'This strategy makes it clear that the individual privacy, civil rights and civil liberties of United States persons must be â" and will be â" protected.'
I mean, really...can this statement possibly be any more Orwellian?
They've got to realize how totally full of shit that statement sounds, even to someone with no dog in the fight. I refuse to believe they are so clueless as to believe that statement does anything but incite and fan the flames of distrust and hostility.
It's like they're trying to get people to start a rebellion, so they'll have an excuse to declare martial law and roll the Hellfire-equipped drones, checkpoints, and armor out on the general population.
It would certainly be ironic if US citizens end up being saved from tyranny not by elections, rebellion, or the judicial system, but by Iran or N. Korea nuking Washington, D.C. either by ICBM or by a smuggled-in device.
Personally, if I were a D.C. resident and accidentally learned of such a plot, either to nuke D.C. and/or to assassinate top government leaders, I'd quietly leave town and keep my mouth shut. And that really hurts me to have to say about my own nation's government and it's leaders. But sadly, it and they have become everything that the US has fought politically and waged wars against for over 100 years.
"An armed man is a citizen, an unarmed man is a subject and a slave to whomever is armed."
Maybe, but it shows a lack of faith in your government and society that you feel you need guns to defend yourself against them.
"Lack of faith in your government"?
Damn straight! Have you not been paying any attention at all to the almost-daily new reports of government violations of public trust and trampling of rights and over-reach of powers, many right here on/. ?
Damn straight I don't trust the government, and neither should you or anyone! else
The government is not your friend.
I have never felt the need to own a gun beyond an air rifle for target shooting.
That's fine. You're welcome to keep your status as helpless victim to the first armed person or agent of government that decides to violate your rights and freedoms, and maybe decides to take your life.
Don't take away everyone else's right to self defense because you prefer victimhood and dependence.
Before anyone says it, no, we are not "subjects" in the UK, we are citizens.
In name only. I can call a turd a rose. Don't make it so.
I'll keep it short, The Real People who need to be spied on are our oath breaking officials holding office, and the banksters, along with the black government agencies they are protecting.
This perfectly logical and correct statement is modded "-1 Troll""!?!?
WTF!?!? 0.o
Either we have some jackboot fetishists with mod points or the government taxpayer-funded shills are out in force.
At least, I sure hope that is the case. If that moderation is the common view, then we're screwed and Orwell wrote an instruction manual.
You're correct, the problem isn't guns per se, but the type of guns that are *legally* available. I'm tired of the assertion that anyone should be able to legally purchase a military grade assault rifle.
Very few people are saying that.
You can't buy a "military grade assault rifle". Well, unless you can obtain a Federal Firearms License, or "FFL" (NOT easy), have a good bit of money, and are prepared to have the BATFE up your ass for the duration.
Those are select-fire weapons that can fire like a machine gun.
What you are calling a "military grade assault rifle" is nothing of the kind. It's a standard semi-automatic rifle (one trigger-pull, one bullet) that has been around for decades, just dressed up in scary black nylon and anodized accessories.so that it looks scary, and may also provide a bit more practical utility (can throw it in the cargo-rack of your ATV and bounce it around without destroying pretty wood stocks, engraving, etc) and have a bit more flexibility in mounting scopes and aim-pointers, etc.
Talk about tired? I'm really tired of people equating regular old semi-auto hunting/sporting rifles, that again, have been around without a problem for decades, to military weapons, simply because someone dressed it up. It's like equating Grandpa's old Buick to a nitro-fuel funny car if Gramps painted a racing stripe on it and put a spoiler on the trunk lid. If you're going to criticize something, I'd think you might want to know what it is you're critical of!
I always thought it would be funny to do a parody where Khan is thawed out and discovers he's not on Botany Bay at all, but the Golgafrinchan 'B' ark, and his genetically enhanced crew have all been replaced by telephone sanitizers and hairdressers...
Since these leaks did not make the public more informed, or critical, the interest in the public in knowing the information is basically zero. OTOH the interest of the government in keeping the two Zimbabwean Generals who were talking to it from being charged with treason was a hell of a lot more then zero.
Wow, how one sided and US-centric can somebodies views be? I'm sure the swedes found it informing that their politicians had secret agreements to give private information on citizens to US agencies even though it was against their law. Maybe they also found the covert support for US military actions while publicly seeming neutral to have some informative value. I'm sure people from NZ found it interesting and informative that their prime minister sent troops to Iraq to avoid losing Oil for Food contract. It could also be, that the people of Haiti found it interesting to find out just how strongly their politicians decisions where steered by pressure from the US.
There is not a lot of countries in the world who's citizens would not have found the cables to be interesting and informative... Now from a US point of view you probably already understand what influence you have towards other countries. We also understand that there is continuous political pressure, but when you find that your politicians elected to run the country and enhance the wellbeing of it's citizens are secretly breaking the law or placing the benefit of a foreign nation above that of it's own citizens, then the details sure as hell are informative.
I agree. Corrupt politicians will collude and conspire to take away people's liberty, rights, and wealth, and have little consideration for whom they conspire and collude with beyond public appearances to keep the people unaware of how various leaders and governments around the world will betray their people and nation for personal/political/ideological gain when they see an opportunity.
