There is more than enough evidence to demonstrate that our contemporary institutions of government, media, academia, finance, etc. and the unholy alliances thereof have nothing BUT nefarious intent. It's only logical to assume that these people and groups are going to lie, cheat and obfuscate to fulfill their agenda at the expense of the vast majority of the population.
The label "conspiracy theorist" is simply their dismissive label for anyone who dares question the official narrative and a convenient excuse to avoid countering evidence with facts.
The odd thing is that a "conspiracy" is generally some sort of secret plot. Many of the so-called "conspiracy theorists" are simply highlighting evidence which isn't even in dispute.
"power to kill a US citizen abroad who is ACCUSED OF threatening US lives."
FTFY
If the government has evidence to back up this ACCUSATION, it should be presented to a grand jury and they should get an arrest warrant from a judge.
Unless an arrest warrant is issued and criminal charges have been filed, how is a person even supposed to know that they are being accused of criminal activity? Exactly how is the government offering them the chance to give themselves up before the bomb hits?
Excellent comment. The idea of selective prosecution/selective legal immunity is the piece of this puzzle that a lot of people miss, but it goes directly to the issue of justice and the rule of law. One person gets persecuted for leaking documents, others go free after thousands of instances of fraud, forgery and perjury.
By "police forces", I hope you include federal law enforcement as well. They're buying military weapons and ammunition just as fast as the citizens have been.
The willingness of the police to use force against peaceful political protestors is another sign that things look really bad. OWS was just a nuisance. I can only imagine the response if they were perceived as a serious threat.
With all of those abuses in your list, I can't believe anyone would entertain the idea of more anti-gun legislation.
"...high ranking individuals in an organization actively engaged in war measures against the US." ?
The problem with your statement is that you've already drawn a conclusion. In the USA, these sorts of conclusions are only supposed to be made in a court of law.
The issue here is what(if any) EVIDENCE does the government have to demonstrate these people are engaged in any of the activities they are being accused of?
If the government has this evidence, why don't they go before a grand jury, get a criminal indictment and have a judge issue an arrest warrant?
I still don't think the next step should be a death sentence, but come on. At LEAST get an indictment for one or more crimes.
AQ doesn't make their membership list public. The government should have to present EVIDENCE to a grand jury demonstrating that the person is a "rebel" or some sort of threat(involved in a conspiracy to commit murder, arson, whatever.)
P.S. The South was NOT in a "state of rebellion".
A rebellion (or even a civil war) implies that the South wanted to overthrow the government and seize power for themselves. They didn't. They only wanted to exercise their right to withdraw from the republic which they had voluntarily joined.
Nowhere in the Constitution does it authorize the federal government to use military force against a state wishing to withdraw from the union. I can assure you that if such a provision existed, or was even implied, the Constitution never would have been ratified.
I say that YOU are a senior operational leader of al-Qa'ida or an associated force (like WikiLeaks, Anonymous, OWS or some other evil group plotting against Western economic interests).
Want to see the evidence against you? Sorry Want your lawyer? Sorry Want a trial before a jury of your peers? Sorry BOOM!
In our Constitutional Republic it is illegal for the government to murder people simply because of the command of some bureaucrat. What the government "believes" about an accused "terrorist" could easily be based on false or fabricated evidence. That's why the government brings their evidence before a grand jury and IF an indictment is issued, the accused has a right to confront the evidence against them in a court of law.
If the government thinks they have enough evidence to KILL someone, surely they could get a damned indictment!
This is an impeachable offense. Too bad that there isn't a shred of integrity left in Washington DC.
Interesting discussion. The issue of land and natural resources is one of my few gripes with anarcho-capitalism. If there was a perpetual "frontier" with water and arable land, I think it would work. With land being scarce however, you free yourself from the tyranny of the state, but could end up as a multi-generational slave of the local land baron.
