You act like every cop in the world needs to be monitored so they don't do bad things. How often do you actually hear about a police officer in America doing something wrong on national tv? Very rarely, even locally I barely ever hear about that. So yeah, there a couple bad cops, but what about the other 934,976 cops that never get in trouble or do bad stuff?
Considering locations where they've equipped their cops with body cameras have seen as much as an 88% drop in excessive use of force complaints you might want to rethink those numbers. And in that case only half the officers were wearing the cameras.
"Wrong" is a relative term. I'm betting a great many cops do "wrong" things all the time and it doesn't get reported on the news. When the actions are being recorded all parties involved are much more likely to keep things civil. It means cops have to actually do what they're supposed to in de-escalating confrontations rather than instigating them.
I don't know about you but half a BILLION dollars is a hoard of cash to me. And that's just one of the guys that made all that money disappear. Sure they made our money disappear for the most part but in doing so they made sure they they walked away with huge hoards of cash.
It's kinda funny. The Reagan administration prosecuted some 1100 bank officials in the Savings and loan meltdown. The Obama administration has prosecuted 0 in significantly worse crisis.
but traditional monetary instruments are regulated to try and stop shit like what happened in 2008 (in no small part because of the repeal of many regulations).
Man did you ever drink the kool-aid. What happened in 2008 was caused by wholesale looting and fraud that makes Enron look like a street corner game of three card monte. It makes no difference what or how many regulations there are if the regulators are in bed with the regulatees. If the regulators cause trouble they won't get their cushy 7 figure jobs with the companies they're supposed to be regulating after suffering through their 2 years of government service.
If you were to compare the speed at which you could take one of those colorful CRT iMacs out of the box and be on the internet compared with unboxing a PC and connecting to the internet, the iMac would win by hours.
So what you're telling me is the type of people who would buy a Mac would take hours to figure out how to plug in the monitor? Other than that you have to plug both into your router to get on the internet.
Tells much more about the type of people who buy Macs than anything else.
With each generation the prior generation of technology often looks ad hoc or patched together.
Apparently you've experienced a multi-billion dollar company tracking a critical financially function in a 40 tab Excel spread sheet. Today. This generation.
it would be a simple matter to show that in a court of law.
Yeah, except every time someone tries the government simple claims "National Security" therefore the court case has to be dismissed. If you were actually paying attention you'd be aware of the numerous times this has happened.
I'm sure you missed the news that these laws were written and passed by the House and Senate, funded by same, and just recently re-affirmed in the House.
Well to start with lying under oath and lying to congress. But we'll set those aside for now and go with what I'm guessing is your intended premise that the NSA spying isn't violating any laws.
The law says they can't target any US citizens in their data collection and monitoring. They're not targeting US citizens. They're collecting everyone's data therefore they're not "targeting" US citizens.
The law says data collected has to be relevant to an active investigation. The fact that you called Fred Fickle yesterday could be relevant to an investigation of a bombing that occurs tomorrow. Therefore every piece of data that exists in the world may be "relevant to an active investigation".
The law says they can't collect data on US citizens without a very specific court approved (non-FISA court) warrant. But collecting the data isn't "collecting" the data until they actually look at the data. The fact that they have collected and stored the data isn't "collected". Actually looking at the data means it was "collected".
Having someone under surveillance doesn't include monitoring everyone you communicate with or where you are. That doesn't count as having someone under "surveillance".
I could come up with more but these are enough to prove my point. Redefining words to mean whatever you want them to mean so you can do whatever you want to do is called ruling by fiat. It's not rule of law.
This is the equivalent of me having shot someone and then claiming as my defense that I didn't shoot them. Pulling the trigger on a gun isn't illegal. That they happened to be standing in the path of the bullet isn't relevant to my action of pulling the trigger.
Perhaps you hold up Russia as a shining light of transparency, liberty, and justice?
It is indeed a sad day when a US citizen who exposes abuse of authority and malfeasance in the US government has to resort to that.
Read them in detail? Never, but there's plenty of civil rights and public awareness groups full of competent legal minds that analyze bills in light of various considerations
Those types of groups do exist. The problem is finding the ones that that interpret objectively rather than based on there biases. And even when you do find one it tends to be narrowly focused on a specific area. Both of those mean you have to find a number of different sources within each area and read the different interpretations. Given the volume and complexity of the legislative process it becomes a full time job just trying to keep up. For those of average or below intelligence that's pretty much an impossible task. The're stuck with the complete BS spewed forth by the main stream media who, mind you, have a big stake in the continuation of the status quo.
I completely agree that the system is broken and the interests of the people are largely ignored, but really there are only three options:
1- Do nothing due to apathy or disillusionment and let the Fat Cats have their way with you
2- Try to work within the system to direct it in a more productive direction
3- Attempt to foment a rebellion.
Doing nothing isn't an option in my mind. The problem is figuring out what to do. That is the difficult part.
I'd argue revolution doesn't require rebellion. Nor does it have to involve violence. I do believe the current system is broke beyond repair and nothing short of revolution is going to fix it. Realize there has already been one peaceful revolution that rewrote the constitution under which this country was governed. We just need to figure out how to do that again.