This type of collusion and corruption across national borders revealed in the cables is the real "NWO", rather than some shadowy conspiracy-nut's fantasy, it's simple opportunistic corruption and lust for power that reaches across borders and ideologies. Corruption is it's own only true ideology. The rest is show and distraction for the masses.
*That* is the true reason that things that can enable "pulling back the curtain" on a large scale like WL is being so furiously attacked.
I wonder whether the actual slaves were counted among that "whole people." Maybe they got 3/5 of a musket.
Why don't we ask the first American slave-owner?
Oh, that's right...he was a black man, Anthony Johnson.
Slaves were counted as 3/5ths in the census merely for purposes of calculating the number of Representatives that a State had in Congress, so that slave-owning States would not have an unfair over-representation in the House of Representatives.
If slaves had been counted the same as free men, the slave-states would have had an overwhelming majority of power in the House and thus would have enabled those slave-States to ensure slavery remained an institution for far longer than it did.
Are you saying that slaves should have been counted whole to enable the Southern States to maintain legal slavery in the US?
Or are you simply engaging in facetious bomb-throwing?
I think the latter. But maybe I'm wrong, and you sympathize with the KKK and the Aryan Brotherhood.
The needs being address in the 2nd Amendment are military, so the "arms" in question are undoubtedly military-grade arms. Presumably the authors understood that there are public safety implications to having military-grade weaponry in the hands of the general public, but those threats were outweighed by the very real danger of our country being invaded.
And clearly, that sort of threat is no longer as potent, seeing as the USA now has the most powerful military on earth. So perhaps some re-thinking of the 2nd Amendment is warranted.
You came close, but this is incorrect in that you've left out what they considered the MOST important reason for an armed populace; to be able to overthrow the government when (not "if"...when) it became too tyrannical. Jefferson believed there would/should be an armed overthrow of the government by the citizenry every 20 years or so in order to maintain the superiority of the people over the government and thus maintain the people's liberty and freedom.
They staunchly believed people should not live in fear of their government, but government should fear the people, as that is the only way people remain free and do not become subjects of government rule, rather than free citizens being in control of their nation and their freedom and liberty.
If there should be any "re-thinking" of the 2nd Amendment, I say it should be to make even more clear the rights of the people to own and carry firearms, including full-auto assault rifles like the M16, M4, and similar modern military infantry weapons in order that the threat to the government from a well-armed populace should be maintained and preserved.
Rights are not worth the parchment they are printed on if the people cannot defend those rights against the government.
The 2nd Amendment was PRIMARILY about ensuring US citizens could do one thing above and beyond all others; Overthrow the US government by killing _people_. Not Bambi. People. Government people.
"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
It's not about overthrowing the government, dumbass, it's about defending it.
How about we ask one of the guys who WROTE THE THING!?
"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason, Co-author of the Second Amendment during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution, 1788.
Looks like you're completely and utterly wrong, "dumbass", since you enjoy being so juvenile.
I didn't know the grade-schoolers got out on Christmas holiday so early.
Here's another quote to grow on.
"Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence ⦠from the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurences and tendencies prove that to ensure peace security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable ⦠the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference â" they deserve a place of honor with all that's good." - George Washington
I guarantee you, I can walk out my door today and buy a fully-auto submachine-gun or assault rifle with high-capacity magazines and the ammo (including 'cop-killer' AP rounds) off the streets within a few hours and be home in time to watch the evening news while I clean and prep it. And I'm an old gray-haired white dude!
Yes, but with a partial ban, and heavy fines for transgressors, after some years of this ban, that behavior will hopefully have changed. That is, there is not that much incentive at the moment to assign port and cop duties to policing the sale of cop-killer round, although they are prohibited.
Fully-automatic weapons in the US have been almost totally illegal (except with heavy and restricted licensing to a very few heavily-monitored and select individuals, and at extremely-high costs) for the average person to posses since the 1930s. Penalties are very harsh. It hasn't stopped their availability, and they've gotten even more easily available with the increase in drug trafficking. A large percentage come smuggled in across the porous US borders because of their heavily-restricted nature within the US.
Also, how good are cop-killers bought on the street in reality? I wonder if it is not like medicine bought on the internet.
The "cop-killer" bullets are simply military armor-piercing rounds. They typically last for decades, so deterioration is not a large concern. They also come in military sealed containers to preserve them while they may sit for decades in armories, and so it's not hard to spot bogus/fake ammo.
Much of this type ammunition is either smuggled in across the porous borders or is stolen directly from local armories and military supply depots. There are many criminal gang members in the US military.
Of course, in the US, rather than handing them over with barely a grumble it would be You can have it when you pry it form my cold dead fingers. I feel sad for you all.
Don't feel sad for us.
We are citizens, not subjects or slaves to whatever the armed minions of government demand from us.
An armed man is a citizen, an unarmed man is a subject and a slave to whomever is armed.
All governments, as proven time and again throughout history, have and will ever trend to tyranny, and will never reverse their course but at the threat of armed resistance & rebellion by their citizens.
Love your country, but NEVER trust it's government!
The constitutional argument made is complete nonsense.
Then you, sir, are a fool that has not learned any of the lessons of history.
The odd pistol isn't going to allow the people to overthrow their government; you'd need to massively shrink the military and allow the public to own fighter jets, nuclear subs and drones for that to be remotely plausible.
