I'm getting a bored with adding these links, but there is definitely more than one and every single one of those was post some greedy arse hole trying to turn the ground into a massive soda fountain and screw the existing residents.
Well, I actually went and looked at the videos you linked to.
Bad news. They don't prove anything. They either have absolutely no context, or have sources with questionable agendas and biases.
But, just for shits 'n giggles, let's just say they do, and fracking is dangerous. OK. We still need energy. Or would you prefer to take measures like forgoing heat in the winter and/or closing things like hospitals one week a month, and/or stopping police patrols 2 or 3 days a week?
Or would you prefer we continue the current trend of exporting ever more of the negatives of our energy use to somewhere else where the people are poorer and browner, and can't tweet or post on your FB wall about their children dying to heat your jacuzzi?
Regardless of whether fracking results in the near-permanent contamination of rural water supplies nearby it, it is a rather dreadful noisy and destructive process. I've spoken with someone who got lumped into a settlement and is watching the process unfold around him. Roads being destroyed by heavy machinery, and a 24-hour cacophony of noise. And that is without the potential contamination of the water supply due to concrete breaking down over time or unknown geological variables that result in the leaking of said chemicals somewhere along the line. Perhaps as a result of negligence or economic short-cutting to make more profit as the price of natural-gas plummets thus resulting in a desire to extract it with as little "investment" as possible. Yeah truly a luddite fairy tale, or is it really more of a real-life nightmare.
OK, this is what I don't understand about how the environmental movement in general thinks about petroleum as an energy source, fracking, and domestic oil exploration and drilling. They say they'd like to see these activities and the use of petroleum as a primary energy source reduced or eliminated.
Fair enough. We still, despite any practical reductions achievable through conservation in the next few decades, will need more energy than alternatives are able to supply or in the manner/form necessary.
It seems to me that it would provide a much greater incentive for the US to reduce it's petroleum usage if the US kept more of the "externalities", like geological and environmental dangers of petroleum exploration, drilling, & refining within the domestic US instead of allowing those negative externalities to be exported to other regions.
It seems it would be a double-win for the environmentalists, as those policies would not only accelerate alternative energy development and deployment, and would also keep more of the nation's wealth that was sent to the Middle East and elsewhere stimulating the US economy and creating jobs and opportunity here for everyone.
They could be heroes if they weren't so short-sighted and unable to see a larger picture.
But then, it may not be simple short-sightedness with many environmental activists and groups, but instead, a deliberate.use of the environmental agenda as camouflage. I get the feeling that many are more concerned with attacking Capitalism and promoting class-warfare and collectivism than protecting the environment.
Not that all environmental groups belong to this group. However, it's largely due to these types that those individuals and groups truly concerned with the environment and ready to work on actual, practical solutions get painted negatively in the public's perceptions.
Yeah, I know that many here would rather remain comfortable in their ignorance and will ignore and mod me down because they dislike being made uncomfortable, but I'm the fly in the ointment, the monkey in the wrench*, that will say boldly and without fear the true facts and history that make them uncomfortable.
*Yes, I know it's mangled. It's a partial quote from the movie "Die Hard".
When the result of fracking in your backyard is making your drinking water flammable, they're damn right to not want it there.
Well, since the only instance of this "flammable drinking water" that I know of existed *before* any fracking took place, you don't have much of a factual/logical leg to stand on here.
Another NIMBY/Luddite fairy tale, spread to frighten the uninformed masses into knee-jerk reactions.
Nobody is entirely self-sufficient. Even the people who live out in the boonies, have their own well, their own power and their own food depend on living in an environment where thugs don't roam the area, looking for cheap thrills or money.
Then I want my taxes refunded. There are violent drug cartel thugs roaming the US southwest unchecked. As a matter of fact, there are even road signs along the highway cautioning against stopping and/or walking about. These violent criminals are being deliberately allowed to persist and expand their reach and power in the US by the corrupt US government, even to the point of the Federal government preventing the States from protecting their own citizens when it refuses to carry out it's Constitutional duties to protect and defend the borders.
That's the problem with every single Libertarian/Tea Partier in the US. They think that a lack of government simply means that they get no medicare in exchange for no taxes. What they fail to understand is that the political and social stability of the US is built on taxes as well.
No, it's the political and social *control* over choice those on the Left wish to exercise over the people that is dependent on taxes and regulation.
I'm amazed that so many people still believe, after all the death and suffering resulting from the numerous previous attempts throughout history, that collectivism is a valid and workable system, and it just simply "hasn't been done right yet", when anyone with a functioning brain ell can tell you that collectivism *always* ends in an authoritarian regime and the old Soviet-era saying among Russians; "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us" (after which they can pretend to stand in line to buy bread the bakers pretend to have had the flour to make).
All collectivist schemes on a national scale fail because they must rely on people *not* behaving in accordance to basic human nature to succeed.
The Utopian schemes of re-distribution of the wealth...are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. - Samuel Adams
How strangely will the Tools of the Tyrant pervert the Plain Meaning of Words. - Samuel Adams
The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the U.S. from keeping their own arms. - Samuel Adams
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. - Thomas Jefferson
Taxation follows public debt, and in its train wretchedness and oppression. - Thomas Jefferson
If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy. - Thomas Jefferson
The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale. - Thomas Jefferson
The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first. - Thomas Jefferson
But of course, what would some old, dead, white guys know, right? I mean, besides giving humanity the first and only truly free nation that believes (or at least, *used to* believe) that men can rule themselves in ~5,000 years of human history.
Essentially, that's what this boils down to: A conflict between those who believe that people can rule themselves, run their own lives, and make their own choices, against those who believe people are too stupid and ignorant to be trusted with ruling themselves, running their own lives, or making their own choices, and must have their lives, choices, and laws dictated to them by an "enlightened elite".
Everyday people often choose convinience over security. They forego data encryption, they have simple passwords, and they don't think twice about their privacy implications.
Criminals are often no different.
Of course, that's currently true. It will likely remain mostly true, even with the growing levels and abuse of government monitoring.
However, there *will* be some increase in the numbers of people...both criminals and others who are not criminals...who will become more security-aware because of increased intrusions and abuses, as well as the increased likelihood that they or someone they know has been personally negatively affected. I've seen two examples personally. I have two acquaintances who, each in different fields, occasionally travel to Canada for business. They've gone from carrying their laptops with them on the flight to having them over-nighted by Fed-Ex/DHL/UPS to their hotel and back. Also, many people I know that use a wireless router are now actually bothering to attempt to make them somewhat secure.
So, although slow and sluggish, such increases in government (and corporate) nosiness and abuse does eventually cause a reaction among "regular" people, with the speed and depth of the penetration into common behaviors dependent on the actual depth and frequency of the intrusions and the level of publicly-perceived offensiveness/intrusiveness/outrageousness.
I never claimed that it would be a huge business. The "cottage-industry" term I used in my OP was meant to convey "small and specialized". Like, "your friend knows a guy, who knows a guy, who "does phones" part-time on his basement workbench for friends". Or like, back in the day in the US, the cottage industry of modding CB radios for higher transmitter power, "illegal" frequencies, and forbidden modes like FM. Not that *I* would ever have done anything like that. No, sir. I also never break the speed limit when driving, and I've also never, *ever*, failed to come to a complete stop at a stop-sign, nor crossed an intersection intentionally on the "yellow" to beat the traffic light.
If governments keep getting ever-more abusive, however, I could see cellphone hacking/modding for privacy become as widespread and common as game console modding/hacking, or the CB radio modding of days past.