Now if you are advocating (1) then we have nothing more to say to each other, you're as much a traitor to your nation as the people actively undermining its ideals. And if you can't pull off the public support to get people off their asses and into the voting line for a few hours every couple years, what makes you think you can get them to go to war? As for the lack of an anticorruption party - so start one yourself. We could use a good, tightly-focused single-issue party on that front. Do all the vote trading they need to on other fronts in order to bring the government under the people's control, or maybe try some of that direct democracy stuff. Whatever. We can go back and fix any incidental policy damage after we have a voice in the process.
I believe people don't vote not because they're lazy and disinterested but because they recognize voting isn't going to change anything. No mater who you vote for you get the same crap. I think if there was a way that might seem to improve things they would participate with the sad caveat that such participation couldn't be too disrupted of there normal lives. I think a big part of the problem with revolutions is that once the people initiate changing the old system they tend to go back to their lives and a small typically non-representative group ends up setting up the next system. Somehow the American revolutions was a rare exception to this.
I don't think a new party is going to do the trick. If think the US Constitution has aged and technology has advanced to the point where there is too much room for interpretation and under the current system that interpretation is being influenced way too much by money rather than the interests of the people. I don't think a new party in the current system will do any good. I think any party would end up getting corrupted by the system before it could have enough influence to change the system. Given current technology I think direct democracy could really work. The security aspect would be a bitch but is much easier with the advent of open source software and open systems. The big question is how to bring it about.
How do we get from the current system to your desired utopia without a violent civil war? And who gets to decide what the rules will be in your end game?
I never expressed any prophetic vision of the "utopia" we need. I certainly don't have all the answers to either of those questions. If I claimed to I would be as crazy as AK Mark says I am. I personally do believe some form of democracy or republic is the best solution. I don't believe we have either of those in the current system.
Give a realistic road map from here to there, and a destination that most people can agree on, and it just might work.
If you hear about one make sure you let me know. I'll do the same for you and we can both jump on. One would hope enough of the democratic roots of this country still exist that change can be brought about without violent revolution. Although the rate of militarization of the police forces starts to make one wonder. There was good reason the US constitution required dual branch control of the military and for the Posse Comitatus Act. But both of those have been essentially obviated in the last 20 years. The massive militarization of the civilian police force has pretty much made it indistinguishable from any reasonable definition of a military force. And the vague controlling powers that have a stake in the current system aren't likely to give up that power easily.
Otherwise, it's just "dorm-room bull session fodder", as was observed earlier.
Never been in a dorm room. I worked my way through college. But I always figure the focus of the conversations there would tend more towards alcohol and getting laid same as they were in the barracks.
Revolutions have to start somewhere. I'd much rather see it start with some healthy discussions about how to best to bring it about rather than running out and shooting people. The second kind tend to end up like Russia in the early 20th century.
It's highly unlikely any one person is going to come up with an answer. Especially one that works well for most people. I'm almost certain any solution is going to have parts I don't like or don't agree with. I can live with that as long as the system is functional and actually works reasonable well. It's kind of an implausible source but I loved an idea tossed out by Heinlein in "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress". Have one legislative branch that creates laws and a second who's only purpose is to repeal laws. It takes a 2/3 majority to pass a law and 1/3 to repeal one.
There's a lot of hate out there for the 2 party system, but it's going to take a combination of funding and grass-roots anger to pull off what you want. Right now the grass-roots anger only expresses itself at the extreme liberal (Occupy ***) and conservative (Tea Party) ends of the spectrum. The establishment will just keep on with business as usual until the center revolts from both parties. And they pander just enough to the center spectrum to avoid triggering major unrest.
Hmmm..the way I see it and even more to the point they're using the divide and conquer strategy by having the 2 sides focus on highly emotional hot button issues to keep the 2 sides fighting each other rather than focusing on the fundamental problems with the system. Along with this they have the external boogie man (e.g. terrorism) and "for the children" (e.g. child porn) to allow them to sneak in ever more oppressive rules that facility ever greater levels of suppression of any sort of dissent. School based indoctrination plays a big part in that. The US is the bastion of democracy saving the people of the world from oppression and suffering for over 200 years. That combined with the bombardment of propaganda from the main stream media (CNN and Fox News both), how do you break that indoctrination? Somehow people have to be shaken out of that and into seeing just how broken the system is.
Please re-read AK Marc's post, but realize he conjoined "Republican" and "Democrat" to make the term "Republicrat", referring to the two 'opposing parties' as one entity. In other words, if every one disgusted with the system voted for someone other than a Republican or Democrat, the system would change.
Actually you're right. I interpreted it as a typo for some reason.
Doesn't change my premise though. Voting in a third party isn't going to change the fact that there are so many laws in this country that the US government can't even say for sure how many there are much less what they all are. Our own congressional members can't figure out the tax laws and they're the ones who put it in place. How on earth is the average Joe Blow supposed to know whether voting for or against a particular tax law is good or bad? For a vote to mean anything it has to based on reasoning from a factual base. If in the current system that is impossible for someone who does it full time for a living it is certainly impossible for the average person of average intelligence with little free time to participate. That makes the elections about as legitimate as the ones in North Korea. They're based on the lies and propaganda put forth by the powers that be.
Yes. Passivity is often considered support. All it takes for evil to triumph is for lazy loonitarians to do nothing.
Why on earth is not voting automatically passivity? If I was passive I wouldn't waste my time trying make people like you recognize voting is doing nothing to fix the broken system.
even if your brand of mental illness
You realize one definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different result. So how's that voting working out for ya? Done a lot to fix the system has it? Just keep on voting though. It's sure to work one of these times.