"The odd pistol"??
Try millions of high-powered rifles behind every window and door, hidden in every thicket, forest, and swamp, and along every road and highway. You think IEDs are a problem in Afghanistan and Iraq? With the tech and knowledge/skills available here in the US, the losses to any hostile force attempting to travel by road/highway would be horrific and prohibitive.
And, not all the military will be on the government's side or follow their orders once the government has started to, or made clear their intentions to, kill large numbers of civilians. A large percentage will side with the population, I guarantee it. If nuclear subs start launching their ICBMs the entire planet is going to have much larger problems on it's hands, as will the US government. Somehow, I don't think the other nations will be willing to put up with that.
If we ignore the smokescreen provided by that constitutional argument then we can at least address the true reasons why people want guns to be available 1) They believe gun restrictions are a restriction on freedom 2) They like owning guns. Neither of these are bad points or things people should be ashamed to admit and defend. The freedom argument is true and I'd love to take the position that no freedom should ever be restricted but we do that when we don't let people buy enriched uranium, run meths labs etc. Ultimately we'll never come to a workable solution to guns in the US without getting the constitutional issue out of the way of debating the real points.
If you think that your views are right and correct, then amend the Constitution. That's why the amendment process was included. You don't get to simply ignore the parts you don't like. Yes, it's difficult because you must have the approval of the majority of the nation and people. That's intentional to prevent just the sort of knee-jerk reactions we see from you and those like you who think with their raw emotions instead of their brains.
He is actually not that wrong. In the sense: you need to be clever to obtain an illegal gun. Chances are you will not find it. So if they make big magazines illegal, but normal magazines are still ok, the nutjob will get the smaller magazine, and not go through the troubles of obtaining big. Same if they prohibit semi-automatic,...
The problem is that many of these perpetrators plan their atrocities months and even years in advance. Many are extremely intelligent. Most of these mass-murderers wait until they have the means and the opportunity to carry out their plans. These are for the most part NOT heat-of-the-moment actions.
What does it matter if they ban or restrict semi-auto firearms or limit magazine size? I guarantee you, I can walk out my door today and buy a fully-auto submachine-gun or assault rifle with high-capacity magazines and the ammo (including 'cop-killer' AP rounds) off the streets within a few hours and be home in time to watch the evening news while I clean and prep it. And I'm an old gray-haired white dude!
The idea of perfectly objective decision making being possible in all circumstances is a masturbatory fantasy, a favorite of people with a vastly inflated sense of their own intellect, caught up in some kind of fantasy about the universal applicability of the scientific method. Get over yourself.
Leave that strawman alone. He's done nothing to you.
What I mean by "subjective" are things like "I know it when I see it" regarding obscenity standards.
But, of course you know that and are simply attacking to inflate your own ego and mistaken sense of intellectual and moral superiority.
I'd turn around and suggest YOU are the one that needs to get over themselves, but it would be futile. It's likely all you have to cling to.
So if I told a Loan Officer "Don't worry, the money I use to murder my wife will not come from this loan," he would have to lend it to me?
Seriously?
You're trying to equate walking into a bank and publicly admitting planning/conspiring to commit felony capitol murder with the freezing of assets of an organization that has not been indicted or charged, never mind convicted, of any unlawful activity?
Then you were incredibly poorly informed before, because everything Wikileaks claims to have revealed was very well-known before Wikileaks revealed it.
The exact same claim could be made for the Pentagon Papers as well.
Law cannot be based on subjective standards, or it is no law at all. And yes, many current laws around things like obscenity/pornography are in that category and should rightly be abolished or at least re-written to clear and unambiguous and consistent standards.
Then no-one will ever fully have the rule of law, because human life does not fit into neat, objective categories. If it did we wouldn't need a Supreme Court.
Precisely the point.
The US government did not and is not pursuing this through the judicial system exactly because it is pursuing an extra-legal policy regarding WL/Assange that they believe would not stand up to judicial review. If they believed it would stand up, they would have pursued WL/Assange through the courts as they have others who have illegally revealed classified information.
Since these leaks did not make the public more informed, or critical
That's YOUR opinion. It made ME more informed and critical, as it did many, many others.
Law cannot be based on subjective standards, or it is no law at all. And yes, many current laws around things like obscenity/pornography are in that category and should rightly be abolished or at least re-written to clear and unambiguous and consistent standards.
The situation with the Pentagon Papers is not identical. The Pentagon Papers were a multi-volume book about the Vietnam War. They had all the context needed to make sense. They also showed us lots of things we didn't know. This means that a responsibly-handled publication was in the public interest. What about either War did this tell us that we didn't know? How can a dump of totally un-redacted cables be considered responsible?.
I was a teenager at the time and remember. The PP were a series of classified reports requested by SoD Robert McNamara that were published by the NYT in a series of news articles over a period of time.
Both the PP and the WL cables were classified material. What form the classified material is in (reports, book, etc) was and is immaterial, as are any subjective views of how informative or "responsible" they may or may not be. If one is legal, so must the other be. The law does not change depending on whether the government favors or disfavors a particular instance. At least, it should not if the government respects and obeys the rule of law. If the government is free to do whatever it wants to whomever it wants whenever it wants for whatever reasons it may choose, that's a tyranny.
