Patriot Act to be Expanded 1523
m4dm4n writes "It seems that the patriot act is being expanded rather than scaled back after a vote late Tuesday by the Senate Intelligence committee. The FBI has gained new powers to demand documents from companies without a judge's approval, as well as the ability to designate subpoenas as secret and punish disclosure of their existence with up to one year in prison."
Home of the brave... (Score:4, Insightful)
Short said: (Score:5, Insightful)
How Very Orwellian... (Score:5, Insightful)
Eurasian spies are everywhere....
Powers without balances (Score:2, Insightful)
US = Jenga (Score:5, Insightful)
Wonder how long you've got before it topples.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
Democracy must not be taken for granted. It needs to be constantly fought for and won, else it will be coopted and lost.
Don't panic! (Score:5, Insightful)
As a US Citizen abroad (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hurrah! (Score:5, Insightful)
The terrorist will not win! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:1, Insightful)
We've been a police state since the 1930s; it has just been a relatively benevolent one until now.
If you do not have the choice to do what you want with your own person or property as long as those choices do not directly do physical damage to another's person or property, then you are not free.
Free people can grow whatever plant they want on their own land. Free people can own whatever kind of firearm they want without previous government permission. Free people can say whatever they want about elected officials and those running for elected office without worrying about government election laws.
There are a myriad ways in which the populace of the United States is no longer free, the problem is that most have "grown up" with those restrictions and consider them normal. The next generation will no doubt similarly consider omnipresent "security cameras" and required government permission for vitamin purchase (rules for such being drawn up by the WTO even today) to be perfectly normal.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:1, Insightful)
Everyone but the USians have seen this for a while now.
I guess most of you simply do not care.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
Osama (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that he publicly stated this is where it gets interersting, because this leaves open (IMHO) 3 options for the US government:
- US government does not know what Osama said was his reason for attacking the US, and therefor simply react how Osama wants them to react; in this case US government consists of a bunch of morons
- US government knows *damn well* what Osama said and do Osamas bidding, because it suits them well in becoming more like Big Brother
- US government knows what Osama said, but think he is lying. Question is: why would a terrorist be lying? A terrorist wants to get his way, so there is no use in lying about what you want to accomplish through terrorism. Like option 1, US government is filled with morons.
So, US government is either too dumb for words or wants to be like Big Brother. Don't know which of the two is more scary.Re:Hurrah! (Score:5, Insightful)
Not What the Forefathers Wanted (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hurrah! (Score:3, Insightful)
I just hope the general freedom thing as a citizen lasts another 40 years. Once I'm dead, to hell with you all. Just don't stick me in a gulag during my life time.
The thing is, you can't expect a society raised by public schools (the government) to question things like The Patriot Act. Remember, these are the same people who today overwhelmingly state that the government should have the authority to censor news papers and that the press has too much freedom and that they should even be required to recieve approval from the government before publishing all stories.
In a society where the young people think we have to much freedom we are seriously fucked. Our young people are supposed to be the rebels. The fighters. The change-makers. Not sheep.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Not What the Forefathers Wanted (Score:5, Insightful)
Ah, but we do. Oh, we don't, not we sophisticated intellectuals, but we the people as a whole are very keen on these rules.
Every single damn poll I see reveals massive support for further crackdowns and additional police powers, to protect us from terrorism.
The masses actually believe they're in real danger. They've completely bought into the whole politics of fear we've been fed for the last few years.
With thunderous applause, indeed.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't like the Patriot Act either, but we aren't to the point where we have to fear being killed for critizing our leadership or laws either.
The other way around (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Five years of Bush! (Score:2, Insightful)
In America, you have to "register" with the US Post Office and IRS (and the DMV since you need a state ID or driver's license to exist). And, by way of employment or banking, the social security administration.
You are required to carry identification with you all the time, stopped without it, instant jail.
In America, if you have no identification on you or you refuse to produce it, you are going to be hassled, possibly threatened, and probably detained (perhaps taken to the local station for a lengthy period of time until they sort things out). Though it isn't illegal, lack of identification will get you some serious mistreatment.
Oh, and then there was that case in Texas where the guy was basically arrested for refusing to provide identification on the side of the road by his home.
When you stay at a hotel your information and picture is send to the police.
When you stay at a hotel in America, you need to provide photo identification and a credit card. There are few (and seedy) hotels that will allow you to use cash. And even if you do, they often still require identification and a credit card for security reasons. It's a simple step for the police to locate you or find out where you stayed and when.
No, this isn't Communist China or the STASI. Not yet. But it ain't all that "free", either. Christ, we're letting the MPAA pay the police force in LA to monitor the streets with video cameras for bootlegging. And most big cities have videocamera surveilance at intersections and public gathering spots.
If we think we "aren't like europe", it's only because we've been brainwashed to percieve it that way. Just like, growing up, society brainwashes us to think that America is the only democracy in the world and that everyone else is imprisoned for speaking their mind outside our borders.