Why? The election would be won by the 1% that did show up, and would be decalred valid.
And would be about as valid as the elections in North Korea are. You do realize they've had elections in pretty much every totalitarian state that existed in modern times. They all had really high voter turnout too. Voting isn't some form of magic that allows you to control the government. In the current system in the US who gets elected has little or no influence on how the system is run or who controls it. Voting when it has nothing to do with how the system is run and who controls it is supporting the system and the people who control it. Not voting is a form of dissent. It's a pretty mild one in this country and time but it is still a form of dissent. In some places, like North Korea, it can get you killed. It certainly isn't a form of support for the system. That's just an absurd conjecture.
You are actively supporting the system by actively stepping aside and letting others make the choice.
That has got to be amongst the most twisted logic I've ever seen. By not participating in a broken system I'm supporting it.
If everyone disgusted with the system voted nest vote for anyone other than a Republicrat, then the system would change in a few months. If everyone disgusted with the system stayed home, the system would *never* change. That's sufficient proof that your method is broken.
So you making an unsupported conjecture is proof? I think you need to be in politics. You'd fit right in with the rest of them. So you're conjecture is that if everyone vote Democrat somehow the politicians would no longer be motivated to pass the laws wanted by the money interests that are paying them? if everyone voted Democrat suddenly they'd stop passing the same unfathomable laws that no one, including themselves, can really understand? Is you're conjecture that if everyone voted Democrat somehow they would stop reinterpreting and redefining the laws that are passed? Is you're conjecture that if everyone voted Democrat they'd magically stop lying and secretly doing things that seem to clearly violate any reasonable interpretation of US constitution? Sure I'll buy that. Makes perfect sense. Wow.
If no one voted for anyone somehow I'm thinking the system would change. And pretty damn quickly.
Participating in the current system does nothing to change the fundamental flaws in that system. If they start trying to fix the system I'll be right up front trying to help them. I will not help them prop up the current broken system.
But it's not. Do your own research - by the time someone is running for a federal office they probably have a long track record in politics - so look at the historical record to see what they've actually *done* in the past, not to the media circus, campaign promises, and PR spin they generate.
Answer me one question. How many times have you actually read through in detail and thoroughly understood a bill a politician voted on? Without doing that you are relying on "the media circus, campaign promises, and PR spin they generate." They lie what is in and/or don't even understand the bills they vote for themselves. After they pass a bill it is reinterpreted or words are redefined, like "targeting", often secretly, so the bill has a completely different meaning than it did when it passed. Who on this planet has the time to read through every friggin law congress passes. This US government page states "At the reference desk, we are frequently asked to estimate the number of federal laws in force. However, trying to tally this number is nearly impossible." If the friggin government can't even figure out how many laws there are who on this planet can possible comprehend what those laws are.
The system is broken. Voting doesn't help fix the broken system. With the current system it's impossible to make an informed vote.
I commented previously on looking at a candidates actual history rather than listening to their campaign circus, so I won't belabor the point.
How does looking at voting history do any good? First, who has time to really read the details of the stuff they're voting on? Second, who can really understand what you're reading even if you take the time to read it? Third, even if you do think you understand a law, as soon as it's passed they're going to misinterpreted, reinterpreted, secretly interpreted or it's just plain intentionally worded ambiguously to allow it to mean whatever the powers that be want it to mean.
Have you read the laws under which the NSA surveillance is being justified? To a normal English language speaker it doesn't seem to come near to allowing anything like what they're doing. But redefine a few words like "targeting" and get a rubber stamp court to approve the new definitions and suddenly that law allows wholesale monitoring of everyone in the US.
But if I had read congressional voting records I would have been aware of all this. Yeah right.
But we're already down around 40-50% voter turnout on a regular basis - how would it send any stronger a message if 90% of the population didn't care enough to vote than if "only" 60% didn't? Either way most of the population is sending a message of implied approval for "whoever wins".
No, they're not sending a message of implied approval for whoever wins. I'd say that's a simpleminded interpretation based on the propaganda you've been fed since childhood. Vote or it's your fault whatever the elected idiot does. No, it's pretty clear to me people aren't voting because they know it doesn't make a damn bit of difference who they vote for. Who ever gets elected is going to do what the people who pay them tell them to do. The one that's elected is the one who puts out the best lies and propaganda and good lies and propaganda costs lots of money.
Certainly voting for one of the two the provided candidates won't do much, but there's often lots of other candidates on the ballot who aren't deeply entrenched in the existing power blocks - vote for one of them, or write someone in, and you actually send the message that you do care, but reject the options being spoon-fed to you.
Heck, the majority of the population doesn't vote. Think about that for a moment - most elections tend to be quite close, so if just half the people who don't vote came out and voted a straight "anti-corruption party" ticket in one election they would take the government by storm, even if all the regular voters still voted D or R.
I don't know how else I can say this that would help people like you understand. The problem isn't who gets elected. The problem is the system is broken. It's not functioning correctly. There is no "anti-corruption party". I really don't think there can be under the current system. There may be candidates who claim to claim to be "anti-corruption party" but that's almost never the case and there is no way to tell the ones who are lying from the sincere ones. And almost always even the sincere ones end up being corrupted by the system. How can you intelligently vote for someone when there's no way you can understand what they are going to vote for or have voted for. Moreover how can you vote for someone when they are going to lie about what they are going to vote for or have voted for.