The government tried at that time to prevent the NYT from publishing the PP and were planning to prosecute Sheehan and possibly editors at the NYT. Much as now, the propaganda and inflammatory accusations against the NYT and Sheehan by the government and those supporting the government's position abounded. The courts did not allow the government to prevent publication nor prosecute Sheehan or the others.
I'm certain that the US government has not moved against WL in the legal venue in a court of law precisely because they know the courts would have to completely reverse themselves on a major already-decided fundamental legal question, and their chances of that happening are remote at best.
"Seriously though, it may well have been the case that they received a nice friendly National Security Letter that ordered them to halt payment processing."
National Security Letters have nothing to do with business transactions, and have no power to alter them.
Mea culpa.
You are absolutely correct. Thanks!:)
Now that I re-think it, it's more than likely it was because they were told that the IRS and every other government agency and department they could toss in would be up their asses until they died if they didn't cooperate.
The number of violent crimes in the United States dropped significantly last year, to what appeared to be the lowest rate in nearly 40 years, a development that was considered puzzling partly because it ran counter to the prevailing expectation that crime would increase during a recession.
In all regions, the country appears to be safer. The odds of being murdered or robbed are now less than half of what they were in the early 1990s, when violent crime peaked in the United States
Gun control won't reduce the number of people 'losing their shit' and going berserk. It will however, limit the amount of damage they can do before being contained. It's much harder to murder 20 plus people with a hunting knife before someone steps in and stops you.
You got the first sentence right, but then you went and blew it with the following sentences.
How could gun control...or even a ban on guns...ever possibly stop a nutcase who won't obey any laws from obtaining a gun? Do you think more regulations, restrictions, or bans will halt the availability? With some 200 million guns already out there?
Heroin and cocaine are illegal, and up till recently, marijuana was too. Didn't seem to stop anyone from obtaining those things. They've pretty much already admitted bans don't and won't work with the current movement of government towards decriminalization of marijuana.
Just as with recreational drug bans and alcohol prohibitions, the people that you'd most want to NOT have them will be the ones that have them and sell them.
Which came first? The nutcase? Or the nutcase getting their hands on a gun? Check the facts. The number of mass murders by gun are actually down. We are in a 40-year low in violent crime.
The number of violent crimes in the United States dropped significantly last year, to what appeared to be the lowest rate in nearly 40 years, a development that was considered puzzling partly because it ran counter to the prevailing expectation that crime would increase during a recession.
In all regions, the country appears to be safer. The odds of being murdered or robbed are now less than half of what they were in the early 1990s, when violent crime peaked in the United States.
And to those who try to characterize the 2nd Amendment right as some sort of "hunter's rights" and thus attempt to justify their desire to severely restrict who may own, and what types of firearms that may be legally owned, to licensed hunters with single-shot rifles and shotguns, you are wrong.
The 2nd Amendment was PRIMARILY about ensuring US citizens could do one thing above and beyond all others; Overthrow the US government by killing _people_. Not Bambi. People. Government people.
Hunting and personal defense are merely nice side-benefits.
The problem is not guns. It's the crazies. The Left battled mightily and won in the '70s and '80s to have mental patients out walking the streets instead of being institutionalized. What the ~fuck~ did you people EXPECT to happen? Hello? McFly?
Now it looks like the Left wants to turn the entire country into a mental institution and all the citizens disarmed and treated as dangerous mental patients rather than admit their screwed-up, blind-ideology-based policies are to blame.
But why do private banks (businesses) have to accept payment processing from anyone. They are not governmental agencies, shouldn't they be allowed to chose who they do business with?
Because "private" banks are heavily-regulated and must obey banking laws, both domestically in the countries they operate in, and internationally. The laws and regulations, both in the US and Sweden, say that they may not discriminate in this manner against anyone that has not been legally sanctioned/convicted and/or placed on an official terrorist list. Neither of which is the case for WL.
The problem is, they don't just shut them down: Government has an incredible ability to ruin people - reputations shattered, arrest records, assets seized and never returned. And that's all assuming they DON'T manage to find you guilty of an actual crime...
Well, if nobody has the balls to stand up to tyranny, then pick yourself out a nice, fashionable slave collar, emblazoned with "Property of U.S. Government".
Also, may as well bulldoze all those monuments to US soldiers who died to protect and defend freedom and build new domestic-surveillance data storage/processing centers and prisons where they used to be.
There was no legal basis for these payment processors to refuse to transfer payments to wikileaks -who had not and have not (as far as I know) been identified as a terrorist or organized crime group...
the payment processors were just sucking up to the corporatist powers and should be punished for refusing to allow legal commerce and monetary transactions -of course they were probably leaned on at the time by the state department or someone and threatened with sanctions or aiding and abetting or giving comfort or some BS
They were placed on double-secret probation.
TO-GA!
TO-GA!
Seriously though, it may well have been the case that they received a nice friendly National Security Letter that ordered them to halt payment processing.
the ultimate end to this would be refusing to send donations to the EFF, ALCU, greenpeace, PETA (OK I know the last two are borderline hippie/batshit crazy) and other radical and democratic groups....so as not to rock the plutocratic ship of state.