Carry the broken USB port model, and all's well unless the collection device uses a debug port(which requires the battery to be removed to access, also deactivating the SD slot on opening battery cover). In addition, the software stack allows for a lot to be altered, which can discourage people from poking at the data easily.
I see an opportunity for an underground cottage-industry of those with electronics skills that will, for a fee, take a phone and hack it hardware- and software-wise to thwart such government/police snooping.
If nothing else, one could cut/remove the PCB copper traces that connect the data from the chips to the connectors/ports, necessitating a lengthy and expensive trip to an advanced electronics forensic facility for data extraction & decryption. Make the regular use of cellphone "data-slurpers" by LEAs too expensive and unproductive to continue, and it will die.
Many rich people don't like paying taxes, so they construct a kind of false reality in their own minds where they are the victims of "political corruption and cronyism", thus justifying their own personal interests in not paying taxes.
And, you know all these intimate details about how many rich people think in their heads...how, exactly? Oh yeah....you don't, you just like to make stuff up that makes you feel better about discriminating against one group of people and confiscating the wealth *they earned* in order to feed the endless maw of a collectivist government. How much is enough? I already know the answer...it's the same answer in any collectivist/redistributionist society...it's never enough. Collectivism assures everyone enjoys an equal level of poverty. Except for the ones in charge, of course. To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, Collectivism is great until you run out of other people's wealth to redistribute.
All of this "going Galt" stuff just seems like personal interests being dressed up as "objective and rational responses to a system that oppresses the rich"
It's both, and there's nothing wrong with "personal interests". It's what drives Capitalism, the basis of Western civilization. Capitalism embraces the natural human desire to improve one's life and those of one's family to create wealth for everyone in the society, whereas Collectivism depends on people always acting in the interests of the State and not themselves, which never really happens, which is why all forms of Collectivism always eventually end in tyranny, corruption, and collapse.
I think the only reason this twisted view of the world has permeated below the super-rich class in society is because the conservative news has been pushing this narrative, and they've managed to hoodwink the middle class into believing that they are being oppressed.
Gee, that's strange. I only count *one* cable news channel, a few AM radio talk shows, and some bloggers, out of all the TV and cable news channels and other media, that will even present the side of the "conservatives" *at all*, or without doing it in a completely biased, negative, & derogatory manner. Why do you feel it's OK to silence those with opposing views? Isn't that a form of tyranny and oppression?
The fact that you call it "rejecting redistributionist/collectivist tyranny" shows just how deeply they've tricked you into their worldview.
No, it shows how well the Left's ~80 years of propaganda has blinded you to recognizing tyranny, just as they intended. You're being used as a tool by those who think themselves your betters and your masters. Are you familiar with something called "Stockholm Syndrome"?
First: Saverin isn't renouncing his citizenship to protest the ever more powerful police state. He's saving on taxes.
And you'll notice I simply described what "going Galt" means. I didn't say Saverin was going Galt.
However, removing yourself and your wealth from the clutches of a corrupt and greedy government bent on using wealth redistribution to buy the votes of the short-sighted, greedy, and ignorant I would consider a valid and sensible action no matter what you want to call it.
"Going Galt" is about far more than simply taxes. It's about political corruption and cronyism, and using the power of government as a tool of the powerful to crush competition and/or as leverage to demand a piece of the action and/or control over innovation. It's about rejecting redistributionist/collectivist tyranny.
"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed." - Ayn Rand
That such actions anger those who believe the fruits of others' labors is their right concerns me not at all. Well, besides checking the sighting accuracy of my weapons regularly and assuring I have plenty of ammunition and supplies as well as a functioning means for off-grid secure communications, that is.
"Going Galt" is a breaking of the social contract after having benefited from it...
"Going Galt" is abandoning a government and leaders that abandoned their duties to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, and thus have broken their oaths of office, and hence the "contract" that gives them their authority.
They have taken an oath as servants of the people, but instead, seek to rule over them as their masters and confiscate/limit the fruits of their labor and give them to those who have not earned it in exchange for political favor, and try to control what private citizens spend their own money on, while limiting the amount of success someone is allowed to attain.
There IS no more contract. Those in government over the last ~60-80 years who are and have been anxious to progress past the limitations on government scope & power set on it by the Constitution broke it long ago. It hasn't existed for many decades. It's now, and has been for some time, the Rule of Men, not the Rule of Law.
This turning-away from the Rule of Law is one of the central underlying problems (though not nearly the only one) with the US. The US will never equal the achievements of individual freedom and wealth of it's past for it's present & future citizens until this is corrected and the Rule of Law is once again supreme.
FTFY. The general public may be assumed to be idiots, but the aforementioned specialists should not.
I hope you're right (about the latter). I've met far too many people in IT who barely made the grade as far as I was concerned. Hopefully, those trades do better on that score.
Don't worry too much. There are always outliers in any field, but things like elevator experts, journeymen boiler makers, master electricians, pipe-fitters, etc are tightly regulated and enjoy a very high degree of general professionalism and competence, particularly regarding safety.
I've been employed in a couple of these trades as well, and between the redundant safeties built into everything, the facility safety inspections, the strict testing, licensing, and the very serious amount of training and then years of apprenticeship before you're allowed to do much of anything that's not triple-checked behind you, not to mention that trades companies have an *extremely* dim view of being put on the hook for perhaps many lives and millions and millions in legal liability, there are relatively extremely few ways for things to go bad on-site. In fact, very few things ever do, relatively speaking.
But, because all this training, testing, licensing, apprenticeships, etc make such highly-skilled workers very expensive, I'd bet labor cost is one of, if not the main, driving force behind why things that really shouldn't be networked to the internet are being pushed there by the "bottom-line" types.
Why hire expensive tradesmen for every installation when you can have one set of guys run multiple sites remotely? Of course, most with experience in these trades can give you a list of reasons as long as your arm, but PHBs rarely listen to the "grunts" in the field. What self-respecting, Brook-Bros-suit-wearing upper-management-type is going to listen to some peons that have permanent grease-stains under their fingernails? They don't even have an MBA!!
The designed-in fail-safes in equipment and systems will make up for a lot, but there still may be unforeseen ways to cause a disaster with things like boilers and elevators involved. Especially when many such boiler and elevator systems were designed back before any real automation, never mind control over the internet, was even a dream. Hard for an elevator system or boiler system designed in the '40s, '50s, or '60s to build in safeguards against a hostile off-site controller.
So, many MBA/management types are tempted into thinking that even though putting all that infrastructure/mechanical control on the 'net might not be the safest idea, it sure saves money in skilled labor costs, though!
Besides, nobody's made it a crime yet, right?
I guess we'll have to wait for a disaster (or six) to happen first for that.
Yes. It's my money, and as the customer I demand they not put bullshit in just to make me suffer through it.
If they can't manage that, I'll gladly not give them my money. Capitalism is grand.
I'm sorry citizen, but your right to not purchase something vital to a strong national economy and thus vital to national security has been superseded by the Commerce Clause.
Please send Notary-witnessed copies of your US media purchase receipts for this past tax year for verification of your compliance with the Federal Individual Minimum Allowed Yearly Purchase (F-I-MAY-P) including payment for any difference between your receipt totals and the minimum allowable media purchase to the IRS.
Remember, failure to prove compliance with the Federal Minimum Media Purchase requirements carries the same risk of felony prosecution and Federal imprisonment with the same level of severity and sentence-lengths as aggravated Federal income tax evasion.