Re:All you yanks can come crash at my place... (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate to say it but Howard and Co are pretty much as morally corrupt as the Labor Government that sat on its hands while Indonesia invaded East Timor.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
People get up in the morning, commute for a couple hours, work for ten or twelve hours, telecommute for a couple more hours. Feed the family. Pay the bills. Try and save a bit for retirement (or children's education, etc). Fix the broken shit in the house. Spend quality time with the kids and wife. Get some rest before doing it all again the next day.
Only when the majority are starving, poor and unemployed do they have both the incentive and the TIME to put everything on the line and make a change. Otherwise, it's all they can do to keep up with current events, much less act on them.
It's sad, but it's true. And for more of us than would like to admit it.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what are the options here... (Score:4, Insightful)
Good point. We should trust our government. They are better informed than we are. They are more intelligent. The Government knows better than we do what is best for the country. We should not question the government.
So, in your universe, what is the rationale for holding elections at all?
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, look at the Parent Television Council (I think thats their name) That one group of ultra conservative parents is responsible for something like 97% of complaints to the FCC for indecency in broadcasting, and has almost single handedly changed the policies of the FCC. Although I totaly disagree with what they are trying to do, (kill all the people you want on TV, but don't show love!) I think its amazing that they have bonded together, and been very loud until they got what they wanted. As much as I disagree with their tactics and message, I have to admire the fact that they can do it, and have a little more hope that maybe others will do something similar for what they believe.
America's been through worse and survived (Score:5, Insightful)
1. It's nowhere near the situation during, for example, maccarthyism. Read something about the period. People were out of jobs (or forced out of the country!) for no reason at all, other that they were untruthfully accused of sympathizing with communists. And yet, American democracy survived this, and -- if anything -- became only stronger. Really, you should have more faith in the system's built-in mechanisms. It worked amazingly well for two hundred years.
2. There is absolutely no comparison with the real police states, which are, unfortunately, still very common on our miserable planet. I think, It's insulting for the tortured to death victims in Iran, or China, or Russia, to even compare the minor inconveniences that Americans suffer with the police state actions. Looking from most of the Earth, America is land of the free, regardless how funny you may find this claim.
All this because of 9/11? (Score:5, Insightful)
9/11 was just an excuse to implement the police state the Neocons always wanted. The things the US hated the most about Russia is now being implemented and the US citizens is just watching on. As long as the media is pumping out false and outrageous propaganda it wont change either.
Damn im glad i dont live in the US!
Re:Short said: (Score:3, Insightful)
Only according to anti-American Communist Islamic organisations like the UN and Amnesty International. Remember, the people this will be used against are terrorists. You don't support terrorists, do you?
In Soviet America... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sorry, couldn't resist. But seriously. At a time when Russia is just becoming a functioning democracy, I think this is actually pretty ironic.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, good. America is still free: criticising the leadership is not a capital offence.
Is that the standard now? America - Land of the Not As Bad As North Korea?
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not trolling here and perhaps I'm not totally informed, but don't children chant their allegiance to the flag in primary school every day? Isn't it drummed into to everyone to love the constitution? Even though parts of it are hideously outdated and you could argue that every day it is being corrupted further.
Everyone thinks it teaches children patriotism and respect for the authority in place in the country. But it breeds the worst kind of patriotism where people will unquestioningly do whatever their leaders want and will rarely protest against them. True patriots love the landscape, the people and the values they stand for, not some petty symbols and words written on a piece of paper.
You guys.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's easy to say from across the pond, I know -- but you guys..
So it would appear the plan is to protect your freedom by taking it away from you. Way to go.
Sure if you believe the terrorists "hate our freedom" and want to destroy it, these measures may appear to make some kind of sense.
But the fact is most of these terrorists don't mind your freedom, they mind US foreign policy which is supporting their dictators and exploiting their peoples. They are not fighting the US, they are fighting the US' ruthless protection of corporate interests overseas.
Add to that the sheer hypocrisy of imposing measures on others (e.g. no trade tariffs, no agricultural subsidies, no profileration of WMD, etc) while openly refusing to impose same on yourselves.. Frankly, although I despise violence even more than imperialism, I think I understand why people would fight that tooth and nail.
I really hope that you will stop this madness from within -- otherwise the next 911 is just waiting to happen.. And I hate to say it but that one will be your own goddamn fault.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:1, Insightful)
The country isn't built on blind questioning. Or whining. Or endless nitpicking.
I see what you're saying. But a lot of people don't realize that you can't just say "You're doing it wrong.". Because when you're in leadership you have to do *something*. Give them an alternative that you can prove is better.
I don't see that. I see people throwing out solutions without showing that they put any thought into it. When questioned about the details they freak out about it.
Fighting against the country without a good, thought out reason is being a traitor. A stupid one.
d
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:4, Insightful)
Ever heard of slippery slope?
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:2, Insightful)
Mindless anything is bad. But considering the US is one of the oldest governments of the world, that Consitution is pretty impressive.
I don't remember being taught to love the Consitution. And after 3rd grade, we stopped with the allegiance.
Do you even know what brainwashing means?