I think some sort of merger between the philosophy of Henry George (see "Progress and Poverty") and the philosophy of anarcho-capitalism would be ideal. George's idea is that land (not property) should be taxed and the rents should be for the good of society. The rents could fund tort and tort-enforcement which is my other gripe with anarcho-capitalism. Free market arbitration is hard to imagine because one party could simply refuse to recognize the authority of the arbitrator. Unfortunately, there must be a universal tort system with sufficient enforcement power. I guess the rent collectors and tort enforcers would resemble the state, but hopefully people could keep a leash on them.
Sounds interesting. I'll do some further reading, but on the surface, I have a hard time seeing what's morally wrong with this. If one company discriminates on the basis of race, doesn't that mean they are filling jobs with less qualified applicants than they could otherwise have and leaving an untapped talent pool for their competitors?
Speaking of Medicare, that program is racist as hell because we all pay into it throughout our working lives, but the average life expectancy of African Americans (esp. men) is significantly lower than that of other races, so they collect fewer benefits. Participation in the program should definitely be optional.
This "racism" crap is similar to the old time witch hunts, or the "red scare". These anti-racist nuts are looking for signs of "racism" in every single nook and cranny. Exactly like the anti-Communist fanatics. Wonder if they go home at night and carefully make sure that there are no holes in their bed sheets before going to sleep?
OMG! I just realized that there's WHITE on the American flag and no black or brown! Racism! Racism! Racism!
It also appears that White is disproportionately represented on these comment boards! Only the fonts are black and the overwhelming amount of space is White!/. is obviously racist.
Give it a F***ing REST!
These advertising companies care about what you see and where you click and don't give a $#!T what color your eyes and fingers are.
I agree that the President has much greater security needs than the average citizen. That's why he has armed professionals guarding him at all times.
The question is, why should those armed professionals be permitted to have weapons which are unavailable to the private citizen? If I am expected to defend myself and my family with a non-banned firearm and a ten round magazine, why can't a group of armed professionals defend the president or other public figure with the same weapons?
More generally, should non-military government personnel have access to weapons that are prohibited to civilians? Why?
I agree with the OP, but I don't hear widespread support for attempting to repeal bans on civilian ownership of nuclear weapons. The majority of gun owners and the NRA are also willing to live with the restrictions imposed by the federal gun control laws of 1934 & 1968. No machine guns, no mail order firearms delivered to the door etc.
That's a HUGE amount of compromise on the Second Amendment, but these anti-gun fanatics want more and more bans. Sorry gun grabbers. We've compromised more than enough.
Most firearms owners are willing to accept the gun control laws of 1934 and 1968. No machine guns, no LAW rockets, no grenades, etc. That leaves us with the semi-automatic AR-15 and AK-47 as the best weaponry generally available for civilian ownership. That's where I draw the line on gun bans. The 1934 and 1968 bans, the NICS and all the state level concealed carry bureaucracy are "reasonable" and "common sense" restrictions. Anything else is a punitive infringement on our civil liberties.
If we allow government to ban AR-15s just because of a few criminals, there is absolutely ZERO guarantee that they will stop at that. A few months or a few years after the ban, some guy will climb up on a tall building and start killing people with his Remington 700. Then, the gun-grabbers will start screaming about "Sniper Rifles"(some military personnel actually DO use these) that are suitable only for the military. Rinse and repeat until we're down to single-shot shotguns and muzzle loaders.
The government is more than happy to arm thousands of federal agents with.223 rifles which can fire in burst or full-auto mode. State and local police are also heavily armed with AR-15 type rifles. THAT is why they should also be available to civilians.
I think the more appropriate car analogy is to suggest banning the manufacture or sale of any vehicles which are capable of exceeding the maximum speed limit of 75 mph (I know it's 80/85 in some places).
Nobody *needs* to go faster than that unless they're a government employee and excessive speed is a factor in many accidents, so let's place restrictions on sports cars.
"... any such system would require a database of every known felon, every person found incompetent mentally..."
Isn't this exactly what the NICS database currently contains?
I believe that the intent of the system is that all felons, domestic abusers, people adjudicated mentally defective, people with restraining orders etc. will be in the database and would fail a background check.