Failing to make your patriotic media purchases helps the terrorists club baby seals to death with other baby seals for fur they sell to pedophiles to photograph naked children on.
All the gasoline burned by those who choose to drive (where possible) instead of fly because of the whole TSA mess in airports.
Not only a huge additional cost which should enrage those on the Right, for those on the Left concerned about AGW, it's also a huge amount of additional CO2 dumped into the air.
One would think there should be broad bipartisan support for ending the TSA based on just those two factors alone, never mind that the TSA does almost nothing to actually increase security.
But, we all know this isn't about logic or principles, nor any concern for protecting anyone but themselves. It's about paying off political cronies and labor unions while all but wiping out what's left of the poor, abused, Bill of Rights and the rest of the Amendments.
They've stopped even pretending to hide it. Now, they're just looking right at us with their arms spread, and saying; "What? Yeah, and what're YOU gonna do about it, punk bitches? Go make us a sammich!...Err...an income tax payment, and quit yer whining before we black-bag yer ass!".
HTF are you supposed to pay your bill off if you cannot GET A JOB WITHOUT YOUR TRANSCRIPT?!?!
Don't worry! The Feds are working on a program to address that as we speak. It involves putting students who are in student loan debt to work for the Federal government for reduced wages, but loan forgiveness after a specified term of service, gradually expanding the program until the only way to repay a student loan is by working for the government for a fixed term based on your debt load.
If students could simply get their transcripts and seek employment in the private sector to pay off their loans, that would reduce the incentives to serve the Federal government as a way to pay off their debt. Either grope Granny at the airport or cough up your loan payments without your transcripts to enable you to get anything but a McJob.
I'll just leave this here as something to think about in this context.
Wilson and FDR were Democrats. Liberalism and Progressivism have been Democratic movements since the Republican Party abandoned Theodore Roosevelt (which is why he ran independently from them in 1912). The New Deal was FDR's Democratic programme; the War on Poverty was LBJ's Democratic programme.
Everything you cite is Democratic, even though the worst abuses by far have been Republican.
You forgot a couple. The Democrats are the only ones that ever rounded up people by ethnic/racial/national background and imprisoned them without warrant, charges, or trial or basically any due process in camps in the US. The Democrats were also stalwart racial segregation supporters.
I'm very sorry that the party you seem to blindly support has such a rich history of assaults on freedom and support for institutional racism. That's not my fault, nor my problem that it makes you uncomfortable. It's sad that the once-proud Democratic Party has been infiltrated and taken over by Progressives. Before Progressives co-opted the Democrats, one could have a reasonable discussion with a Democrat.
Many Republicans are Progressives, and most of the rest simply play the "I'm for whatever polls best and gets me re-elected, maintains the status-quo, and gets me the most campaign contributions and kickbacks" game.
I research the candidates and issues in an election, and do my best to vote for those candidates & issues that will staunchly defend and further the cause of individual freedom and promote smaller, less-burdensome, less-invasive, and less-expensive government. Trying to find someone or something to vote for in recent times has become pretty much an exercise in futility.
I have no problems voting across Party lines, but Democrats for the last few decades have given me little reason to vote for them or their policies based on the rough criteria I outlined above. Sadly, it's gotten to be nearly impossible to find any Republicans anymore that stand for and defend those principles either.
The Liberal and Progressive movements, including the New Deal and even the War on Poverty, have done a great amount on behalf of the people of this country...
[looks around at the collapsing economy, invasions of privacy, loss of habeus corpus rights, the almost-daily Constitutional violations by government, etc etc etc, all of which increased as Progressives gained power]
Oh yeah. Progressivism has done *plenty* all right.
Let's just hope we can survive Progressivism doing any more to us, as so far it's nearly killed us. No matter which Party the Progressives are in.
Progressivism is a form of Collectivism. Collectivism never works outside of relatively small groups, as it lacks any accountability. It always ends up as summed-up by one former Soviet citizen; "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us". After which they could pretend to buy bread that the bakers pretended to have had the flour to make.
You're a Republican. I don't care if you finally rejected Republicans too - how many times did you vote for them? And now you still say exactly what you always said, even when you proudly claimed to be Republican. You're a "Libertarian" now, or some other copout that lets you act like an obsolete Republican while pretending you're not to blame.
Whatever political label you want to attach to me doesn't matter here. It's irrelevant here. What's important here are the ideas, factual history, and historically-proven principles being discussed. Try discussing those in an intellectually-honest manner and stop trying to distract from your lack of ability to defend your ideas and opinions, and people might just take you a bit more seriously.
Looking for "bad" objects is a stupid way to run security screening.
But it's the only practical method when one of your main goals is not anti-terrorism security, but job security for minimally-educated & trained Union workers.
This is more about building-out an entirely separate national security force to monitor all transportation hubs and check papers and conduct searches of people and anything they may have with them.
Yeah, that's right. Liberals are the creators of the military/industrial complex that keeps America paranoid and always at war. Republican General Eisenhower didn't create it in his 8 years. Nixon didn't in his two terms, Reagan/Bush didn't in their 3 terms, Bush/Cheney didn't in their two terms. Liberals are somehow both anti-war, anti-military traitors, and the creators of the military and its wars.
That's a beautiful straw man argument there, Doc. I almost wish I'd made that argument.
My post concerned government that doesn't honor it's founding agreements with the populace it governs, and the politicians that betray their sworn oaths.
Are you trying to tell us you're OK with that sort of behavior by your government?
Oh, and America was so much better, but only in the part that has no living witnesses.
Oh no, we don't have to go that far back to see the trend. I'm old enough myself to remember a time when the Feds needed warrants, where the government couldn't seize a private citizens' property to give it to another private citizen because it may increase revenues to the government, or seize and sell private property in a police investigation without any charges even being filed nor any determination of guilt made, and with little or no recourse for the victim...err..."person of interest". It's being done by both parties because Progressives, who by definition wish government to "progress" past the Constitution, are in *both* parties.
You Republicans are totally insane:
Republican!? Hardly! The US two-party system has degenerated into nothing but a wedge-issue circus and distraction to keep the masses from realizing the bigger game and prevent them from being able to affect the government or it's governance in any meaningful way.
I'm sorry, but if you're an avid supporter of either political party in the US, you're either just not informed enough or have drank too much partisan-propaganda kool-ade to carry on a rational & meaningful discussion of real US politics.
Judging by your posting history, I know which way I'd bet.
Talk about voluntarily going through life with blinders on!
Actually, I think he sensed that most yanks were so hopelessly paranoid and close to the edge that they could easily be made to destroy themselves.
All it took to set that in motion was a little hollywood-style push.
You write as if all this occurred relatively all of a sudden over the last one or two, maybe three decades, and didn't require 6 to 8 decades or more to set up the conditions necessary. It started in a serious way around the time of Wilson and FDR after the failed modern US Liberalism movement re-branded itself as the Progressive movement and started gaining more and more power through the later part of the 20th century, implementing the "New Deal", the "War on Poverty", and similar programs for which the Federal government lacked the necessary Constitutional powers, and thereby firmly institutionalizing the Federal practice of going around, or just plain straight through, the restrictions placed on the Federal government by the US Constitution whenever it was expedient.
Once the camel's nose was under the tent on the Federal government being able to ever-increasingly bypass and circumvent the Constitution, what we in the US see around us and the actions we see the government taking...or not taking...were almost inevitable.