If any of those groups dared to publish embarrassing and damaging information about secret US actions, etc, of the scale and scope that WL did, then I'd expect the talking-heads in the State-run US MSM and the politicians to engage in a full-on media-blitz of propaganda to pave the way to do just that.
The US government is sending a signal that stuff they used to tolerate, like the NYT publishing the Pentagon Papers (which is essentially an almost identical situation from a free speech/free press standpoint (except the NYT is domestic), will no longer be tolerated.
These days, NYT reporter Neil Sheehan (received copies of the Pent. Papers from Daniel Ellsberg), and likely the NYT editor(s) that approved the publication, would find themselves black-bagged and Renditioned to a foreign torture facility.
I wonder if US TLAs have their own domestic supplies of polonium, or import from Russia?
Slashdot Mirror
'This strategy makes it clear that the individual privacy, civil rights and civil liberties of United States persons must be â" and will be â" protected.'
I mean, really...can this statement possibly be any more Orwellian?
They've got to realize how totally full of shit that statement sounds, even to someone with no dog in the fight. I refuse to believe they are so clueless as to believe that statement does anything but incite and fan the flames of distrust and hostility.
It's like they're trying to get people to start a rebellion, so they'll have an excuse to declare martial law and roll the Hellfire-equipped drones, checkpoints, and armor out on the general population.
It would certainly be ironic if US citizens end up being saved from tyranny not by elections, rebellion, or the judicial system, but by Iran or N. Korea nuking Washington, D.C. either by ICBM or by a smuggled-in device.
Personally, if I were a D.C. resident and accidentally learned of such a plot, either to nuke D.C. and/or to assassinate top government leaders, I'd quietly leave town and keep my mouth shut. And that really hurts me to have to say about my own nation's government and it's leaders. But sadly, it and they have become everything that the US has fought politically and waged wars against for over 100 years.
Strat
"Lack of faith in your government"?
Damn straight! Have you not been paying any attention at all to the almost-daily new reports of government violations of public trust and trampling of rights and over-reach of powers, many right here on /. ?
Damn straight I don't trust the government, and neither should you or anyone! else
The government is not your friend.
I have never felt the need to own a gun beyond an air rifle for target shooting.
That's fine. You're welcome to keep your status as helpless victim to the first armed person or agent of government that decides to violate your rights and freedoms, and maybe decides to take your life.
Don't take away everyone else's right to self defense because you prefer victimhood and dependence.
Before anyone says it, no, we are not "subjects" in the UK, we are citizens.
In name only. I can call a turd a rose. Don't make it so.
Strat
I'll keep it short, The Real People who need to be spied on are our oath breaking officials holding office, and the banksters, along with the black government agencies they are protecting.
This perfectly logical and correct statement is modded "-1 Troll""!?!?
WTF!?!? 0.o
Either we have some jackboot fetishists with mod points or the government taxpayer-funded shills are out in force.
At least, I sure hope that is the case. If that moderation is the common view, then we're screwed and Orwell wrote an instruction manual.
Maybe we'll get to meet in the camps.
Strat
You're correct, the problem isn't guns per se, but the type of guns that are *legally* available. I'm tired of the assertion that anyone should be able to legally purchase a military grade assault rifle.
Very few people are saying that.
You can't buy a "military grade assault rifle". Well, unless you can obtain a Federal Firearms License, or "FFL" (NOT easy), have a good bit of money, and are prepared to have the BATFE up your ass for the duration.
Those are select-fire weapons that can fire like a machine gun.
What you are calling a "military grade assault rifle" is nothing of the kind. It's a standard semi-automatic rifle (one trigger-pull, one bullet) that has been around for decades, just dressed up in scary black nylon and anodized accessories.so that it looks scary, and may also provide a bit more practical utility (can throw it in the cargo-rack of your ATV and bounce it around without destroying pretty wood stocks, engraving, etc) and have a bit more flexibility in mounting scopes and aim-pointers, etc.
Talk about tired? I'm really tired of people equating regular old semi-auto hunting/sporting rifles, that again, have been around without a problem for decades, to military weapons, simply because someone dressed it up. It's like equating Grandpa's old Buick to a nitro-fuel funny car if Gramps painted a racing stripe on it and put a spoiler on the trunk lid. If you're going to criticize something, I'd think you might want to know what it is you're critical of!
Strat
I always thought it would be funny to do a parody where Khan is thawed out and discovers he's not on Botany Bay at all, but the Golgafrinchan 'B' ark, and his genetically enhanced crew have all been replaced by telephone sanitizers and hairdressers...
Nah. Kahn's crew replaced by the "Banana Splits".
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjS1nrsJhTQ
Strat :)
I agree. Corrupt politicians will collude and conspire to take away people's liberty, rights, and wealth, and have little consideration for whom they conspire and collude with beyond public appearances to keep the people unaware of how various leaders and governments around the world will betray their people and nation for personal/political/ideological gain when they see an opportunity.
This type of collusion and corruption across national borders revealed in the cables is the real "NWO", rather than some shadowy conspiracy-nut's fantasy, it's simple opportunistic corruption and lust for power that reaches across borders and ideologies. Corruption is it's own only true ideology. The rest is show and distraction for the masses.
*That* is the true reason that things that can enable "pulling back the curtain" on a large scale like WL is being so furiously attacked.
