you're suggesting that every decision every government agency makes should be subject to referendum, that kind of system would be so unworkable as to render those agencies untenable. ...not that that would be such a bad thing :)
The .PDF is just yet another person's assessment of this so-called proposal. It's not evidence that said proposal actually exists.
Anything short of an actual house or senate bill is just speculation.
I just think we could have more civil, reasonable, intellectual discussions if people weren't so quick to compare everything and everyone they are against to Nazis. Is that too much to hope for?
Last I heard (from many leftist groups, IIRC) skepticism isn't un-American. Show me the congressional bill that would have to be in the works for this entire story to deserve any credibility.
Unless, of course, you believe laws are being enacted completely outside of the constitutional legislative process. If that's the case, you have much bigger things to be worried about.
I'm afraid I don't take these "Friends of Liberty" folks at face value. Their assertions are backed up by a volume of evidence found in similar conspiracy theories. NONE WHATSOEVER.
"Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union are two countries in recent history
that didn't allow their citizens to travel abroad without permission."
"Friends of Liberty" loses!
And how does one sue a person they can't identify? I think that's the whole point of this article, is it not?
It would be nice if we actually had a choice. Ya get the exact same thing from republicans and democrats, and third-party/independent candidates have an uneven playing field on which to compete.
Something shocking has to happen before we're going to get any real change. Something much bigger than 9/11.
You're right, it's not rocket science. It's unproven speculation.
How DARE the military try to present their side of the story! Just because they feel misrepresented, what right do they have to state their case if it conflicts with what bloggers and corporate media are saying? Doesn't the DoD know that these people are beyond reproach?
Get my point yet? I'm sure if YOU felt somebody was publicly saying things about you that you felt weren't true, you'd want to tell your side of the story. That's the American way; it's freedom of speech. You people are going on about this as if the Pentagon were shutting down news outlets and blogs that don't conform with the administration's agenda. There's a BIG difference, and all the Big-Brother hyperbole in the world doesn't change that.
Besides, if you are so certain about the "truthiness" of your favorite news outlet, why are you so afraid of a challenge to it?
I suppose you never considered doing without entirely. This is entertainment, not something you -must- have.
Imagine how the civil rights movement would have turned out if the participants in the Montgomery bus boycott suffered from a similar lack of conviction.
An important message sent by a boycott is that we can do without Sony's product.
A boycott is a tempting justification for copyright infringement. But all piracy does is tell Sony that their product is still in demand, and in turn gives them justification for additional heavy-handed measures.
In this context, piracy is the easy, selfish way to protest. Do the truly principled thing and do without these products entirely. It sends a much more effective message.
Someone who is anti-immigration would want ALL immigration to cease, and probably want immigrants, legal or not, deported. That's a far cry from wanting restricted immigration.
Since when do reputable software vendors just drop support for their product out of the blue without any notice or suitable upgrade/replacement?
Do you blame Reagan for the Challenger explosion?
I can see this is going nowhere. It's easier to blame everything on the single object of your hatred than it is to consider each situation individually and assign blame to the factors directly responsible for them.
If you fuck up at work, who should get fired? You or your boss?
This isn't about Bush's agenda. This is about problems with the Space Shuttle that has nothing to do with administrative policy or NASA budgets.
1. The shuttle's design was flawed right from the beginning. While the program has been a success despite that fact, there's a reason why engineers are going back to the old rocket-and-capsule design: it's simpler, cheaper, and safer.
2. The shuttles are aging. Columbia was over 20 years old when it exploded in 2002. No amount of presidential prowess can reverse the effects time has on delicate and roughly-used spacecraft.
Now you can try to blame the culture of laziness within NASA on Bush, but again you would have very little evidence of a cause-and-effect relationship there.
And George W. Bush doesn't 'run' NASA, the NASA Administrator does. You could try to make another tie there, but it too would be tenuous at best.
You hate Bush; I get that. Maybe it's time you look at more plausible explanations for some of the world's problems.