The US will never recover and never equal it's own past, and none of the current problems will truly be solved in any meaningful way, until the Federal government is once again restrained by the US Constitution and those officials in Washington and elsewhere are forced to honor the oath they took in which they swore to "...preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Any government that ignores and refuses to honor it's founding agreements with the population it governs and from which it borrows it's power, will end in tyranny or bloody & violent revolution/civil war. Or both. It's what's happened to every other government throughout history that followed the same path.
All bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and others have done is to push the accelerator pedal down a bit more in our ongoing and decades-long power-dive into collapse, violence, chaos, and eventually tyranny. Without them and their actions, we'd still be in a nearly-identical situation domestically in another 5 or 10 years. Maybe not even that long.
In the scenario under discussion, there is no US military.
No, that's only true in the scenario YOU and only YOU are discussing with yourself in your head. The rest of us can read and know better. Extra points, though, for your extreme condescension and unearned sense of superiority and contempt for any opinions other than your own.
But the hundred or so 4-channers who've read the Art of War...
I'm sure that West Point and most other centers for advanced military education & study, along with just about anyone else that seeks to gain an understanding of basic military principles, where the reading and understanding of "The Art of War" and the principles it sets out is mandatory, will be shocked to learn they consist of a "hundred or so 4-channers".
You must be a blast at parties. After all, who doesn't love condescension, contempt, and ignorance?
You've watched Red Dawn too many times. An armed populace without logistical support or actual training is just a bunch of folks with guns, not a militia, and not an army. They might look the part, but they're no coherent fighting force. The only real way for the American population to fight would be as they did in Iraq and Afghanistan - concentrate on IEDs. That's the only force multiplier at play in that scenario.
The post by khallow in reply to yours brings up important and excellent points.
There's something else you both may be missing.
In the case of a foreign invader, the civilian population and what's left of the US military will join forces, and if a domestic enemy/coup (like a President declaring martial law, suspending elections, and begins deploying US military forces in a domestic pacification operation), a significant percentage of the military will switch sides and join the civilian resistance.
Now, on the topic of logistics, logistics and supplies for a domestic guerrilla resistance force operating among a friendly civilian population (ex. Viet Cong in Vietnam or Taliban in many parts of Afghanistan) is extremely difficult for an occupying force to damage in a critical or even significant way. Typically, the longer the conflict persists, the better the logistics capabilities of guerrilla resistance forces become, as their sources & methods are perfected and expanded over time.
Quite the opposite is true for the occupying force, however, and their supply lines, weapons/fuel/food supply depots, and other prime targets to deny the enemy resupply & reinforcement will be sure to be prime and vulnerable strategic targets, being located among a hostile population, and damaging them a primary goal of the domestic guerrilla resistance. You starve the occupiers while forcing them to expend ever-more assets just in force-protection for their supply lines/depots, their bases, and their troops.
Not being condescending here, but if you haven't already, you really should read "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu if you want a firm grasp of the basic principles of modern warfare and armed conflict.
Hint: There's a very, very BROAD definition of "hunting rifle" in the US. Plenty of regular US citizens own firepower that can quite handily take out light armored vehicles and tactical combat transport choppers and the like. That's without the inevitable raiding that would be done by citizens on military armories and supply depots upon the outbreak of armed domestic conflict.
I pity ANY force, whether foreign or domestic, that tries to take over and pacify the population of the continental US by armed force. It would make the US' experience in Vietnam and the Soviets' experience in Afghanistan look like strolls in the park on a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon.
There would not only be a gun behind every blade of grass and behind every window, IEDs would be taking out troop/supply convoys on every highway, road, and dirt path, and even the very barracks they sleep in would be blowing up in the middle of the night with them in it.
No, there are no armed takeover and pacification/suppression operations, either by foreign or domestic enemies, that can possibly succeed in the continental US. The only realistic option for a foreign or domestic enemy once armed conflict starts is a biological/chemical and nuclear/thermonuclear program of mass genocide of nearly the whole US population from a distance. Until they do, any boots they try to put on the ground will have a life expectancy measured in minutes, hours at the most.
Modern Progressivism & Liberalism: Ideas so good they have to be mandatory.
Nice. Although, i would take issue with using the word "liberalism" like this. Liberalism means people who believe in human liberty. The progressives usurped the term to describe their confiscatory, controlling ideology, in order to dress it up and make it look better. I refuse to use the term to describe progressivism.
I understand the historical/political changes in popular usage and their reasons for occurring, and agree with the rest of your post. I worded my sig like that to make sure there was no confusion about the identity of the ideological group I was talking about among those people that may lack the historical background knowledge (or refuse to acknowledge it).
The sig refers to one of the basic differences between the more traditional Constitutional & Capitalistic views of how one constructs the framework of laws & regulations as opposed to those whose views tend toward Progressivism and Collectivism in general.
The Constitutional/Capitalistic framework acknowledges and works within natural law and human behavior & weaknesses to both protect against corruption/tyranny while using the natural desire to seek a better life for oneself and one's family to both increase that person's/family's personal wealth and simultaneously increase society's wealth, thus improving conditions and standards of living for most citizens.
Progressives believe in a more centralized, top-down government that attempts to control human weakness and direct economic activity and who gets what share of wealth by law/regulation. It's a form of Collectivism, and Collectivism does not work in the long run for a large society and typically results in a police state/tyranny and eventual political/economic collapse, as it attempts to directly counter human nature and natural law, the Keelo SCOTUS ruling, as an example of opposing natural law in regards to private property ownership rights, going against natural law by allowing government to seize private property and give it to another private citizen in order to collect more in revenues, and the recent disastrous attempts by government to prop up certain businesses with bailouts, loan guarantees, and grants, thereby attempting to pick economic winners and losers, is an example of failed attempts to directly control economic activity by the State.
Collectivism (of which Progressivism is one form) is a pipe-dream sold to the naive, angry, self-entitled, and uneducated in order to foment enough unrest to allow an "elite" of powerful and politically-connected individuals to take control of a nation and society, and create an authoritarian collectivist regime.
Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature. - Benjamin Franklin
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. - Thomas Jefferson
The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. - Thomas Jefferson
Therein lies the opportunity for President-elect Barack Obama. His plans for an activist government agenda are in many ways being given a boost by this crisis atmosphere and the nearly universal call for the government to do something fast to stimulate the economy.
This opportunity isn't lost on the new president and his team. "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Obama's new chief of staff, told a Wall Street Journal conference of top corporate chief executives this week.
He elaborated: "Things that we had postponed for too long, that were long-term, are now immediate and must be dealt with. This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before."
He ticked off some areas where he thought new doors were opening: energy, health, education, tax policy, regulatory reforms.
So, I think it's just one way they see to move their various agendas forward. Whether one considers it "insidious" largely depends on if you care more for honesty & integrity from our government and elected officials, or for moving a partisan agenda forward by any and all means available.
Nice to see that/. group-think moderation (I don't like your opinions/beliefs==Troll-mod, not a discussion opportunity) is at work on my first post in this thread. The Left on/. rarely disappoints. It seems they've never met an opinion or belief other than their own that doesn't require silencing, yelling down/over, or otherwise shutting down.
Slashdot Mirror
Arguments as weak as yours don't help; hell at least if you shared ANY true facts rather than hyperbole and FUD you'd add something.
Dangit, ya got me!
I failed to prove a negative.
Guilty.
As Socrates once said; "I drank what?".
Strat
How to tackle childish lies, liar, liar pants on fire.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01EK76Sy4A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEtgvwllNpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-L2nsSUCWw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P8gAQhCq7c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bekzB7aUaaQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On8yM880x6A
I'm getting a bored with adding these links, but there is definitely more than one and every single one of those was post some greedy arse hole trying to turn the ground into a massive soda fountain and screw the existing residents.