Strat
I wonder whether the actual slaves were counted among that "whole people." Maybe they got 3/5 of a musket.
Why don't we ask the first American slave-owner?
Oh, that's right...he was a black man, Anthony Johnson.
Slaves were counted as 3/5ths in the census merely for purposes of calculating the number of Representatives that a State had in Congress, so that slave-owning States would not have an unfair over-representation in the House of Representatives.
If slaves had been counted the same as free men, the slave-states would have had an overwhelming majority of power in the House and thus would have enabled those slave-States to ensure slavery remained an institution for far longer than it did.
Are you saying that slaves should have been counted whole to enable the Southern States to maintain legal slavery in the US?
Or are you simply engaging in facetious bomb-throwing?
I think the latter. But maybe I'm wrong, and you sympathize with the KKK and the Aryan Brotherhood.
Strat
The needs being address in the 2nd Amendment are military, so the "arms" in question are undoubtedly military-grade arms. Presumably the authors understood that there are public safety implications to having military-grade weaponry in the hands of the general public, but those threats were outweighed by the very real danger of our country being invaded.
And clearly, that sort of threat is no longer as potent, seeing as the USA now has the most powerful military on earth. So perhaps some re-thinking of the 2nd Amendment is warranted.
You came close, but this is incorrect in that you've left out what they considered the MOST important reason for an armed populace; to be able to overthrow the government when (not "if"...when) it became too tyrannical. Jefferson believed there would/should be an armed overthrow of the government by the citizenry every 20 years or so in order to maintain the superiority of the people over the government and thus maintain the people's liberty and freedom.
They staunchly believed people should not live in fear of their government, but government should fear the people, as that is the only way people remain free and do not become subjects of government rule, rather than free citizens being in control of their nation and their freedom and liberty.
If there should be any "re-thinking" of the 2nd Amendment, I say it should be to make even more clear the rights of the people to own and carry firearms, including full-auto assault rifles like the M16, M4, and similar modern military infantry weapons in order that the threat to the government from a well-armed populace should be maintained and preserved.
Rights are not worth the parchment they are printed on if the people cannot defend those rights against the government.
Strat
How about we ask one of the guys who WROTE THE THING!?
"I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them." - George Mason, Co-author of the Second Amendment during Virginia's Convention to Ratify the Constitution, 1788.
Looks like you're completely and utterly wrong, "dumbass", since you enjoy being so juvenile.
I didn't know the grade-schoolers got out on Christmas holiday so early.
Here's another quote to grow on.
"Firearms stand next in importance to the constitution itself. They are the American people's liberty teeth and keystone under independence ⦠from the hour the Pilgrims landed to the present day, events, occurences and tendencies prove that to ensure peace security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable ⦠the very atmosphere of firearms anywhere restrains evil interference â" they deserve a place of honor with all that's good." - George Washington
Here, maybe Penn & Teller can help you out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhXOuuHcjbs
Strat
Fully-automatic weapons in the US have been almost totally illegal (except with heavy and restricted licensing to a very few heavily-monitored and select individuals, and at extremely-high costs) for the average person to posses since the 1930s. Penalties are very harsh. It hasn't stopped their availability, and they've gotten even more easily available with the increase in drug trafficking. A large percentage come smuggled in across the porous US borders because of their heavily-restricted nature within the US.
Also, how good are cop-killers bought on the street in reality? I wonder if it is not like medicine bought on the internet.
The "cop-killer" bullets are simply military armor-piercing rounds. They typically last for decades, so deterioration is not a large concern. They also come in military sealed containers to preserve them while they may sit for decades in armories, and so it's not hard to spot bogus/fake ammo.
Much of this type ammunition is either smuggled in across the porous borders or is stolen directly from local armories and military supply depots. There are many criminal gang members in the US military.
Strat
Of course, in the US, rather than handing them over with barely a grumble it would be You can have it when you pry it form my cold dead fingers. I feel sad for you all.
Don't feel sad for us.
We are citizens, not subjects or slaves to whatever the armed minions of government demand from us.
An armed man is a citizen, an unarmed man is a subject and a slave to whomever is armed.
All governments, as proven time and again throughout history, have and will ever trend to tyranny, and will never reverse their course but at the threat of armed resistance & rebellion by their citizens.
Love your country, but NEVER trust it's government!
It's full of politicians!
Strat
The constitutional argument made is complete nonsense.
Then you, sir, are a fool that has not learned any of the lessons of history.
The odd pistol isn't going to allow the people to overthrow their government; you'd need to massively shrink the military and allow the public to own fighter jets, nuclear subs and drones for that to be remotely plausible.
"The odd pistol"??
Try millions of high-powered rifles behind every window and door, hidden in every thicket, forest, and swamp, and along every road and highway. You think IEDs are a problem in Afghanistan and Iraq? With the tech and knowledge/skills available here in the US, the losses to any hostile force attempting to travel by road/highway would be horrific and prohibitive.
And, not all the military will be on the government's side or follow their orders once the government has started to, or made clear their intentions to, kill large numbers of civilians. A large percentage will side with the population, I guarantee it. If nuclear subs start launching their ICBMs the entire planet is going to have much larger problems on it's hands, as will the US government. Somehow, I don't think the other nations will be willing to put up with that.