Re:Five years of Bush! (Score:3, Insightful)
I have no concerns about identifying myself and smiling for CCTV and other sorts of cameras. In fact, I'm happy that when I sit by the fountain in a European square and watch Europeans play in the sun that there is a monitoring camera that's watching over all to keep them safe. Here is what matters; in Europe I have higher trust that such information gathered won't be misused against me, and that my rights will be respected. I have greater confidence that they care about maintaining human rights and due process, and I won't find myself in a Gitmo-like situation without charge, trial, or such. I have greater comfort in knowing that the majority of the population are liberal-in-mind, respect individual differences, and that like the Swiss just voted to grant the gays further rights, they won't politically lynch the minorities or be easily agitated by expedient Machiavillians, having well learned their lesson from WWII.
Re:America's been through worse and survived (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, my answer is freedom from the government. But most people seem to think the other way.
Time for Action (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So what are the options here... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, what do you expect. Americans are indoctrinated from birth that they live in the "shining beacon of freedom, land of the brave and home of the free" and so on. As if other democracies were nothing but pale copies of perfection. I would at times call it blind faith, that nothing bad could happen here almost by definition. And by implication, that makes the US government the leaders of the free world, equally flawless.
Sure, there are political disagreements but everyone thinks they work for the people, in particular to create economic prosperity. And in this regard to protect the people, all out of acting in the people's best interest. As long as you have such a deluded perception of government, it does not matter how big, how intrusive it gets because it is a big, intrusive force of good. As long as the cause is just, disruption of privacy and civil rights is accepted, because the ends justify the means.
Of course, no other organization in history has ever been able to wield that kind of power without succumbing to abuse, persecution, corruption, power grabs, search for personal profit and so on. If you look more closely at the collapse of empires like the Soviet Union, you see that is one of the biggest reasons for their economic and social downfall, more than the ideology itself. But not the US. Because the US goverment is Good, and the Soviet government was Evil. QED.
Kjella
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:5, Insightful)
THE LAW IS WRONG. DO NOT SUBMIT.
I, unlinke our government, will continue to observe the law of the constitution over all others. If the document is amended and altered so that it no longer represents the spirit of freedom and "for-the-people, by-the-people" government that I feel is the best in the world, then I will leave and find a better government.
Captain Obvious: (Score:5, Insightful)
Gulag's? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:America's been through worse and survived (Score:5, Insightful)
Further, you are of course right that the US has already lived through areas in which its freedom was threatened and always had the strength to overcome these problems in the end. However, the problem with your argument is, that the US was able to solve these issues specifically not as some people just leaned back and took a "it worked in the past, it will work now" attitude, but because people fought the developments they saw as threatening their freedoms.
About your second point.
You are of course right that there are far worse countries when it comes to human rights abuses than the US. I think that really goes without saying. However, that doesn't make human rights abuses in and by the US any better, does it?
Further, I don't really think its the same when the US does such things, as when for example North Korey does them. Now don't get me wrong, they are crimes however commits them, but the US is after all the oldest democracy in the world, the worlds only superpower and without a doubt the leader of the so called western, civilized world, whereas North Korea is a criminal and rogue state.
Re:Meanwhile in Denmark... (Score:5, Insightful)
So, Denmark uses an anti-terror law wrong and this means what exactly?
The mark of a free society is that you can get lawyers, go to court and fight things like this. Or has all the members of Greenpeace been rounded up and executed already?
And everyone is grabbing for power around the world. Sheesh. So, your choices are to either understand and deal with these people.
Or post "The sky is falling" on Slashdot. I suppose the latter is easier.
Re:You guys.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Because it will not be done by a Muslim fanatic but by a McVeigh. It will not be done out of religious mania (unless you call the New World Order conspiracy theory a religion) but out of hatred for the government that is destroying what America once stood for.
Ask yourself: how bad does it have to get before you become a terrorist? Substitute the equivalent phrase 'freedom fighter' if it makes you feel better. Then think that there are people whose tolerance for perceived tyranny is less than yours.
What did you expect? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:3, Insightful)
You guys should start fighting for your rights before they're taken away from you...This way the government won't think too lightly of trying to pass acts such as the this one.
Power to the people, cuz the people want peace
Re:In Soviet America... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hurrah! (Score:5, Insightful)
True. He has admitted that he speaks with god or jesus. I suppose he could announce that Jesus told him to serve a third term - and there are enough crazy religious sheeple in this country that would accept it.
Anyone who seriously thinks the US is a "police state" right now because of the "war on terrorism" is seriously lacking in historical perspective. The "war on drugs" has been much more harmful to civil liberties for the average American than anything the Bush administration or the last couple of Congresses have done.
As to the original idea - that there are so many "crazy religious sheeple in this country" that GWB could simply declare himself the next coming of Jesus and do whatever he wants: Assuming you're not just kidding, it's a ridiculous statement.