The point is, if you don't show up, your "vote" will be read as apathy and passive consent.
No, the point is by showing up and voting you're providing active consent and support for a system that I believe is no longer working. I'd rather have some delusional simpleton misinterpret my actions than perform actions that actively show support for their delusions.
You do realize, the Soviet Union had and China, Cuba and North Korea all have elections. And voter turnout is higher than it is in the US (100% in North Korea). There are reasons for having elections where governments rule by fiat. Voting isn't some magic power. Not voting in a system where voting doesn't really effect the system is a form of dissent. Voting is showing support for the system.
Politicians want to get elected and stay in office. To do that they need votes. They go through a great deal of trouble to encourage some people to vote for them, others not to vote, and to prevent some from voting at all. Each candidate and party does this in different proportions.
So you apparently vote for the politician that tells you the lies you want to hear. And then he runs the government exactly how the people who pay him tells him to. Explain how voting accomplishes anything in a government like that.
Yeah, I don't have much respect for people who don't vote. If you don't like the choices, write a better one in. If enough people did this, it would be noticed and it would make a difference. Because at the present time, not voting is also choosing the status quo.
If only 10% of the people were voting it'd be a much more visible statement than writing in some random person or my dog. Why perpetuate a clearly broken system? The current system doesn't work. Voting in the current broken system isn't going to change that. (Car analogy) If my car doesn't have an engine going out every morning trying to start it isn't going to isn't going to help. Voting in the current system doesn't help change anything.
However the latter is never true when it comes to voting - if you haven't prepared for voting on voting day, by researching the available candidates as best you can, then you have failed to discharge your responsibilities as a citizen.
If the information needed to make an informed decision is withheld from me I can't prepare nor can I make an informed decision. Again I reiterate, making a decision based on known bad information is stupidity. It's willfully blindly following the status quo. It's also radically different than making a decision based on incomplete or suspect information. Present me with a candidate with some credibility and maybe I'll vote for them. Hell, at this point I may even vote for them based on that alone even if I disagree with what they support. Obama preached for government openness and transparency when we was running for election. He pledged to increase protection for whistle blowers who exposed government malfeasance. Like a perfect example of Orwell's Double Speak all those pledges have disappeared from where he had them published.
I posit that the above quoted statement proves my point. A good citizen votes for someone. Even if all the choices are all pretty much equally bad. That's buying into the propaganda.
A hereditary monarchy is better than a democracy based on lies and propaganda. At least then you have a chance of getting a good government.
Hitler was initially voted into power. That's how things can turn out when you vote based on misinformation and propaganda. Sadly it's really starting to look like the US may be heading down that same road.
Money only buys votes with an uneducated electorate.
You have no concept of history. Money buys lies and propaganda. The amounts of money involved here buys VERY good lies and propaganda. It also buys the ability to suppress the truth. Modern technology greatly increases the effectiveness of propaganda. The only "education" the masses are receiving is the lies and propaganda. For some reason people like you seem to think the US population should have some sort of superpower that allows them to see through the lies and propaganda. It doesn't work that way. Calling them stupid sheep is the red herring here.
People like Snowden sacrificing their living and risking their lives to bring these lies and propaganda to light for the masses is exceptional. Without such sacrifices the only information people have is the lies and propaganda. Exposing the lies and propaganda, providing the people with the knowledge they need to make wise, informed voting decisions is required for change. Expecting them to somehow magically see through the lies and propaganda one day is believing of fairly tales.
This is the legalese "a chance", the same legalese that can make tapping someone on the shoulder 'assault'. It doesn't need to be a realistic prospect or even slightly likely, there just needs to be a faint glimmer of a hint of a chance that he may face torture.
You're missing his point. The truly sad thing is, it is far more than "a faint glimmer of a hint of a chance that he may face torture" as recent history has demonstrated.
It's to prevent a technicality often used to block extraditions.
Not sending people off someplace where they are going to be tortured and killed is using a technicality to avoid extraditing them? Damn, you must have one twisted sense of morality. Seems to me that's the right thing to do.
And if you're trying to saying the US doesn't torture and kill people for "crimes" such as Snowden's you need to read about a poor guy named Bradley Manning. His treatment, for years mind you, prior to any trial crossed the line to torture by most civilized definitions. And he's on trial for capital crimes.
And if you didn't vote because "all politicians are corrupt", you're as much a part of the problem as anyone else.
Every time I see the above statement my blood boils. Making an informed decision requires actually being informed. Making a decision based on what you know are lies and misinformation is stupidity. This is especially the case when that decision involves who is going to control the most powerful government this planet has ever experienced.
That statement is the epitome of stupidity and is one of the essential drivers of the status quo.
They shouldn't be fining themselves, they should be jailing the person responsible for handing them to the "unnamed contractor"
They should be firing the idiots that aren't encrypting their drives.
I'm amazed no one is addressing the obvious. The simple solution is encrypted drives. Encryption eliminates this issue along with protecting against a whole host of other problems.
Slashdot Mirror
You act like every cop in the world needs to be monitored so they don't do bad things. How often do you actually hear about a police officer in America doing something wrong on national tv? Very rarely, even locally I barely ever hear about that. So yeah, there a couple bad cops, but what about the other 934,976 cops that never get in trouble or do bad stuff?