The check is required for any firearm purchase through a licensed dealer. When these people talk about "Universal" background checks, they're trying to make it illegal for an individual to sell a firearm to another individual without running a background check.
Try bringing a crate of ammunition through U.S. customs and give them your theory about how ammunition does not fall under the legal classification of "arms".
"Gun control debate in Three...Two...O.......BLAM!"
+1 Funny.
At least the gun control debate on/. retains some semblance of reasonable discussion. Try some of the other forums. I had to stop reading HuffPo and Politico because of the worthless ranting and raving, stereotyping, name calling, half truths and blatant lies. Twenty minutes over there will make you really appreciate the message boards here.
"making existing background checks more effective by encouraging (not ordering) government entities to share information"
The part that concerns me about that is the possibility that Homeland Security's "terrorism watch list" or TSA "No Fly List" will end up being incorporated into the NICS database. I haven't heard about this specifically in the latest batch of orders, but the government proposed it at least once previously.
The problem is that people can be arbitrarily added to these lists and there is no legal process by which to remove yourself. A law abiding citizen with no history of crime or mental illness could just be added to the list for whatever reason. That's BS. If we're going to prohibit people from purchasing or owning firearms, it should be done only through due process of law, not by some obscure and arbitrary bureaucratic decision making.
"What has happened in the last five years that even approaches the offensive intrusion of the patriot act? "
1. The 2012 NDAA, which authorizes the government to kidnap and indefinitely detain U.S. citizens on U.S. soil without criminal charges, with no right to challenge the evidence against them, with no right to legal counsel and no right to a fair trial.
2. Arbitrary assassination of U.S. citizens without so much as a criminal charge.
Yes, all those 15 million illegals that crossed the Southern border, along with their offspring are hard at work studying and excelling in various STEM disciplines so that they can help build a better USA. "Fields of the future?" I think it's more likely that they're working in the fields right now.
I've got nothing against hard working immigrants. If I was in their shoes, I'd be doing the same thing. I blame the federal government for a deliberately failed immigration policy.
"if done right, they can provide immunity for themselves FIRST"
I don't really believe in AQ, but in general, Islamic terrorists don't have an overwhelming interest in self-preservation when it comes to carrying out their attacks.
I read an article in "Nature" last year about the flu viruses. It's certainly not "trivial" to create a strain of the virus that would allow human to human transmission. "Weaponizing" a virus or bacteria is harder than hell. You can't just put it in an aerosol can or make a missile containing egg whites. If terrorists were going to weaponize a virus, they would infect a few members and have them fly around in commercial aircraft.
Even assuming the insurgents "lost" (Wait and see what happens *if* NATO pulls out) wouldn't you agree that the Afghanistan war serves as a prime example of how a lightly armed insurgency can put up a very effective resistance against a modern military?
You're thinking of a scenario where a lightly armed civilian militia tries to engage a professional military unit in a "head to head" battle. Agreed, the military would win decisively.
By contrast, imagine a scenario where the government decided to conduct mass kidnappings and murder of ethnic or religious minorities, political dissidents or some other sub-set of the population. That's what I think of when I consider a case where arms might someday be necessary to protect the people from the government. In that scenario, the government's tanks, planes, WMDs, etc. are useless. They can't go around destroying entire neighborhoods to take out a few "undesirables". They would need their goons on the ground abducting people from the street or kicking down doors. Armed civilians could put up very effective resistance against such measures.
One of the local news reporters said that it was a "joint exercise".
If they're not training for military operations on U.S. soil, does it mean that the Miami PD is going with them into the next foreign combat zone?
This is about desensitizing the citizens to military operations on U.S. soil. Otherwise, there's NO excuse for failing to inform the public well in advance. They wanted it to be a surprise so that when it happens for real, the public won't know if it's a drill or not.
Slashdot Mirror
"the presumption of nefarious intent"
There is more than enough evidence to demonstrate that our contemporary institutions of government, media, academia, finance, etc. and the unholy alliances thereof have nothing BUT nefarious intent. It's only logical to assume that these people and groups are going to lie, cheat and obfuscate to fulfill their agenda at the expense of the vast majority of the population.