I would happily bet you (or the author of the parent of your post) $1,000 that GWB will not be President of the United States on January 21, 2009. Do you seriously think A) he would just ignore the constitution and B) everyone else would let him get away with it (especially including whomever the Democratic candidate for President is)? How would that work, exactly? He'd call off the election? You think states would stand for that? He'd let the election happen and then...what? Refuse to move out like a tenant who can't pay the rent? If you think that would last more than about three hours you seriously misunderstand this country. Evangelical Christians are a larger percentage of the electorate than I (as an atheist) would prefer, but they are far from a majority in this country. Even if they were able to wield power far in excess of ther size, they are by no means a monolothic block. A large percentage of them, believe it or not, respect the order of law and don't actually want a theocracy in this country (even if they do hold some moral beliefs informed by their religion that I disagree with). Not many of them would want a religiously annointed, unelected leader. Believe it or not.
I mean, you're talking about a man with 45% approval ratings. You seriously think he'd be able to say - whatever his justification - "I'm not going to give up this office," and other people - especially the other people who want said office - are simply going to let him do it?
As to your last point, I agree that I wish people were more educated about the unalienable rights we have. I wish more people understood the way the Constitution attempts to lock the government off to prevent those rights being trampled on. But that's not a new, unique phenomenon - the average American is woefully uneducated about much of our laws and history. I recall reading in the 80s that a majority of high school seniors identified the phrase "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" as being a phrase from the US constitution. So, having no idea what's in that document isn't a new phenomenon.
In summary: The ACLU needed to be screaming more about the rights we lost in the war on drugs. Most of this Patriot Act whining they're doing now is over things of little actual consequence. My fear is that, like the boy who cried wolf, when some future Congress or President really does try to institute a police state no one will be paying attention to the ACLU because "they always scream about everything, but nothing really bad ever happens."
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sorry, but have you ever been to the U.S.?
Your trails of "almost by definition" to "by implication" to QED is ludicrous.
Sure, there are political disagreements but everyone thinks they work for the people, in particular to create economic prosperity.
I don't think I've ever met anybody who believes this. On the contrary, suspicion and mistrust of government is common to almost every political viewpoint anyone holds in this country. Why do you think every politician runs against Washington, no matter how long he's been there?
The simple truth is that people fail to oppose the patriot act because it has zero visible impact on their lives, not because they believe it derives from the heavenly benevolence of government. Argue along that axis (and please, with something less sci-fi than endless repetitions of "They came for...") and you will win every argument you have about the PA.
The stupidity of the right presents such a fantastic opening to its opponents, but they all seem to prefer to scream "brainwashed fascists!" instead of trying to actually win the debate. It's really pathetic.
Re:Nice! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:2, Insightful)
So, let me get this straight...
Having people pledge alliegence to the Country they belong to is a bad thing? That's brainwashing?
And the Consitution, the one piece of paper the entire government is built on. The base document that all three branches of the government are sworn to uphold. The document that's so important that the highest court in the land exists only to rule whether a law is consitutional or not.
That's kind of important, don't you think?
I've never heard of any brainwashing to "Love the consitution." but once you see the rules and the reasoning behind it, you should see that it's a damn good set of rules.
And the rich and powerful always, ALWAYS have a say in how the government is run. In any country. At any time. That's the nature of reality man, and not liking it is normal. Having the tools to fight it varies from country to country.
The reason most citizens don't ask questions about how the govenrment is run, is because most citizens are fine with the way the government is running. Tell them what they need to know to accomplish the objectives in their life and then get out of their way.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hurrah! (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an act of the Legislature. Bush can't do this. We can't blame Bush for EVERYTHING. There are a couple hundred people responsible for these laws.
You have one or two from YOUR STATE. Write them. Tell them to stop.
Re:Gulag's? (Score:5, Insightful)
What the "U.S." cares about is entertainment (TV, movies, music) toys (cars, motorcycles, boats) and bare survival. We're so busy in the pursuit of those things that we don't want to think about politics and governance. Of course once in a while some band of "cooks" will rise up saying crazy things like "patriot act is bad" and stuff but they are forgotten as soon as the next commercials come on.
The masses of the people have to be hurting pretty badly before we will notice what has happened.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it is a bad thing. You can see it on CNN, you can see it in the attitudes of American tourists overseas. They think that, just because random chance led them to being born in the USA, they are somehow a higher form of life than everyone else. Pride in your country should come from the actions of the people themselves striving to better themselves and their country, not from some dogmatic pledge injected into every childs brain.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:4, Insightful)
It always astounds me how many people simply don't care about what many of us consider to be essential civil liberties, or are totally sold on the idea that such draconian laws are necessary to fight terrorism, drugs, child molestation, whatever. It's like arguing with a wall.
There are extremists on both sides of the American political spectrum; the problem is that the "conservatives" (what a stupid term--I think we should start calling them "nationalists") have this crisis of conscience where the social fanatics support the same sort of governmental power that the "my country, right or wrong" types do. And yet they all vote together. On the other side, most moderates or "liberals" have this problem that the wackjob leftist faction is making them look bad.