Considering locations where they've equipped their cops with body cameras have seen as much as an 88% drop in excessive use of force complaints you might want to rethink those numbers. And in that case only half the officers were wearing the cameras.
"Wrong" is a relative term. I'm betting a great many cops do "wrong" things all the time and it doesn't get reported on the news. When the actions are being recorded all parties involved are much more likely to keep things civil. It means cops have to actually do what they're supposed to in de-escalating confrontations rather than instigating them.
There is no evil hoard of bankers sitting atop a mountain of cash
To put it succinctly, bull shit.
I don't know about you but half a BILLION dollars is a hoard of cash to me. And that's just one of the guys that made all that money disappear. Sure they made our money disappear for the most part but in doing so they made sure they they walked away with huge hoards of cash.
It's kinda funny. The Reagan administration prosecuted some 1100 bank officials in the Savings and loan meltdown. The Obama administration has prosecuted 0 in significantly worse crisis.
but traditional monetary instruments are regulated to try and stop shit like what happened in 2008 (in no small part because of the repeal of many regulations).
Man did you ever drink the kool-aid. What happened in 2008 was caused by wholesale looting and fraud that makes Enron look like a street corner game of three card monte. It makes no difference what or how many regulations there are if the regulators are in bed with the regulatees. If the regulators cause trouble they won't get their cushy 7 figure jobs with the companies they're supposed to be regulating after suffering through their 2 years of government service.
If you were to compare the speed at which you could take one of those colorful CRT iMacs out of the box and be on the internet compared with unboxing a PC and connecting to the internet, the iMac would win by hours.
So what you're telling me is the type of people who would buy a Mac would take hours to figure out how to plug in the monitor? Other than that you have to plug both into your router to get on the internet.
Tells much more about the type of people who buy Macs than anything else.
With each generation the prior generation of technology often looks ad hoc or patched together.
Apparently you've experienced a multi-billion dollar company tracking a critical financially function in a 40 tab Excel spread sheet. Today. This generation.
it would be a simple matter to show that in a court of law.
Yeah, except every time someone tries the government simple claims "National Security" therefore the court case has to be dismissed. If you were actually paying attention you'd be aware of the numerous times this has happened.
I'm sure you missed the news that these laws were written and passed by the House and Senate, funded by same, and just recently re-affirmed in the House.
Well to start with lying under oath and lying to congress. But we'll set those aside for now and go with what I'm guessing is your intended premise that the NSA spying isn't violating any laws.
The law says they can't target any US citizens in their data collection and monitoring. They're not targeting US citizens. They're collecting everyone's data therefore they're not "targeting" US citizens.
The law says data collected has to be relevant to an active investigation . The fact that you called Fred Fickle yesterday could be relevant to an investigation of a bombing that occurs tomorrow. Therefore every piece of data that exists in the world may be "relevant to an active investigation".
The law says they can't collect data on US citizens without a very specific court approved (non-FISA court) warrant. But collecting the data isn't "collecting" the data until they actually look at the data. The fact that they have collected and stored the data isn't "collected". Actually looking at the data means it was "collected".
Having someone under surveillance doesn't include monitoring everyone you communicate with or where you are. That doesn't count as having someone under "surveillance".
I could come up with more but these are enough to prove my point. Redefining words to mean whatever you want them to mean so you can do whatever you want to do is called ruling by fiat. It's not rule of law.
This is the equivalent of me having shot someone and then claiming as my defense that I didn't shoot them. Pulling the trigger on a gun isn't illegal. That they happened to be standing in the path of the bullet isn't relevant to my action of pulling the trigger.
Perhaps you hold up Russia as a shining light of transparency, liberty, and justice?
It is indeed a sad day when a US citizen who exposes abuse of authority and malfeasance in the US government has to resort to that.
Seems resolved to me. What remains to be sorted out:
You forgot the arrest and trials for all those who lied under oath and lied to congress.
Read them in detail? Never, but there's plenty of civil rights and public awareness groups full of competent legal minds that analyze bills in light of various considerations
Those types of groups do exist. The problem is finding the ones that that interpret objectively rather than based on there biases. And even when you do find one it tends to be narrowly focused on a specific area. Both of those mean you have to find a number of different sources within each area and read the different interpretations. Given the volume and complexity of the legislative process it becomes a full time job just trying to keep up. For those of average or below intelligence that's pretty much an impossible task. The're stuck with the complete BS spewed forth by the main stream media who, mind you, have a big stake in the continuation of the status quo.
I completely agree that the system is broken and the interests of the people are largely ignored, but really there are only three options:
1- Do nothing due to apathy or disillusionment and let the Fat Cats have their way with you
2- Try to work within the system to direct it in a more productive direction
3- Attempt to foment a rebellion.
Doing nothing isn't an option in my mind. The problem is figuring out what to do. That is the difficult part.
I'd argue revolution doesn't require rebellion. Nor does it have to involve violence. I do believe the current system is broke beyond repair and nothing short of revolution is going to fix it. Realize there has already been one peaceful revolution that rewrote the constitution under which this country was governed. We just need to figure out how to do that again.