The label "conspiracy theorist" is simply their dismissive label for anyone who dares question the official narrative and a convenient excuse to avoid countering evidence with facts.
The odd thing is that a "conspiracy" is generally some sort of secret plot. Many of the so-called "conspiracy theorists" are simply highlighting evidence which isn't even in dispute.
"power to kill a US citizen abroad who is ACCUSED OF threatening US lives."
FTFY
If the government has evidence to back up this ACCUSATION, it should be presented to a grand jury and they should get an arrest warrant from a judge.
Unless an arrest warrant is issued and criminal charges have been filed, how is a person even supposed to know that they are being accused of criminal activity? Exactly how is the government offering them the chance to give themselves up before the bomb hits?
Excellent comment. The idea of selective prosecution/selective legal immunity is the piece of this puzzle that a lot of people miss, but it goes directly to the issue of justice and the rule of law. One person gets persecuted for leaking documents, others go free after thousands of instances of fraud, forgery and perjury.
By "police forces", I hope you include federal law enforcement as well. They're buying military weapons and ammunition just as fast as the citizens have been.
The willingness of the police to use force against peaceful political protestors is another sign that things look really bad. OWS was just a nuisance. I can only imagine the response if they were perceived as a serious threat.
With all of those abuses in your list, I can't believe anyone would entertain the idea of more anti-gun legislation.
"...high ranking individuals in an organization actively engaged in war measures against the US." ?
The problem with your statement is that you've already drawn a conclusion. In the USA, these sorts of conclusions are only supposed to be made in a court of law.
The issue here is what(if any) EVIDENCE does the government have to demonstrate these people are engaged in any of the activities they are being accused of?
If the government has this evidence, why don't they go before a grand jury, get a criminal indictment and have a judge issue an arrest warrant?
I still don't think the next step should be a death sentence, but come on. At LEAST get an indictment for one or more crimes.
AQ doesn't make their membership list public. The government should have to present EVIDENCE to a grand jury demonstrating that the person is a "rebel" or some sort of threat(involved in a conspiracy to commit murder, arson, whatever.)
P.S. The South was NOT in a "state of rebellion".
A rebellion (or even a civil war) implies that the South wanted to overthrow the government and seize power for themselves. They didn't. They only wanted to exercise their right to withdraw from the republic which they had voluntarily joined.
Nowhere in the Constitution does it authorize the federal government to use military force against a state wishing to withdraw from the union. I can assure you that if such a provision existed, or was even implied, the Constitution never would have been ratified.
I say that YOU are a senior operational leader of al-Qa'ida or an associated force (like WikiLeaks, Anonymous, OWS or some other evil group plotting against Western economic interests).
Want to see the evidence against you? Sorry
Want your lawyer? Sorry
Want a trial before a jury of your peers? Sorry
BOOM!
In our Constitutional Republic it is illegal for the government to murder people simply because of the command of some bureaucrat. What the government "believes" about an accused "terrorist" could easily be based on false or fabricated evidence. That's why the government brings their evidence before a grand jury and IF an indictment is issued, the accused has a right to confront the evidence against them in a court of law.
If the government thinks they have enough evidence to KILL someone, surely they could get a damned indictment!
This is an impeachable offense. Too bad that there isn't a shred of integrity left in Washington DC.
Interesting discussion. The issue of land and natural resources is one of my few gripes with anarcho-capitalism. If there was a perpetual "frontier" with water and arable land, I think it would work. With land being scarce however, you free yourself from the tyranny of the state, but could end up as a multi-generational slave of the local land baron.
I think some sort of merger between the philosophy of Henry George (see "Progress and Poverty") and the philosophy of anarcho-capitalism would be ideal. George's idea is that land (not property) should be taxed and the rents should be for the good of society.