Bit of a ramble, I apologize, but the upshot is that you have a fairly large minority are very upset about the seeming inability of many voters to grasp the underlying issues, and to understand that the reasoning given for this kind of stuff (to protect the homeland!) is horseshit, smoke & mirrors and is dooming much that the US stands for.
White hat ? (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a slightly offtopic question. Namely, I was wondering why the politics section in Slashdot has a white hat as its symbol, when all the stories seem to be about politicians doing bad things ?
Wouldn't a black hat be more appropriate ? Maybe even Darth Vader's helmet ?-)
Government in theory (Score:2, Insightful)
If this step is done right it should protect citizens from the government, each other and outside forces.
Step 2: Law enforcement and homeland security
Write laws dictating how those constitutional rights will be protected and how this will be financed. Execute the plan.
Step 3: Sit back and relax
Any law passed after this will only increase the power of the government to harm the citizens. A perfect constitution would, in theory, prevent this from happening.
Like the subject reads, this is just Government in theory. Government in practice always seems to fail miserably at all three steps and wind up with so much legislation that no single person could understand it all.
Re:You guys.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well yes, except that the US usually drag themselves into hot spots, and are quite often responsible for the spots being hot in the first place. Besides, obviously they're in fact very selective in doing so -- I mean, how many US troops in Sudan?
Other countries sniff at our hyprocracy, but frankly, put up or shut up. Most countries don't even give a damn as to what happens to the people in other countries.
Agreed, absolutely. My own government could do much much more in the way of caring for other peoples. That said, do you really believe those troops are in Iraq for altruistic reasons? Torturing Iraqis for their own good? Oil and similar corporate interests have nothing to do with it? Again - how many troops in, say, Sudan?
Start spending huge amounts of blood and treasure in other places and then say "Sure! We think it's ok for you to have completely indiscriminate weapons of destruction in your unstable country."
The reason those soldiers are willing to spill their blood, or the only reason I can imagine at least, is they actually believe they are "helping Iraqis" or "defending the Homeland". Both arguments are easy to take apart. And the treasure, well that treasure is actually really just another channel from US taxpayer's wallets to corporate bank accounts. Unless you can point out the flaw in the following:
Pentagon uses taxpayer's money to buy bombs from Lockheed et al. Blows up Iraqi houses. Uses MORE taxpayer's money to hire AMERICAN companies to rebuild what was destroyed.
You, my friend, should really read up on some info rather than just repeat the propaganda lines. For instance, read Baghdad Year Zero [commondreams.org] by Naomi Klein. Either tell me where she's wrong or admit at least there's more going on then they're telling you..
And why can the US have them? Well, we sure don't get foriegn aid when we have a disaster, do we?
So, you're saying that not receiving aid gives you right to have WMD? Are you even serious? Well what's your beef with North Korea then? How much aid are you giving Iran? Come on..
But I'm curious, if the next 9/11 is going to be the US's fault. Why is that, and how would the US have to change to not have it happen?"
If such an attack would come from the outside, like it did last time, I believe it will very likely be the son of someone you bombed or tortured or dissappeared. Face it, current policies are only creating more terrorists -- even your own agencies are sort of saying this.
One idea would be to change your definition of a "free country" to actually involve freedom, not only subservience to US corporate interests.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gulag's? (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't worry. In reports like this, it isn't getting any more respect than a wardlord in a cave, either.
It's funny how governments like to rely on reports from independent groups like Amnesty to justify, say, invading a country and removing an evil dictator. Then the same groups become "unreliable" or "ill-informed" or something when you look at their reports from those same countries after the invasion, or their reports on the behaviour of governments closer to home.
Sometimes I wonder whether US Gov Corp. realises how much it's damaged the reputation of the US internationally with things like Gitmo. Other times I wonder whether they do know, and just don't care. Either way, it's too bad; in the long run, no man (or nation) is an island.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:2, Insightful)
Interesting. And how do you know it's from the dogmatic pledge and not from seeing the other country and going "Well, it's nice, but I wouldn't want to live there."?
I've been to many other countries. And lived in them. I don't recall many natives there striving to better themselves and their country. It seems that they were just working, raising kids, and doing other things to enjoy life.
Why do you set the bar higher for Americans?
A show of hands... (Score:3, Insightful)
That's what I thought...
Re:Five years of Bush! (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you get it ? American government and Europeans governments do almost the same (Europe being just about 10 years behind), people are just brain-washed into thinking that THEIR government won't misuse these informations while the other will.
About people being more respectful of individual differences : I think it's because you generalize from governments positions to people ideas. American government being full of neo-cons doesn't mean every American is (but I might be wrong, I never went to the USA
Re:America's been through worse and survived (Score:5, Insightful)
General Yahya Rahim Safavi warned reformers in April, "we are seeking to root out counterrevolutionaries wherever they are. We have to cut the throats of some and cut off the tongues of others." A few days later he threatened, "we will go after them when the time is ripe...fruit has to be picked when it is ripe. The fruit is unripe now."