Well, I actually went and looked at the videos you linked to.
Bad news. They don't prove anything. They either have absolutely no context, or have sources with questionable agendas and biases.
But, just for shits 'n giggles, let's just say they do, and fracking is dangerous. OK. We still need energy. Or would you prefer to take measures like forgoing heat in the winter and/or closing things like hospitals one week a month, and/or stopping police patrols 2 or 3 days a week?
Or would you prefer we continue the current trend of exporting ever more of the negatives of our energy use to somewhere else where the people are poorer and browner, and can't tweet or post on your FB wall about their children dying to heat your jacuzzi?
Strat
Regardless of whether fracking results in the near-permanent contamination of rural water supplies nearby it, it is a rather dreadful noisy and destructive process. I've spoken with someone who got lumped into a settlement and is watching the process unfold around him. Roads being destroyed by heavy machinery, and a 24-hour cacophony of noise. And that is without the potential contamination of the water supply due to concrete breaking down over time or unknown geological variables that result in the leaking of said chemicals somewhere along the line. Perhaps as a result of negligence or economic short-cutting to make more profit as the price of natural-gas plummets thus resulting in a desire to extract it with as little "investment" as possible. Yeah truly a luddite fairy tale, or is it really more of a real-life nightmare.
OK, this is what I don't understand about how the environmental movement in general thinks about petroleum as an energy source, fracking, and domestic oil exploration and drilling. They say they'd like to see these activities and the use of petroleum as a primary energy source reduced or eliminated.
Fair enough. We still, despite any practical reductions achievable through conservation in the next few decades, will need more energy than alternatives are able to supply or in the manner/form necessary.
It seems to me that it would provide a much greater incentive for the US to reduce it's petroleum usage if the US kept more of the "externalities", like geological and environmental dangers of petroleum exploration, drilling, & refining within the domestic US instead of allowing those negative externalities to be exported to other regions.
It seems it would be a double-win for the environmentalists, as those policies would not only accelerate alternative energy development and deployment, and would also keep more of the nation's wealth that was sent to the Middle East and elsewhere stimulating the US economy and creating jobs and opportunity here for everyone.
They could be heroes if they weren't so short-sighted and unable to see a larger picture.
But then, it may not be simple short-sightedness with many environmental activists and groups, but instead, a deliberate.use of the environmental agenda as camouflage. I get the feeling that many are more concerned with attacking Capitalism and promoting class-warfare and collectivism than protecting the environment.
It's known as "Eco-Socialism": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-socialism
Not that all environmental groups belong to this group. However, it's largely due to these types that those individuals and groups truly concerned with the environment and ready to work on actual, practical solutions get painted negatively in the public's perceptions.
Strat
You might as well argue with your dog.
Yeah, I know that many here would rather remain comfortable in their ignorance and will ignore and mod me down because they dislike being made uncomfortable, but I'm the fly in the ointment, the monkey in the wrench*, that will say boldly and without fear the true facts and history that make them uncomfortable.
*Yes, I know it's mangled. It's a partial quote from the movie "Die Hard".
Strat
When the result of fracking in your backyard is making your drinking water flammable, they're damn right to not want it there.
Well, since the only instance of this "flammable drinking water" that I know of existed *before* any fracking took place, you don't have much of a factual/logical leg to stand on here.
Another NIMBY/Luddite fairy tale, spread to frighten the uninformed masses into knee-jerk reactions.
Like yours.
Strat
Nobody is entirely self-sufficient. Even the people who live out in the boonies, have their own well, their own power and their own food depend on living in an environment where thugs don't roam the area, looking for cheap thrills or money.
Then I want my taxes refunded. There are violent drug cartel thugs roaming the US southwest unchecked. As a matter of fact, there are even road signs along the highway cautioning against stopping and/or walking about. These violent criminals are being deliberately allowed to persist and expand their reach and power in the US by the corrupt US government, even to the point of the Federal government preventing the States from protecting their own citizens when it refuses to carry out it's Constitutional duties to protect and defend the borders.
That's the problem with every single Libertarian/Tea Partier in the US. They think that a lack of government simply means that they get no medicare in exchange for no taxes. What they fail to understand is that the political and social stability of the US is built on taxes as well.
No, it's the political and social *control* over choice those on the Left wish to exercise over the people that is dependent on taxes and regulation.
I'm amazed that so many people still believe, after all the death and suffering resulting from the numerous previous attempts throughout history, that collectivism is a valid and workable system, and it just simply "hasn't been done right yet", when anyone with a functioning brain ell can tell you that collectivism *always* ends in an authoritarian regime and the old Soviet-era saying among Russians; "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us" (after which they can pretend to stand in line to buy bread the bakers pretend to have had the flour to make).
All collectivist schemes on a national scale fail because they must rely on people *not* behaving in accordance to basic human nature to succeed.
The Utopian schemes of re-distribution of the wealth...are as visionary and impractical as those which vest all property in the Crown. - Samuel Adams
How strangely will the Tools of the Tyrant pervert the Plain Meaning of Words. - Samuel Adams
The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the U.S. from keeping their own arms. - Samuel Adams
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. - Thomas Jefferson
Taxation follows public debt, and in its train wretchedness and oppression. - Thomas Jefferson
If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy. - Thomas Jefferson
The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale. - Thomas Jefferson
The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first. - Thomas Jefferson
But of course, what would some old, dead, white guys know, right? I mean, besides giving humanity the first and only truly free nation that believes (or at least, *used to* believe) that men can rule themselves in ~5,000 years of human history.
Essentially, that's what this boils down to: A conflict between those who believe that people can rule themselves, run their own lives, and make their own choices, against those who believe people are too stupid and ignorant to be trusted with ruling themselves, running their own lives, or making their own choices, and must have their lives, choices, and laws dictated to them by an "enlightened elite".
Strat
Everyday people often choose convinience over security. They forego data encryption, they have simple passwords, and they don't think twice about their privacy implications.
Criminals are often no different.
Of course, that's currently true. It will likely remain mostly true, even with the growing levels and abuse of government monitoring.
However, there *will* be some increase in the numbers of people...both criminals and others who are not criminals...who will become more security-aware because of increased intrusions and abuses, as well as the increased likelihood that they or someone they know has been personally negatively affected. I've seen two examples personally. I have two acquaintances who, each in different fields, occasionally travel to Canada for business. They've gone from carrying their laptops with them on the flight to having them over-nighted by Fed-Ex/DHL/UPS to their hotel and back. Also, many people I know that use a wireless router are now actually bothering to attempt to make them somewhat secure.
So, although slow and sluggish, such increases in government (and corporate) nosiness and abuse does eventually cause a reaction among "regular" people, with the speed and depth of the penetration into common behaviors dependent on the actual depth and frequency of the intrusions and the level of publicly-perceived offensiveness/intrusiveness/outrageousness.
I never claimed that it would be a huge business. The "cottage-industry" term I used in my OP was meant to convey "small and specialized". Like, "your friend knows a guy, who knows a guy, who "does phones" part-time on his basement workbench for friends". Or like, back in the day in the US, the cottage industry of modding CB radios for higher transmitter power, "illegal" frequencies, and forbidden modes like FM. Not that *I* would ever have done anything like that. No, sir. I also never break the speed limit when driving, and I've also never, *ever*, failed to come to a complete stop at a stop-sign, nor crossed an intersection intentionally on the "yellow" to beat the traffic light.