Now if you are advocating (1) then we have nothing more to say to each other, you're as much a traitor to your nation as the people actively undermining its ideals. And if you can't pull off the public support to get people off their asses and into the voting line for a few hours every couple years, what makes you think you can get them to go to war? As for the lack of an anticorruption party - so start one yourself. We could use a good, tightly-focused single-issue party on that front. Do all the vote trading they need to on other fronts in order to bring the government under the people's control, or maybe try some of that direct democracy stuff. Whatever. We can go back and fix any incidental policy damage after we have a voice in the process.
I believe people don't vote not because they're lazy and disinterested but because they recognize voting isn't going to change anything. No mater who you vote for you get the same crap. I think if there was a way that might seem to improve things they would participate with the sad caveat that such participation couldn't be too disrupted of there normal lives. I think a big part of the problem with revolutions is that once the people initiate changing the old system they tend to go back to their lives and a small typically non-representative group ends up setting up the next system. Somehow the American revolutions was a rare exception to this.
I don't think a new party is going to do the trick. If think the US Constitution has aged and technology has advanced to the point where there is too much room for interpretation and under the current system that interpretation is being influenced way too much by money rather than the interests of the people. I don't think a new party in the current system will do any good. I think any party would end up getting corrupted by the system before it could have enough influence to change the system. Given current technology I think direct democracy could really work. The security aspect would be a bitch but is much easier with the advent of open source software and open systems. The big question is how to bring it about.
How do we get from the current system to your desired utopia without a violent civil war? And who gets to decide what the rules will be in your end game?
I never expressed any prophetic vision of the "utopia" we need. I certainly don't have all the answers to either of those questions. If I claimed to I would be as crazy as AK Mark says I am. I personally do believe some form of democracy or republic is the best solution. I don't believe we have either of those in the current system.
Give a realistic road map from here to there, and a destination that most people can agree on, and it just might work.
If you hear about one make sure you let me know. I'll do the same for you and we can both jump on. One would hope enough of the democratic roots of this country still exist that change can be brought about without violent revolution. Although the rate of militarization of the police forces starts to make one wonder. There was good reason the US constitution required dual branch control of the military and for the Posse Comitatus Act. But both of those have been essentially obviated in the last 20 years. The massive militarization of the civilian police force has pretty much made it indistinguishable from any reasonable definition of a military force. And the vague controlling powers that have a stake in the current system aren't likely to give up that power easily.
Otherwise, it's just "dorm-room bull session fodder", as was observed earlier.
Never been in a dorm room. I worked my way through college. But I always figure the focus of the conversations there would tend more towards alcohol and getting laid same as they were in the barracks.
Revolutions have to start somewhere. I'd much rather see it start with some healthy discussions about how to best to bring it about rather than running out and shooting people. The second kind tend to end up like Russia in the early 20th century.
It's highly unlikely any one person is going to come up with an answer. Especially one that works well for most people. I'm almost certain any solution is going to have parts I don't like or don't agree with. I can live with that as long as the system is functional and actually works reasonable well. It's kind of an implausible source but I loved an idea tossed out by Heinlein in "The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress". Have one legislative branch that creates laws and a second who's only purpose is to repeal laws. It takes a 2/3 majority to pass a law and 1/3 to repeal one.
There's a lot of hate out there for the 2 party system, but it's going to take a combination of funding and grass-roots anger to pull off what you want. Right now the grass-roots anger only expresses itself at the extreme liberal (Occupy ***) and conservative (Tea Party) ends of the spectrum. The establishment will just keep on with business as usual until the center revolts from both parties. And they pander just enough to the center spectrum to avoid triggering major unrest.
Hmmm..the way I see it and even more to the point they're using the divide and conquer strategy by having the 2 sides focus on highly emotional hot button issues to keep the 2 sides fighting each other rather than focusing on the fundamental problems with the system. Along with this they have the external boogie man (e.g. terrorism) and "for the children" (e.g. child porn) to allow them to sneak in ever more oppressive rules that facility ever greater levels of suppression of any sort of dissent. School based indoctrination plays a big part in that. The US is the bastion of democracy saving the people of the world from oppression and suffering for over 200 years. That combined with the bombardment of propaganda from the main stream media (CNN and Fox News both), how do you break that indoctrination? Somehow people have to be shaken out of that and into seeing just how broken the system is.
Please re-read AK Marc's post, but realize he conjoined "Republican" and "Democrat" to make the term "Republicrat", referring to the two 'opposing parties' as one entity. In other words, if every one disgusted with the system voted for someone other than a Republican or Democrat, the system would change.
Actually you're right. I interpreted it as a typo for some reason.
Doesn't change my premise though. Voting in a third party isn't going to change the fact that there are so many laws in this country that the US government can't even say for sure how many there are much less what they all are. Our own congressional members can't figure out the tax laws and they're the ones who put it in place. How on earth is the average Joe Blow supposed to know whether voting for or against a particular tax law is good or bad? For a vote to mean anything it has to based on reasoning from a factual base. If in the current system that is impossible for someone who does it full time for a living it is certainly impossible for the average person of average intelligence with little free time to participate. That makes the elections about as legitimate as the ones in North Korea. They're based on the lies and propaganda put forth by the powers that be.
Yes. Passivity is often considered support. All it takes for evil to triumph is for lazy loonitarians to do nothing.