If we ignore the smokescreen provided by that constitutional argument then we can at least address the true reasons why people want guns to be available 1) They believe gun restrictions are a restriction on freedom 2) They like owning guns. Neither of these are bad points or things people should be ashamed to admit and defend. The freedom argument is true and I'd love to take the position that no freedom should ever be restricted but we do that when we don't let people buy enriched uranium, run meths labs etc. Ultimately we'll never come to a workable solution to guns in the US without getting the constitutional issue out of the way of debating the real points.
If you think that your views are right and correct, then amend the Constitution. That's why the amendment process was included. You don't get to simply ignore the parts you don't like. Yes, it's difficult because you must have the approval of the majority of the nation and people. That's intentional to prevent just the sort of knee-jerk reactions we see from you and those like you who think with their raw emotions instead of their brains.
Strat
He is actually not that wrong. In the sense: you need to be clever to obtain an illegal gun. Chances are you will not find it. So if they make big magazines illegal, but normal magazines are still ok, the nutjob will get the smaller magazine, and not go through the troubles of obtaining big. Same if they prohibit semi-automatic, ...
The problem is that many of these perpetrators plan their atrocities months and even years in advance. Many are extremely intelligent. Most of these mass-murderers wait until they have the means and the opportunity to carry out their plans. These are for the most part NOT heat-of-the-moment actions.
What does it matter if they ban or restrict semi-auto firearms or limit magazine size? I guarantee you, I can walk out my door today and buy a fully-auto submachine-gun or assault rifle with high-capacity magazines and the ammo (including 'cop-killer' AP rounds) off the streets within a few hours and be home in time to watch the evening news while I clean and prep it. And I'm an old gray-haired white dude!
The idea of perfectly objective decision making being possible in all circumstances is a masturbatory fantasy, a favorite of people with a vastly inflated sense of their own intellect, caught up in some kind of fantasy about the universal applicability of the scientific method. Get over yourself.
Leave that strawman alone. He's done nothing to you.
What I mean by "subjective" are things like "I know it when I see it" regarding obscenity standards.
But, of course you know that and are simply attacking to inflate your own ego and mistaken sense of intellectual and moral superiority.
I'd turn around and suggest YOU are the one that needs to get over themselves, but it would be futile. It's likely all you have to cling to.
Merry Christmas! :)
Strat
So if I told a Loan Officer "Don't worry, the money I use to murder my wife will not come from this loan," he would have to lend it to me?
Seriously?
You're trying to equate walking into a bank and publicly admitting planning/conspiring to commit felony capitol murder with the freezing of assets of an organization that has not been indicted or charged, never mind convicted, of any unlawful activity?
Really? 0.o
I have to ask; am I being trolled here?
Strat
Then you were incredibly poorly informed before, because everything Wikileaks claims to have revealed was very well-known before Wikileaks revealed it.
The exact same claim could be made for the Pentagon Papers as well.
Precisely the point.
The US government did not and is not pursuing this through the judicial system exactly because it is pursuing an extra-legal policy regarding WL/Assange that they believe would not stand up to judicial review. If they believed it would stand up, they would have pursued WL/Assange through the courts as they have others who have illegally revealed classified information.
Thanks for bolstering my position.
Strat
Since these leaks did not make the public more informed, or critical
That's YOUR opinion. It made ME more informed and critical, as it did many, many others.
Law cannot be based on subjective standards, or it is no law at all. And yes, many current laws around things like obscenity/pornography are in that category and should rightly be abolished or at least re-written to clear and unambiguous and consistent standards.
Strat
The situation with the Pentagon Papers is not identical. The Pentagon Papers were a multi-volume book about the Vietnam War. They had all the context needed to make sense. They also showed us lots of things we didn't know. This means that a responsibly-handled publication was in the public interest. What about either War did this tell us that we didn't know? How can a dump of totally un-redacted cables be considered responsible?.
I was a teenager at the time and remember. The PP were a series of classified reports requested by SoD Robert McNamara that were published by the NYT in a series of news articles over a period of time.
Both the PP and the WL cables were classified material. What form the classified material is in (reports, book, etc) was and is immaterial, as are any subjective views of how informative or "responsible" they may or may not be. If one is legal, so must the other be. The law does not change depending on whether the government favors or disfavors a particular instance. At least, it should not if the government respects and obeys the rule of law. If the government is free to do whatever it wants to whomever it wants whenever it wants for whatever reasons it may choose, that's a tyranny.
The government tried at that time to prevent the NYT from publishing the PP and were planning to prosecute Sheehan and possibly editors at the NYT. Much as now, the propaganda and inflammatory accusations against the NYT and Sheehan by the government and those supporting the government's position abounded. The courts did not allow the government to prevent publication nor prosecute Sheehan or the others.
I'm certain that the US government has not moved against WL in the legal venue in a court of law precisely because they know the courts would have to completely reverse themselves on a major already-decided fundamental legal question, and their chances of that happening are remote at best.
Strat
[golf clap]
Your brilliance is...amazing. 0.o
I shall now, based on the brilliance of your reply, destroy all my firearms and petition for a total gun ban. [rolls eyes]
Sheesh! What a maroon!
Strat
Mea culpa.