The rents could fund tort and tort-enforcement which is my other gripe with anarcho-capitalism. Free market arbitration is hard to imagine because one party could simply refuse to recognize the authority of the arbitrator. Unfortunately, there must be a universal tort system with sufficient enforcement power. I guess the rent collectors and tort enforcers would resemble the state, but hopefully people could keep a leash on them.
Sounds interesting. I'll do some further reading, but on the surface, I have a hard time seeing what's morally wrong with this. If one company discriminates on the basis of race, doesn't that mean they are filling jobs with less qualified applicants than they could otherwise have and leaving an untapped talent pool for their competitors?
Speaking of Medicare, that program is racist as hell because we all pay into it throughout our working lives, but the average life expectancy of African Americans (esp. men) is significantly lower than that of other races, so they collect fewer benefits. Participation in the program should definitely be optional.
This "racism" crap is similar to the old time witch hunts, or the "red scare". These anti-racist nuts are looking for signs of "racism" in every single nook and cranny. Exactly like the anti-Communist fanatics. Wonder if they go home at night and carefully make sure that there are no holes in their bed sheets before going to sleep?
OMG! I just realized that there's WHITE on the American flag and no black or brown! Racism! Racism! Racism!
It also appears that White is disproportionately represented on these comment boards! Only the fonts are black and the overwhelming amount of space is White! /. is obviously racist.
Give it a F***ing REST!
These advertising companies care about what you see and where you click and don't give a $#!T what color your eyes and fingers are.
Allow me to interject.
I agree that the President has much greater security needs than the average citizen. That's why he has armed professionals guarding him at all times.
The question is, why should those armed professionals be permitted to have weapons which are unavailable to the private citizen? If I am expected to defend myself and my family with a non-banned firearm and a ten round magazine, why can't a group of armed professionals defend the president or other public figure with the same weapons?
More generally, should non-military government personnel have access to weapons that are prohibited to civilians? Why?
"They are not armed with anything this legislation is trying to ban/limit."
No. The weapons they have were banned in 1934.
I agree with the OP, but I don't hear widespread support for attempting to repeal bans on civilian ownership of nuclear weapons. The majority of gun owners and the NRA are also willing to live with the restrictions imposed by the federal gun control laws of 1934 & 1968. No machine guns, no mail order firearms delivered to the door etc.
That's a HUGE amount of compromise on the Second Amendment, but these anti-gun fanatics want more and more bans. Sorry gun grabbers. We've compromised more than enough.
Most firearms owners are willing to accept the gun control laws of 1934 and 1968. No machine guns, no LAW rockets, no grenades, etc. That leaves us with the semi-automatic AR-15 and AK-47 as the best weaponry generally available for civilian ownership. That's where I draw the line on gun bans. The 1934 and 1968 bans, the NICS and all the state level concealed carry bureaucracy are "reasonable" and "common sense" restrictions. Anything else is a punitive infringement on our civil liberties.
If we allow government to ban AR-15s just because of a few criminals, there is absolutely ZERO guarantee that they will stop at that. A few months or a few years after the ban, some guy will climb up on a tall building and start killing people with his Remington 700. Then, the gun-grabbers will start screaming about "Sniper Rifles"(some military personnel actually DO use these) that are suitable only for the military. Rinse and repeat until we're down to single-shot shotguns and muzzle loaders.
The government is more than happy to arm thousands of federal agents with .223 rifles which can fire in burst or full-auto mode. State and local police are also heavily armed with AR-15 type rifles. THAT is why they should also be available to civilians.
I think the more appropriate car analogy is to suggest banning the manufacture or sale of any vehicles which are capable of exceeding the maximum speed limit of 75 mph (I know it's 80/85 in some places).
Nobody *needs* to go faster than that unless they're a government employee and excessive speed is a factor in many accidents, so let's place restrictions on sports cars.
"... any such system would require a database of every known felon, every person found incompetent mentally ..."
Isn't this exactly what the NICS database currently contains?
I believe that the intent of the system is that all felons, domestic abusers, people adjudicated mentally defective, people with restraining orders etc. will be in the database and would fail a background check.