Executions after unfair trials proliferated, including cases of stoning to death in public. For the first time since 1992 a follower of the Baha'i faith was executed in prison. Other religious minorities, including Sunni Muslims, Evangelical Christians, and Jews were subjected to discrimination and persecution. Prominent dissidents, including writers and editors, were subjected to arbitrary detention and independent newspapers were closed down. New laws were passed discriminating against women and aimed at restricting debate about women's rights. Torture was widespread during interrogation, and the government failed to take steps to halt violent attacks by vigilante groups which serve as enforcers for conservative clerics, known as the Partisans of the Party of God (Ansar-e Hezbollahi) . As tensions with the Taleban rulers of neighboring Afghanistan mounted, Afghan refugees, more than a million of whom have lived in Iran for many years seeking refuge from civil war, were attacked and beaten by crowds leading to several deaths.
Hundreds of people were executed after trials that failed to comply with minimum international standards. In June, the daily newspaper Hamshahri, reported the public hanging of four young men in the city of Ahvaz, in the south, for "insulting" Leader Khamene'i and "armed robbery." Seven people were reported by opposition groups to have been convicted of adultery and stoned to death in October 1997 and six more were reported to have been sentenced to stoning in January. On July 21, Ruhollah Rowhani was executed in the city of Mashhad on charges of converting a Muslim to the Baha'i faith. This execution marked a deterioration in the situation of this intensely persecuted minority. At least fifteen other Baha'is were held in prison and seven were facing death sentences because of their faith. There were further detentions of Baha'is in September when dozens were detained in a new wave of repression. In May, Jewish businessman Ruhollah Kakhodah-Zadeh was arrested and later hanged in prison. His crime was never declared in public and any legal proceedings which occurred did so in secret.
Read the other 10 pages on HRW's site.
Re:In Soviet America... (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you kidding? America is far from remaining democratic, more like sinking into a dictatorship.
Sobpoenas with no judge that people can't know about that are allowed to be made secret and classified scream of the KGB making people disappear in the night and despotism to me.
Re:In Soviet America... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hurrah! (Score:3, Insightful)
Quite simple really. There will just be another 9-11 event prior to the election and the election will be canceled for reasons of national security. Go check the history books, it's a tried & tested formula.
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not true. The Constitution was designed to lay some ground rules so that we would not get off course. It is meant to be as constant as reasonably possible. That is why it is so difficult to change it. Even with a Republican majority and a Republican President they were not able to pass an amendment pertaining to gay marriage.
Re:Don't panic! (Score:5, Insightful)
If you hate your country don't like the current political climate, by all means leave. If however you love your country and don't like the currently political climate...then fight for change, whether it be by joining PAC's or just word-of-mouth...do something.
Do you seriously want to abandon what is by any measure the world's most dominate military power to Bush and friends? I don't. I choose to stay and fight.
You people claiming that you should leave because things are not going your way makes you sound like a grade school kid taking his ball and going home when he starts losing.
I spent 6 months in 2002-2003 working in Montreal. I've been to BC, Toronto, Quebec City and other places in Canada. It's a great country and I believe it would be a great place to live (given the proper cold-weather attire, of course!). However, Canada is just like any other industrialized country...with it's own strengths and weaknesses.
Let's just hope the Dems can put up a candidate in 08 that actually scored higher than Bush at Yale [cnn.com]!
What I Want To Know Is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm always amazed by people who say they wouldn't vote for a 3rd party, and then go on to vote for the guy who loses anyway.
I often think that if all you people who said "well, I would vote for a 3rd party, but can't because then the wrong candidate will win!" just went and voted for your 3rd party, that 3rd party guy would win!!
Re:In Soviet America... (Score:3, Insightful)
What is Fascism?
Well its a form of Militaristic Emperialistic type that is 'elected' by the wealth of the Corporate Elite. Google it up.
People of this world are being duped into set of ideas that make up the order of things. At an Age of mass communication. How long will it take before a massive revolution takes place that whipes out the world of corporate pimps? And true Socialisam takes place. And no, not the Communist type Socialisam that everyone thinks of when they hear that word. True Socialisam has never been done before. For it to be true entire globe would have to choose to perticipate.
Think about it. It would be like a giant open source project. That eliminates money and simply requests are made and fullfiled as they are ordered, on a world wide scale. By that I mean anything from growing food to operating trucks and airplanes. Different groups would be created to fullfill every human needs. Through a system that the main goal isnt profit but true human needs.
I can just hope that it happens soon.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:4, Insightful)
I have to admit, I do feel powerless in the USA. I don't talk politics anymore, because I'm afraid I'll piss someone off, due to it being such a divisive issue (but, hey, this is online, and I don't have to be near anyone I piss off). But the feeling of powerlessness is really very hard to deal with sometimes. I (like many on slashdot) am a liberal, and when I see things like the "Nuclear option" threaten to happen in congress, it scares me. When the party that won the last election 51% to 49% now sees fit to force its policy onto 100% of the country, and when the democrats stand up and say "Hey, we've affirmed a lot of your nominees, but this one is just over the edge.", the party in power threatens to take their ball and go home if they don't get their way.