You are absolutely correct. Thanks! :)
Now that I re-think it, it's more than likely it was because they were told that the IRS and every other government agency and department they could toss in would be up their asses until they died if they didn't cooperate.
Strat
Forgot to include the cite.
The number of violent crimes in the United States dropped significantly last year, to what appeared to be the lowest rate in nearly 40 years, a development that was considered puzzling partly because it ran counter to the prevailing expectation that crime would increase during a recession.
In all regions, the country appears to be safer. The odds of being murdered or robbed are now less than half of what they were in the early 1990s, when violent crime peaked in the United States
NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/us/24crime.html?_r=0
Strat
Gun control won't reduce the number of people 'losing their shit' and going berserk. It will however, limit the amount of damage they can do before being contained. It's much harder to murder 20 plus people with a hunting knife before someone steps in and stops you.
You got the first sentence right, but then you went and blew it with the following sentences.
How could gun control...or even a ban on guns...ever possibly stop a nutcase who won't obey any laws from obtaining a gun? Do you think more regulations, restrictions, or bans will halt the availability? With some 200 million guns already out there?
Heroin and cocaine are illegal, and up till recently, marijuana was too. Didn't seem to stop anyone from obtaining those things. They've pretty much already admitted bans don't and won't work with the current movement of government towards decriminalization of marijuana.
Just as with recreational drug bans and alcohol prohibitions, the people that you'd most want to NOT have them will be the ones that have them and sell them.
Which came first? The nutcase? Or the nutcase getting their hands on a gun? Check the facts. The number of mass murders by gun are actually down. We are in a 40-year low in violent crime.
The number of violent crimes in the United States dropped significantly last year, to what appeared to be the lowest rate in nearly 40 years, a development that was considered puzzling partly because it ran counter to the prevailing expectation that crime would increase during a recession.
In all regions, the country appears to be safer. The odds of being murdered or robbed are now less than half of what they were in the early 1990s, when violent crime peaked in the United States.
And to those who try to characterize the 2nd Amendment right as some sort of "hunter's rights" and thus attempt to justify their desire to severely restrict who may own, and what types of firearms that may be legally owned, to licensed hunters with single-shot rifles and shotguns, you are wrong.
The 2nd Amendment was PRIMARILY about ensuring US citizens could do one thing above and beyond all others; Overthrow the US government by killing _people_. Not Bambi. People. Government people.
Hunting and personal defense are merely nice side-benefits.
The problem is not guns. It's the crazies. The Left battled mightily and won in the '70s and '80s to have mental patients out walking the streets instead of being institutionalized. What the ~fuck~ did you people EXPECT to happen? Hello? McFly?
Now it looks like the Left wants to turn the entire country into a mental institution and all the citizens disarmed and treated as dangerous mental patients rather than admit their screwed-up, blind-ideology-based policies are to blame.
Molon labe.
Strat
But why do private banks (businesses) have to accept payment processing from anyone. They are not governmental agencies, shouldn't they be allowed to chose who they do business with?
Because "private" banks are heavily-regulated and must obey banking laws, both domestically in the countries they operate in, and internationally. The laws and regulations, both in the US and Sweden, say that they may not discriminate in this manner against anyone that has not been legally sanctioned/convicted and/or placed on an official terrorist list. Neither of which is the case for WL.
Strat
The problem is, they don't just shut them down: Government has an incredible ability to ruin people - reputations shattered, arrest records, assets seized and never returned. And that's all assuming they DON'T manage to find you guilty of an actual crime...
Well, if nobody has the balls to stand up to tyranny, then pick yourself out a nice, fashionable slave collar, emblazoned with "Property of U.S. Government".
Also, may as well bulldoze all those monuments to US soldiers who died to protect and defend freedom and build new domestic-surveillance data storage/processing centers and prisons where they used to be.
Strat
There was no legal basis for these payment processors to refuse to transfer payments to wikileaks -who had not and have not (as far as I know) been identified as a terrorist or organized crime group...
the payment processors were just sucking up to the corporatist powers and should be punished for refusing to allow legal commerce and monetary transactions -of course they were probably leaned on at the time by the state department or someone and threatened with sanctions or aiding and abetting or giving comfort or some BS
They were placed on double-secret probation.
TO-GA!
TO-GA!
Seriously though, it may well have been the case that they received a nice friendly National Security Letter that ordered them to halt payment processing.
the ultimate end to this would be refusing to send donations to the EFF, ALCU, greenpeace, PETA (OK I know the last two are borderline hippie/batshit crazy) and other radical and democratic groups....so as not to rock the plutocratic ship of state.
If any of those groups dared to publish embarrassing and damaging information about secret US actions, etc, of the scale and scope that WL did, then I'd expect the talking-heads in the State-run US MSM and the politicians to engage in a full-on media-blitz of propaganda to pave the way to do just that.
The US government is sending a signal that stuff they used to tolerate, like the NYT publishing the Pentagon Papers (which is essentially an almost identical situation from a free speech/free press standpoint (except the NYT is domestic), will no longer be tolerated.
These days, NYT reporter Neil Sheehan (received copies of the Pent. Papers from Daniel Ellsberg), and likely the NYT editor(s) that approved the publication, would find themselves black-bagged and Renditioned to a foreign torture facility.
I wonder if US TLAs have their own domestic supplies of polonium, or import from Russia?
Strat