Why on earth is not voting automatically passivity? If I was passive I wouldn't waste my time trying make people like you recognize voting is doing nothing to fix the broken system.
even if your brand of mental illness
You realize one definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different result. So how's that voting working out for ya? Done a lot to fix the system has it? Just keep on voting though. It's sure to work one of these times.
Why? The election would be won by the 1% that did show up, and would be decalred valid.
And would be about as valid as the elections in North Korea are. You do realize they've had elections in pretty much every totalitarian state that existed in modern times. They all had really high voter turnout too. Voting isn't some form of magic that allows you to control the government. In the current system in the US who gets elected has little or no influence on how the system is run or who controls it. Voting when it has nothing to do with how the system is run and who controls it is supporting the system and the people who control it. Not voting is a form of dissent. It's a pretty mild one in this country and time but it is still a form of dissent. In some places, like North Korea, it can get you killed. It certainly isn't a form of support for the system. That's just an absurd conjecture.
You are actively supporting the system by actively stepping aside and letting others make the choice.
That has got to be amongst the most twisted logic I've ever seen. By not participating in a broken system I'm supporting it.
If everyone disgusted with the system voted nest vote for anyone other than a Republicrat, then the system would change in a few months. If everyone disgusted with the system stayed home, the system would *never* change. That's sufficient proof that your method is broken.
So you making an unsupported conjecture is proof? I think you need to be in politics. You'd fit right in with the rest of them. So you're conjecture is that if everyone vote Democrat somehow the politicians would no longer be motivated to pass the laws wanted by the money interests that are paying them? if everyone voted Democrat suddenly they'd stop passing the same unfathomable laws that no one, including themselves, can really understand? Is you're conjecture that if everyone voted Democrat somehow they would stop reinterpreting and redefining the laws that are passed? Is you're conjecture that if everyone voted Democrat they'd magically stop lying and secretly doing things that seem to clearly violate any reasonable interpretation of US constitution? Sure I'll buy that. Makes perfect sense. Wow.
If no one voted for anyone somehow I'm thinking the system would change. And pretty damn quickly.
Participating in the current system does nothing to change the fundamental flaws in that system. If they start trying to fix the system I'll be right up front trying to help them. I will not help them prop up the current broken system.
But it's not. Do your own research - by the time someone is running for a federal office they probably have a long track record in politics - so look at the historical record to see what they've actually *done* in the past, not to the media circus, campaign promises, and PR spin they generate.
Answer me one question. How many times have you actually read through in detail and thoroughly understood a bill a politician voted on? Without doing that you are relying on "the media circus, campaign promises, and PR spin they generate." They lie what is in and/or don't even understand the bills they vote for themselves. After they pass a bill it is reinterpreted or words are redefined, like "targeting", often secretly, so the bill has a completely different meaning than it did when it passed. Who on this planet has the time to read through every friggin law congress passes. This US government page states "At the reference desk, we are frequently asked to estimate the number of federal laws in force. However, trying to tally this number is nearly impossible." If the friggin government can't even figure out how many laws there are who on this planet can possible comprehend what those laws are.
The system is broken. Voting doesn't help fix the broken system. With the current system it's impossible to make an informed vote.
I commented previously on looking at a candidates actual history rather than listening to their campaign circus, so I won't belabor the point.
How does looking at voting history do any good? First, who has time to really read the details of the stuff they're voting on? Second, who can really understand what you're reading even if you take the time to read it? Third, even if you do think you understand a law, as soon as it's passed they're going to misinterpreted, reinterpreted, secretly interpreted or it's just plain intentionally worded ambiguously to allow it to mean whatever the powers that be want it to mean.
Have you read the laws under which the NSA surveillance is being justified? To a normal English language speaker it doesn't seem to come near to allowing anything like what they're doing. But redefine a few words like "targeting" and get a rubber stamp court to approve the new definitions and suddenly that law allows wholesale monitoring of everyone in the US.
But if I had read congressional voting records I would have been aware of all this. Yeah right.
But we're already down around 40-50% voter turnout on a regular basis - how would it send any stronger a message if 90% of the population didn't care enough to vote than if "only" 60% didn't? Either way most of the population is sending a message of implied approval for "whoever wins".
No, they're not sending a message of implied approval for whoever wins. I'd say that's a simpleminded interpretation based on the propaganda you've been fed since childhood. Vote or it's your fault whatever the elected idiot does. No, it's pretty clear to me people aren't voting because they know it doesn't make a damn bit of difference who they vote for. Who ever gets elected is going to do what the people who pay them tell them to do. The one that's elected is the one who puts out the best lies and propaganda and good lies and propaganda costs lots of money.
Certainly voting for one of the two the provided candidates won't do much, but there's often lots of other candidates on the ballot who aren't deeply entrenched in the existing power blocks - vote for one of them, or write someone in, and you actually send the message that you do care, but reject the options being spoon-fed to you.
Heck, the majority of the population doesn't vote. Think about that for a moment - most elections tend to be quite close, so if just half the people who don't vote came out and voted a straight "anti-corruption party" ticket in one election they would take the government by storm, even if all the regular voters still voted D or R.