If governments keep getting ever-more abusive, however, I could see cellphone hacking/modding for privacy become as widespread and common as game console modding/hacking, or the CB radio modding of days past.
Strat
Carry the broken USB port model, and all's well unless the collection device uses a debug port(which requires the battery to be removed to access, also deactivating the SD slot on opening battery cover). In addition, the software stack allows for a lot to be altered, which can discourage people from poking at the data easily.
I see an opportunity for an underground cottage-industry of those with electronics skills that will, for a fee, take a phone and hack it hardware- and software-wise to thwart such government/police snooping.
If nothing else, one could cut/remove the PCB copper traces that connect the data from the chips to the connectors/ports, necessitating a lengthy and expensive trip to an advanced electronics forensic facility for data extraction & decryption. Make the regular use of cellphone "data-slurpers" by LEAs too expensive and unproductive to continue, and it will die.
Strat
That should work out well for a free and open internet, eh?
Strat
Many rich people don't like paying taxes, so they construct a kind of false reality in their own minds where they are the victims of "political corruption and cronyism", thus justifying their own personal interests in not paying taxes.
And, you know all these intimate details about how many rich people think in their heads...how, exactly? Oh yeah....you don't, you just like to make stuff up that makes you feel better about discriminating against one group of people and confiscating the wealth *they earned* in order to feed the endless maw of a collectivist government. How much is enough? I already know the answer...it's the same answer in any collectivist/redistributionist society...it's never enough. Collectivism assures everyone enjoys an equal level of poverty. Except for the ones in charge, of course. To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, Collectivism is great until you run out of other people's wealth to redistribute.
All of this "going Galt" stuff just seems like personal interests being dressed up as "objective and rational responses to a system that oppresses the rich"
It's both, and there's nothing wrong with "personal interests". It's what drives Capitalism, the basis of Western civilization. Capitalism embraces the natural human desire to improve one's life and those of one's family to create wealth for everyone in the society, whereas Collectivism depends on people always acting in the interests of the State and not themselves, which never really happens, which is why all forms of Collectivism always eventually end in tyranny, corruption, and collapse.
I think the only reason this twisted view of the world has permeated below the super-rich class in society is because the conservative news has been pushing this narrative, and they've managed to hoodwink the middle class into believing that they are being oppressed.
Gee, that's strange. I only count *one* cable news channel, a few AM radio talk shows, and some bloggers, out of all the TV and cable news channels and other media, that will even present the side of the "conservatives" *at all*, or without doing it in a completely biased, negative, & derogatory manner. Why do you feel it's OK to silence those with opposing views? Isn't that a form of tyranny and oppression?
The fact that you call it "rejecting redistributionist/collectivist tyranny" shows just how deeply they've tricked you into their worldview.
No, it shows how well the Left's ~80 years of propaganda has blinded you to recognizing tyranny, just as they intended. You're being used as a tool by those who think themselves your betters and your masters. Are you familiar with something called "Stockholm Syndrome"?
Strat
First: Saverin isn't renouncing his citizenship to protest the ever more powerful police state. He's saving on taxes.
And you'll notice I simply described what "going Galt" means. I didn't say Saverin was going Galt.
However, removing yourself and your wealth from the clutches of a corrupt and greedy government bent on using wealth redistribution to buy the votes of the short-sighted, greedy, and ignorant I would consider a valid and sensible action no matter what you want to call it.
"Going Galt" is about far more than simply taxes. It's about political corruption and cronyism, and using the power of government as a tool of the powerful to crush competition and/or as leverage to demand a piece of the action and/or control over innovation. It's about rejecting redistributionist/collectivist tyranny.
"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion - when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing - when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors - when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you - when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice - you may know that your society is doomed." - Ayn Rand
That such actions anger those who believe the fruits of others' labors is their right concerns me not at all. Well, besides checking the sighting accuracy of my weapons regularly and assuring I have plenty of ammunition and supplies as well as a functioning means for off-grid secure communications, that is.
Strat
"Going Galt" is a breaking of the social contract after having benefited from it...
"Going Galt" is abandoning a government and leaders that abandoned their duties to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, and thus have broken their oaths of office, and hence the "contract" that gives them their authority.
They have taken an oath as servants of the people, but instead, seek to rule over them as their masters and confiscate/limit the fruits of their labor and give them to those who have not earned it in exchange for political favor, and try to control what private citizens spend their own money on, while limiting the amount of success someone is allowed to attain.
There IS no more contract. Those in government over the last ~60-80 years who are and have been anxious to progress past the limitations on government scope & power set on it by the Constitution broke it long ago. It hasn't existed for many decades. It's now, and has been for some time, the Rule of Men, not the Rule of Law.
This turning-away from the Rule of Law is one of the central underlying problems (though not nearly the only one) with the US. The US will never equal the achievements of individual freedom and wealth of it's past for it's present & future citizens until this is corrected and the Rule of Law is once again supreme.
Strat
Don't worry too much. There are always outliers in any field, but things like elevator experts, journeymen boiler makers, master electricians, pipe-fitters, etc are tightly regulated and enjoy a very high degree of general professionalism and competence, particularly regarding safety.
I've been employed in a couple of these trades as well, and between the redundant safeties built into everything, the facility safety inspections, the strict testing, licensing, and the very serious amount of training and then years of apprenticeship before you're allowed to do much of anything that's not triple-checked behind you, not to mention that trades companies have an *extremely* dim view of being put on the hook for perhaps many lives and millions and millions in legal liability, there are relatively extremely few ways for things to go bad on-site. In fact, very few things ever do, relatively speaking.
But, because all this training, testing, licensing, apprenticeships, etc make such highly-skilled workers very expensive, I'd bet labor cost is one of, if not the main, driving force behind why things that really shouldn't be networked to the internet are being pushed there by the "bottom-line" types.
Why hire expensive tradesmen for every installation when you can have one set of guys run multiple sites remotely? Of course, most with experience in these trades can give you a list of reasons as long as your arm, but PHBs rarely listen to the "grunts" in the field. What self-respecting, Brook-Bros-suit-wearing upper-management-type is going to listen to some peons that have permanent grease-stains under their fingernails? They don't even have an MBA!!
The designed-in fail-safes in equipment and systems will make up for a lot, but there still may be unforeseen ways to cause a disaster with things like boilers and elevators involved. Especially when many such boiler and elevator systems were designed back before any real automation, never mind control over the internet, was even a dream. Hard for an elevator system or boiler system designed in the '40s, '50s, or '60s to build in safeguards against a hostile off-site controller.
So, many MBA/management types are tempted into thinking that even though putting all that infrastructure/mechanical control on the 'net might not be the safest idea, it sure saves money in skilled labor costs, though!
Besides, nobody's made it a crime yet, right?
I guess we'll have to wait for a disaster (or six) to happen first for that.
Strat
Yes. It's my money, and as the customer I demand they not put bullshit in just to make me suffer through it.
If they can't manage that, I'll gladly not give them my money. Capitalism is grand.
I'm sorry citizen, but your right to not purchase something vital to a strong national economy and thus vital to national security has been superseded by the Commerce Clause.
Please send Notary-witnessed copies of your US media purchase receipts for this past tax year for verification of your compliance with the Federal Individual Minimum Allowed Yearly Purchase (F-I-MAY-P) including payment for any difference between your receipt totals and the minimum allowable media purchase to the IRS.
Remember, failure to prove compliance with the Federal Minimum Media Purchase requirements carries the same risk of felony prosecution and Federal imprisonment with the same level of severity and sentence-lengths as aggravated Federal income tax evasion.