And I don't even understand everything that goes on in washington. I mean, I have my views: basically, I want peace, separation of church and state, and social progressivism, but it's really hard to find someone on the hill that believes the same things I believe in that's not an asshole.
I dunno, I always see people saying "If you're unhappy with the government, vote! Get involved!". But what happens when you really do vote, and nothing happens. What happens when you're part of the 49% and yet it feels like no agenda you support is ever taken into consideration, much less acted upon. Plus, I'm so damn busy working 50+ hours a week and taking care of the 1 year old so that maybe someday my wife and I can close this gap between the haves and the havenots and maybe, just maybe, afford a house.
~Will
Re:Gulag's? (Score:3, Insightful)
Lose one democracy point.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
The war on drugs did far more to trample the rights of the citizens of the US than the war on terrorism ever has (or will). People whining about this stuff now have been asleep at the switch for a very long time. You want to crusade for freedom - don't start trying to block minor enhancements to FBI power like this. Start by trying to roll back all the laws and court decisions over the past twenty years that have rolled back your 4th and 5th amendment rights, that have elimninated any expectation of privacy in financial transactions, that have made it very difficult to do anything significant in cash. Undo law enforcement's ridiculous powers to sieze your property without trial and sell it for their profit. End racial profile stops that result in drug searches.
It's not some Bush or Republican plot. They're just trying to do to terrorists what we've been doing to drug users and dealers for a really long time. The elimination of our rights has come from both parties, as they've both controlled Congress and the White House over the time this has occurred. If you're mad at Bush personally about the Patriot Act, you're blinding yourself to the fact that it passed the Senate 98-1 [senate.gov]. No party or president has a monopoly on favoring expedience over principle. While Brave Democratic Senators stand up against these largely meaningless provisions of the Patriot Act, no person in any party is making any move to restore the rights we've already had stolen from us.
This Patriot Act crap is mouse nuts compared to what Congress and the courts have done to our rights in order to stop demon weed over the past two decades. I'll be impressed with your clarity of vision when you start being mad about the stuff that's important.
Re:Gulag's? (Score:0, Insightful)
An over-reaction is exactly what one would expect from such an ridiculous statement. They depended on the average American being so ignorant that nobody would know the definition of the word. Well, Americans are not that ignorant, and we remember what gulags are and how many people actually died in Soviet gulags.
Amnesty International IS a leftist organization. Either you're on their side or you're too stupid to know that.
The men at Gitmo are prisoners of war and they're being treated better than any POWs is the history of the world. Their main complaints are about mistreating their "holy" book. Give me a fucking break! Go to ANY Islamic country in the world and find a Christian Bible in one of their prisons. If you do, then get back to me and I may listen to your ranting. Until then, you're just pissing in the wind.
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm actually a registered republican, but as of late I've been feeling pretty out of touch with the party and by the current use of the word I guess I'm now a liberal (just a little background).
I cannot speak for others but my rational for liking or disliking a law or ammendment has nothing to do with it being "convienient" or not. I have a very simple test if I like it or not in cases like this. Does the law/ammendment grant more/expand rights and freedom or does it limit/take away rights and freedom? That is it!
If it gives more rights to people, then its good and I'm all for it. If it limits or takes away rights, then I'm against it. Simple as that. For example, Amendment XIII - Slavery Abolished, Amendment XIV - Citizenship rights, Amendment XV - Race no bar to vote, Amendment XIX - Women's suffrage. Those are all good. Amendment XVIII - Liquor abolished. That is bad.
Now I'm not an anti-patriot act nazi. Most of it is actually pretty common sense stuff, but there are some BAD parts as well. If this article is correct is seems they are expanding the bad parts instead of repealing them as we all hoped.
I really hope being against this type of expansion of the patriot act isn't a conservitive/liberal issue. It'd hope we could all agree this is not in our best interest and work together to try to convey those feelings to those in congress.
Re:The other way around (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't believe it's possible to make a difference in the US unless you have lot's of money or maybe own a company that makes voting machines.
Re:A show of hands... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:4, Insightful)
Considering the majority of Americans are categorized as "overweight" or "obese", please define "not enough food".
In the U.S. the majority of the attitude is defined by apathy, "Praise Jesus!" and "pass the french fries".
The only revolution in sight is the one from Nintendo.
-Charles
Re:In Soviet America... (Score:1, Insightful)
And oh my GOD am I glad thats true. A socialist society is pretty close to hell on earth in my view. How bland and dull that society would be.
America: No longer a Republic (Score:3, Insightful)
Can someone who isn't already a Libertarian tell me what a republic is? I thought not. On the surface they look the same- they both vote. But in a republic you have RIGHTS some of which are inalienable and others which are granted by consitutions. No one may violate your rights without first going through the steps ("Due Process")
It is in a democracy that you have no rights, though there are votes. The majority may vote themseves any privialge they wish. They can vote your wife, mother, or sister to be community property. Such an act is repugnant to a republic.