I don't know how else I can say this that would help people like you understand. The problem isn't who gets elected. The problem is the system is broken. It's not functioning correctly. There is no "anti-corruption party". I really don't think there can be under the current system. There may be candidates who claim to claim to be "anti-corruption party" but that's almost never the case and there is no way to tell the ones who are lying from the sincere ones. And almost always even the sincere ones end up being corrupted by the system. How can you intelligently vote for someone when there's no way you can understand what they are going to vote for or have voted for. Moreover how can you vote for someone when they are going to lie about what they are going to vote for or have voted for.
The point is, if you don't show up, your "vote" will be read as apathy and passive consent.
No, the point is by showing up and voting you're providing active consent and support for a system that I believe is no longer working. I'd rather have some delusional simpleton misinterpret my actions than perform actions that actively show support for their delusions.
You do realize, the Soviet Union had and China, Cuba and North Korea all have elections. And voter turnout is higher than it is in the US (100% in North Korea). There are reasons for having elections where governments rule by fiat. Voting isn't some magic power. Not voting in a system where voting doesn't really effect the system is a form of dissent. Voting is showing support for the system.
Politicians want to get elected and stay in office. To do that they need votes. They go through a great deal of trouble to encourage some people to vote for them, others not to vote, and to prevent some from voting at all. Each candidate and party does this in different proportions.
So you apparently vote for the politician that tells you the lies you want to hear. And then he runs the government exactly how the people who pay him tells him to. Explain how voting accomplishes anything in a government like that.
Yeah, I don't have much respect for people who don't vote. If you don't like the choices, write a better one in. If enough people did this, it would be noticed and it would make a difference. Because at the present time, not voting is also choosing the status quo.
If only 10% of the people were voting it'd be a much more visible statement than writing in some random person or my dog. Why perpetuate a clearly broken system? The current system doesn't work. Voting in the current broken system isn't going to change that. (Car analogy) If my car doesn't have an engine going out every morning trying to start it isn't going to isn't going to help. Voting in the current system doesn't help change anything.
However the latter is never true when it comes to voting - if you haven't prepared for voting on voting day, by researching the available candidates as best you can, then you have failed to discharge your responsibilities as a citizen.
If the information needed to make an informed decision is withheld from me I can't prepare nor can I make an informed decision. Again I reiterate, making a decision based on known bad information is stupidity. It's willfully blindly following the status quo. It's also radically different than making a decision based on incomplete or suspect information. Present me with a candidate with some credibility and maybe I'll vote for them. Hell, at this point I may even vote for them based on that alone even if I disagree with what they support. Obama preached for government openness and transparency when we was running for election. He pledged to increase protection for whistle blowers who exposed government malfeasance. Like a perfect example of Orwell's Double Speak all those pledges have disappeared from where he had them published.
I posit that the above quoted statement proves my point. A good citizen votes for someone. Even if all the choices are all pretty much equally bad. That's buying into the propaganda.
A hereditary monarchy is better than a democracy based on lies and propaganda. At least then you have a chance of getting a good government.
Hitler was initially voted into power. That's how things can turn out when you vote based on misinformation and propaganda. Sadly it's really starting to look like the US may be heading down that same road.
Money only buys votes with an uneducated electorate.
You have no concept of history. Money buys lies and propaganda. The amounts of money involved here buys VERY good lies and propaganda. It also buys the ability to suppress the truth. Modern technology greatly increases the effectiveness of propaganda. The only "education" the masses are receiving is the lies and propaganda. For some reason people like you seem to think the US population should have some sort of superpower that allows them to see through the lies and propaganda. It doesn't work that way. Calling them stupid sheep is the red herring here.
People like Snowden sacrificing their living and risking their lives to bring these lies and propaganda to light for the masses is exceptional. Without such sacrifices the only information people have is the lies and propaganda. Exposing the lies and propaganda, providing the people with the knowledge they need to make wise, informed voting decisions is required for change. Expecting them to somehow magically see through the lies and propaganda one day is believing of fairly tales.
This is the legalese "a chance", the same legalese that can make tapping someone on the shoulder 'assault'. It doesn't need to be a realistic prospect or even slightly likely, there just needs to be a faint glimmer of a hint of a chance that he may face torture.
You're missing his point. The truly sad thing is, it is far more than "a faint glimmer of a hint of a chance that he may face torture" as recent history has demonstrated.
It's to prevent a technicality often used to block extraditions.
Not sending people off someplace where they are going to be tortured and killed is using a technicality to avoid extraditing them? Damn, you must have one twisted sense of morality. Seems to me that's the right thing to do.
And if you're trying to saying the US doesn't torture and kill people for "crimes" such as Snowden's you need to read about a poor guy named Bradley Manning. His treatment, for years mind you, prior to any trial crossed the line to torture by most civilized definitions. And he's on trial for capital crimes.
And if you didn't vote because "all politicians are corrupt", you're as much a part of the problem as anyone else.
Every time I see the above statement my blood boils. Making an informed decision requires actually being informed. Making a decision based on what you know are lies and misinformation is stupidity. This is especially the case when that decision involves who is going to control the most powerful government this planet has ever experienced.
That statement is the epitome of stupidity and is one of the essential drivers of the status quo.
iEye
They shouldn't be fining themselves, they should be jailing the person responsible for handing them to the "unnamed contractor"
They should be firing the idiots that aren't encrypting their drives.
I'm amazed no one is addressing the obvious. The simple solution is encrypted drives. Encryption eliminates this issue along with protecting against a whole host of other problems.
has not been confidently identified as an American
Meaning there's a 51% chance they're foreign.