Failing to make your patriotic media purchases helps the terrorists club baby seals to death with other baby seals for fur they sell to pedophiles to photograph naked children on.
Strat
Another BIG one!
All the gasoline burned by those who choose to drive (where possible) instead of fly because of the whole TSA mess in airports.
Not only a huge additional cost which should enrage those on the Right, for those on the Left concerned about AGW, it's also a huge amount of additional CO2 dumped into the air.
One would think there should be broad bipartisan support for ending the TSA based on just those two factors alone, never mind that the TSA does almost nothing to actually increase security.
But, we all know this isn't about logic or principles, nor any concern for protecting anyone but themselves. It's about paying off political cronies and labor unions while all but wiping out what's left of the poor, abused, Bill of Rights and the rest of the Amendments.
They've stopped even pretending to hide it. Now, they're just looking right at us with their arms spread, and saying; "What? Yeah, and what're YOU gonna do about it, punk bitches? Go make us a sammich!...Err...an income tax payment, and quit yer whining before we black-bag yer ass!".
Strat
HTF are you supposed to pay your bill off if you cannot GET A JOB WITHOUT YOUR TRANSCRIPT?!?!
Don't worry! The Feds are working on a program to address that as we speak. It involves putting students who are in student loan debt to work for the Federal government for reduced wages, but loan forgiveness after a specified term of service, gradually expanding the program until the only way to repay a student loan is by working for the government for a fixed term based on your debt load.
If students could simply get their transcripts and seek employment in the private sector to pay off their loans, that would reduce the incentives to serve the Federal government as a way to pay off their debt. Either grope Granny at the airport or cough up your loan payments without your transcripts to enable you to get anything but a McJob.
I'll just leave this here as something to think about in this context.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tt2yGzHfy7s
Strat
Wilson and FDR were Democrats. Liberalism and Progressivism have been Democratic movements since the Republican Party abandoned Theodore Roosevelt (which is why he ran independently from them in 1912). The New Deal was FDR's Democratic programme; the War on Poverty was LBJ's Democratic programme.
Everything you cite is Democratic, even though the worst abuses by far have been Republican.
You forgot a couple. The Democrats are the only ones that ever rounded up people by ethnic/racial/national background and imprisoned them without warrant, charges, or trial or basically any due process in camps in the US. The Democrats were also stalwart racial segregation supporters.
I'm very sorry that the party you seem to blindly support has such a rich history of assaults on freedom and support for institutional racism. That's not my fault, nor my problem that it makes you uncomfortable. It's sad that the once-proud Democratic Party has been infiltrated and taken over by Progressives. Before Progressives co-opted the Democrats, one could have a reasonable discussion with a Democrat.
Many Republicans are Progressives, and most of the rest simply play the "I'm for whatever polls best and gets me re-elected, maintains the status-quo, and gets me the most campaign contributions and kickbacks" game.
I research the candidates and issues in an election, and do my best to vote for those candidates & issues that will staunchly defend and further the cause of individual freedom and promote smaller, less-burdensome, less-invasive, and less-expensive government. Trying to find someone or something to vote for in recent times has become pretty much an exercise in futility.
I have no problems voting across Party lines, but Democrats for the last few decades have given me little reason to vote for them or their policies based on the rough criteria I outlined above. Sadly, it's gotten to be nearly impossible to find any Republicans anymore that stand for and defend those principles either.
The Liberal and Progressive movements, including the New Deal and even the War on Poverty, have done a great amount on behalf of the people of this country...
[looks around at the collapsing economy, invasions of privacy, loss of habeus corpus rights, the almost-daily Constitutional violations by government, etc etc etc, all of which increased as Progressives gained power]
Oh yeah. Progressivism has done *plenty* all right.
Let's just hope we can survive Progressivism doing any more to us, as so far it's nearly killed us. No matter which Party the Progressives are in.
Progressivism is a form of Collectivism. Collectivism never works outside of relatively small groups, as it lacks any accountability. It always ends up as summed-up by one former Soviet citizen; "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us". After which they could pretend to buy bread that the bakers pretended to have had the flour to make.
You're a Republican. I don't care if you finally rejected Republicans too - how many times did you vote for them? And now you still say exactly what you always said, even when you proudly claimed to be Republican. You're a "Libertarian" now, or some other copout that lets you act like an obsolete Republican while pretending you're not to blame.
Whatever political label you want to attach to me doesn't matter here. It's irrelevant here. What's important here are the ideas, factual history, and historically-proven principles being discussed. Try discussing those in an intellectually-honest manner and stop trying to distract from your lack of ability to defend your ideas and opinions, and people might just take you a bit more seriously.
Strat
Looking for "bad" objects is a stupid way to run security screening.
But it's the only practical method when one of your main goals is not anti-terrorism security, but job security for minimally-educated & trained Union workers.
This is more about building-out an entirely separate national security force to monitor all transportation hubs and check papers and conduct searches of people and anything they may have with them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwaAVJITx1Y
Papiere, bitte.
Strat
Yeah, that's right. Liberals are the creators of the military/industrial complex that keeps America paranoid and always at war. Republican General Eisenhower didn't create it in his 8 years. Nixon didn't in his two terms, Reagan/Bush didn't in their 3 terms, Bush/Cheney didn't in their two terms. Liberals are somehow both anti-war, anti-military traitors, and the creators of the military and its wars.
That's a beautiful straw man argument there, Doc. I almost wish I'd made that argument.
My post concerned government that doesn't honor it's founding agreements with the populace it governs, and the politicians that betray their sworn oaths.
Are you trying to tell us you're OK with that sort of behavior by your government?
Oh, and America was so much better, but only in the part that has no living witnesses.
Oh no, we don't have to go that far back to see the trend. I'm old enough myself to remember a time when the Feds needed warrants, where the government couldn't seize a private citizens' property to give it to another private citizen because it may increase revenues to the government, or seize and sell private property in a police investigation without any charges even being filed nor any determination of guilt made, and with little or no recourse for the victim...err..."person of interest". It's being done by both parties because Progressives, who by definition wish government to "progress" past the Constitution, are in *both* parties.
You Republicans are totally insane:
Republican!? Hardly! The US two-party system has degenerated into nothing but a wedge-issue circus and distraction to keep the masses from realizing the bigger game and prevent them from being able to affect the government or it's governance in any meaningful way.
I'm sorry, but if you're an avid supporter of either political party in the US, you're either just not informed enough or have drank too much partisan-propaganda kool-ade to carry on a rational & meaningful discussion of real US politics.
Judging by your posting history, I know which way I'd bet.
Talk about voluntarily going through life with blinders on!
Strat
Actually, I think he sensed that most yanks were so hopelessly paranoid and close to the edge that they could easily be made to destroy themselves.
All it took to set that in motion was a little hollywood-style push.
You write as if all this occurred relatively all of a sudden over the last one or two, maybe three decades, and didn't require 6 to 8 decades or more to set up the conditions necessary. It started in a serious way around the time of Wilson and FDR after the failed modern US Liberalism movement re-branded itself as the Progressive movement and started gaining more and more power through the later part of the 20th century, implementing the "New Deal", the "War on Poverty", and similar programs for which the Federal government lacked the necessary Constitutional powers, and thereby firmly institutionalizing the Federal practice of going around, or just plain straight through, the restrictions placed on the Federal government by the US Constitution whenever it was expedient.