The check is required for any firearm purchase through a licensed dealer. When these people talk about "Universal" background checks, they're trying to make it illegal for an individual to sell a firearm to another individual without running a background check.
Try bringing a crate of ammunition through U.S. customs and give them your theory about how ammunition does not fall under the legal classification of "arms".
"Gun control debate in Three...Two...O.......BLAM!"
+1 Funny.
At least the gun control debate on /. retains some semblance of reasonable discussion. Try some of the other forums. I had to stop reading HuffPo and Politico because of the worthless ranting and raving, stereotyping, name calling, half truths and blatant lies. Twenty minutes over there will make you really appreciate the message boards here.
"As President it's not his job to GIVE UP POWER."?
It's his JOB to do what's best for the nation, not what's best for himself or the government.
He has this power called a VETO. He could have sent the Patriot Act and NDAA right back to Congress with a much tougher hurdle for passage.
"making existing background checks more effective by encouraging (not ordering) government entities to share information"
The part that concerns me about that is the possibility that Homeland Security's "terrorism watch list" or TSA "No Fly List" will end up being incorporated into the NICS database. I haven't heard about this specifically in the latest batch of orders, but the government proposed it at least once previously.
The problem is that people can be arbitrarily added to these lists and there is no legal process by which to remove yourself. A law abiding citizen with no history of crime or mental illness could just be added to the list for whatever reason. That's BS. If we're going to prohibit people from purchasing or owning firearms, it should be done only through due process of law, not by some obscure and arbitrary bureaucratic decision making.
"What has happened in the last five years that even approaches the offensive intrusion of the patriot act? "
1. The 2012 NDAA, which authorizes the government to kidnap and indefinitely detain U.S. citizens on U.S. soil without criminal charges, with no right to challenge the evidence against them, with no right to legal counsel and no right to a fair trial.
2. Arbitrary assassination of U.S. citizens without so much as a criminal charge.
3. Re-authorization of the Patriot Act.
Yes, all those 15 million illegals that crossed the Southern border, along with their offspring are hard at work studying and excelling in various STEM disciplines so that they can help build a better USA. "Fields of the future?" I think it's more likely that they're working in the fields right now.
I've got nothing against hard working immigrants. If I was in their shoes, I'd be doing the same thing. I blame the federal government for a deliberately failed immigration policy.
"if done right, they can provide immunity for themselves FIRST"
I don't really believe in AQ, but in general, Islamic terrorists don't have an overwhelming interest in self-preservation when it comes to carrying out their attacks.
I read an article in "Nature" last year about the flu viruses. It's certainly not "trivial" to create a strain of the virus that would allow human to human transmission. "Weaponizing" a virus or bacteria is harder than hell. You can't just put it in an aerosol can or make a missile containing egg whites. If terrorists were going to weaponize a virus, they would infect a few members and have them fly around in commercial aircraft.
Even assuming the insurgents "lost" (Wait and see what happens *if* NATO pulls out) wouldn't you agree that the Afghanistan war serves as a prime example of how a lightly armed insurgency can put up a very effective resistance against a modern military?
You're thinking of a scenario where a lightly armed civilian militia tries to engage a professional military unit in a "head to head" battle. Agreed, the military would win decisively.
By contrast, imagine a scenario where the government decided to conduct mass kidnappings and murder of ethnic or religious minorities, political dissidents or some other sub-set of the population. That's what I think of when I consider a case where arms might someday be necessary to protect the people from the government. In that scenario, the government's tanks, planes, WMDs, etc. are useless. They can't go around destroying entire neighborhoods to take out a few "undesirables". They would need their goons on the ground abducting people from the street or kicking down doors. Armed civilians could put up very effective resistance against such measures.
One of the local news reporters said that it was a "joint exercise".
If they're not training for military operations on U.S. soil, does it mean that the Miami PD is going with them into the next foreign combat zone?
This is about desensitizing the citizens to military operations on U.S. soil. Otherwise, there's NO excuse for failing to inform the public well in advance. They wanted it to be a surprise so that when it happens for real, the public won't know if it's a drill or not.