Once the camel's nose was under the tent on the Federal government being able to ever-increasingly bypass and circumvent the Constitution, what we in the US see around us and the actions we see the government taking...or not taking...were almost inevitable.
The US will never recover and never equal it's own past, and none of the current problems will truly be solved in any meaningful way, until the Federal government is once again restrained by the US Constitution and those officials in Washington and elsewhere are forced to honor the oath they took in which they swore to "...preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Any government that ignores and refuses to honor it's founding agreements with the population it governs and from which it borrows it's power, will end in tyranny or bloody & violent revolution/civil war. Or both. It's what's happened to every other government throughout history that followed the same path.
All bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and others have done is to push the accelerator pedal down a bit more in our ongoing and decades-long power-dive into collapse, violence, chaos, and eventually tyranny. Without them and their actions, we'd still be in a nearly-identical situation domestically in another 5 or 10 years. Maybe not even that long.
Strat
In the scenario under discussion, there is no US military.
No, that's only true in the scenario YOU and only YOU are discussing with yourself in your head. The rest of us can read and know better. Extra points, though, for your extreme condescension and unearned sense of superiority and contempt for any opinions other than your own.
But the hundred or so 4-channers who've read the Art of War...
I'm sure that West Point and most other centers for advanced military education & study, along with just about anyone else that seeks to gain an understanding of basic military principles, where the reading and understanding of "The Art of War" and the principles it sets out is mandatory, will be shocked to learn they consist of a "hundred or so 4-channers".
You must be a blast at parties. After all, who doesn't love condescension, contempt, and ignorance?
Strat
You've watched Red Dawn too many times. An armed populace without logistical support or actual training is just a bunch of folks with guns, not a militia, and not an army. They might look the part, but they're no coherent fighting force. The only real way for the American population to fight would be as they did in Iraq and Afghanistan - concentrate on IEDs. That's the only force multiplier at play in that scenario.
The post by khallow in reply to yours brings up important and excellent points.
There's something else you both may be missing.
In the case of a foreign invader, the civilian population and what's left of the US military will join forces, and if a domestic enemy/coup (like a President declaring martial law, suspending elections, and begins deploying US military forces in a domestic pacification operation), a significant percentage of the military will switch sides and join the civilian resistance.
Now, on the topic of logistics, logistics and supplies for a domestic guerrilla resistance force operating among a friendly civilian population (ex. Viet Cong in Vietnam or Taliban in many parts of Afghanistan) is extremely difficult for an occupying force to damage in a critical or even significant way. Typically, the longer the conflict persists, the better the logistics capabilities of guerrilla resistance forces become, as their sources & methods are perfected and expanded over time.
Quite the opposite is true for the occupying force, however, and their supply lines, weapons/fuel/food supply depots, and other prime targets to deny the enemy resupply & reinforcement will be sure to be prime and vulnerable strategic targets, being located among a hostile population, and damaging them a primary goal of the domestic guerrilla resistance. You starve the occupiers while forcing them to expend ever-more assets just in force-protection for their supply lines/depots, their bases, and their troops.
Not being condescending here, but if you haven't already, you really should read "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu if you want a firm grasp of the basic principles of modern warfare and armed conflict.
Strat
No, he's operating under the delusion that a few obese rednecks with hunting rifles would hold back the commies.
You dismiss private citizens with "hunting rifles", but I don't think you realize what a "hunting rifle" can mean in the US.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hioPReoo10A
Hint: There's a very, very BROAD definition of "hunting rifle" in the US. Plenty of regular US citizens own firepower that can quite handily take out light armored vehicles and tactical combat transport choppers and the like. That's without the inevitable raiding that would be done by citizens on military armories and supply depots upon the outbreak of armed domestic conflict.
I pity ANY force, whether foreign or domestic, that tries to take over and pacify the population of the continental US by armed force. It would make the US' experience in Vietnam and the Soviets' experience in Afghanistan look like strolls in the park on a warm and sunny Sunday afternoon.
There would not only be a gun behind every blade of grass and behind every window, IEDs would be taking out troop/supply convoys on every highway, road, and dirt path, and even the very barracks they sleep in would be blowing up in the middle of the night with them in it.
No, there are no armed takeover and pacification/suppression operations, either by foreign or domestic enemies, that can possibly succeed in the continental US. The only realistic option for a foreign or domestic enemy once armed conflict starts is a biological/chemical and nuclear/thermonuclear program of mass genocide of nearly the whole US population from a distance. Until they do, any boots they try to put on the ground will have a life expectancy measured in minutes, hours at the most.
Strat
I understand the historical/political changes in popular usage and their reasons for occurring, and agree with the rest of your post. I worded my sig like that to make sure there was no confusion about the identity of the ideological group I was talking about among those people that may lack the historical background knowledge (or refuse to acknowledge it).
The sig refers to one of the basic differences between the more traditional Constitutional & Capitalistic views of how one constructs the framework of laws & regulations as opposed to those whose views tend toward Progressivism and Collectivism in general.
The Constitutional/Capitalistic framework acknowledges and works within natural law and human behavior & weaknesses to both protect against corruption/tyranny while using the natural desire to seek a better life for oneself and one's family to both increase that person's/family's personal wealth and simultaneously increase society's wealth, thus improving conditions and standards of living for most citizens.
Progressives believe in a more centralized, top-down government that attempts to control human weakness and direct economic activity and who gets what share of wealth by law/regulation. It's a form of Collectivism, and Collectivism does not work in the long run for a large society and typically results in a police state/tyranny and eventual political/economic collapse, as it attempts to directly counter human nature and natural law, the Keelo SCOTUS ruling, as an example of opposing natural law in regards to private property ownership rights, going against natural law by allowing government to seize private property and give it to another private citizen in order to collect more in revenues, and the recent disastrous attempts by government to prop up certain businesses with bailouts, loan guarantees, and grants, thereby attempting to pick economic winners and losers, is an example of failed attempts to directly control economic activity by the State.
Collectivism (of which Progressivism is one form) is a pipe-dream sold to the naive, angry, self-entitled, and uneducated in order to foment enough unrest to allow an "elite" of powerful and politically-connected individuals to take control of a nation and society, and create an authoritarian collectivist regime.
Freedom is not a gift bestowed upon us by other men, but a right that belongs to us by the laws of God and nature. - Benjamin Franklin
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not. - Thomas Jefferson
The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases. - Thomas Jefferson
Strat
Well, here's the context. You decide.
From the WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122721278056345271.html (no paywall/registration)
Therein lies the opportunity for President-elect Barack Obama. His plans for an activist government agenda are in many ways being given a boost by this crisis atmosphere and the nearly universal call for the government to do something fast to stimulate the economy.
This opportunity isn't lost on the new president and his team. "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," Rahm Emanuel, Mr. Obama's new chief of staff, told a Wall Street Journal conference of top corporate chief executives this week.
He elaborated: "Things that we had postponed for too long, that were long-term, are now immediate and must be dealt with. This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before."
He ticked off some areas where he thought new doors were opening: energy, health, education, tax policy, regulatory reforms.
So, I think it's just one way they see to move their various agendas forward. Whether one considers it "insidious" largely depends on if you care more for honesty & integrity from our government and elected officials, or for moving a partisan agenda forward by any and all means available.
Nice to see that /. group-think moderation (I don't like your opinions/beliefs==Troll-mod, not a discussion opportunity) is at work on my first post in this thread. The Left on /. rarely disappoints. It seems they've never met an opinion or belief other than their own that doesn't require silencing, yelling down/over, or otherwise shutting down.
Strat