With the Patriot Act, and the subsequent expansion, we are venturing down a road where "Due Process" is a mere inconviennce or completely disregardable. Forget rights, lets turn this into a demoracy because it is more convienent for the governement. Hogwash. Governing was never meant to be easy. I'll show you "easy governing" it's called a dictatorship. WE CANNOT ALLOW THIS TO CONTINUE. Due Process is a requirement of any "republic".
Stop the slippage now. Write your senators and represenatives. Vote Libertarian. Restore the Republic!
"So this is how liberty dies? With thunderous applause?" - Amadalia, SWIII:RotS
Re:Short said: (Score:4, Insightful)
Just because it is fuzzy at the edges doesn't mean we should throw out the concept. The UN declaration of human rights is a good place to look. The US constitution another. They do not exhaustively enumerate them, but they are some of them. You are deliberately clouding the subject by picking an issue where two human rights (the rights of the mother to decide over her own body and the rights of the unborn child) clash. There is no such unclarity here.
The judicial power of the USA lies with the courts. To grant or not grant a search warrant (read: a temporary suspension of normal civil rights, just like imprisonment) is a judicial decision. If the FBI is granted that power, they are both the investigators and the courts. Even though they are a lesser court which do not pass sentences, they are still exercising judicial power. The FBI are not a fair and independent court by any standard, and so this obviously violates human rights.
Kjella
Re:A show of hands... (Score:5, Insightful)
And how many of you KNOW your house has not been the target of a 'sneak and peek' operation?
That's what I thought.
Re:A show of hands... (Score:4, Insightful)
When it happens to you or your family, it is too late to act.
Overreaction my ass - Amnesia International (Score:1, Insightful)
Amnesty's Amnesia [washingtonpost.com]
Hyperbole and Human Rights [washingtonpost.com]
You can't call Applebaum and Dionne apologists for W, either.
Unfortunately, registration is required, so here's some tidbits:
"Why do President Bush's critics make life so easy for him?"
Why does gulag matter? The word refers to the vast machinery of political subjugation created by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union and comes from the acronym for Glavnoe Upravlenie Lagerei , or Main Camp Administration. As my Post colleague Anne Applebaum noted in her Pulitzer Prize-winning book, "Gulag," it eventually came to refer to "the system of Soviet slave labor itself, in all its forms and varieties."
These included "labor camps, punishment camps, criminal and political camps, women's camps, children's camps, transit camps," Applebaum wrote. Gulag also came to stand for "the Soviet repressive system itself," including "the arrests, the interrogations, the transport in unheated cattle cars, the forced labor, the destruction of families, the years spent in exile, the early and unnecessary deaths."
"A few years ago I spent several days sitting in the back of a library in London, reading through newsletters, pamphlets and other accounts of Soviet prison conditions published in the 1970s and '80s by Amnesty International. Sometimes these reports were remarkably detailed, testifying to the extraordinary ability of prisoners to smuggle out their stories. One included the memorable observation that on Sept. 13, 1979, the prisoner Zhukauskas "found a white worm" in his soup. A more harrowing 1987 news release told the story of the hunger strike and prison death of dissident writer Anatoly Marchenko. His widow, denied a death certificate or a proper funeral, wrote his name in ballpoint pen on his makeshift grave."
"Amnesty, in other words, was an organization that once knew the meaning of the word "gulag." Amnesty also once knew the importance of political neutrality. On its Web site, the organization still describes itself as "independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion." In the Cold War era, this neutrality was important, since it prevented the organization's publications, whether on prison food or prison deaths, from being seen as propaganda for one side or another.
I don't know when Amnesty ceased to be politically neutral or at what point its leaders' views morphed into ordinary anti-Americanism. But surely Amnesty's recent misuse of the word "gulag" marks some kind of turning point. In the past few days, not only has Amnesty's secretary general, Irene Khan, called the U.S. prison for enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, "the gulag of our times," but Amnesty's U.S. director, William Schulz, has agreed that U.S. prisons for enemy combatants are "similar at least in character, if not in size, to what happened in the gulag." In an interview, Schulz also said that foreign governments should prosecute U.S. officials, as if they were the equivalent of the Soviet Union's criminal leadership."
"Amnesty, by misusing language, by discarding its former neutrality, and by handing the administration an easy way to brush off "ridiculous" accusations, also deprives itself of what should be its best ally. The United States, as the world's largest and most powerful democracy, remains, for all its flaws, the world's best hope for the promotion of human rights. If Amnesty still believes in its stated mission, its leaders should push American democratic institutions to influence U.S. policy for the good of the world, and not attack the American government for the satisfaction of their own political faction."
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:2, Insightful)
That is, do you have an alternative that *doesn't* eventually devolve into a totalitarian state run by a select elite?
An apropos poem that sums up the folly of your (Score:3, Insightful)
thinking:
First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.
Pastor Martin Niemöller
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:3, Insightful)
Sound like a classical liberal to me. Many today call these people libertarians, since the term "liberal" has been coopted by leftists.
My new empire! (Score:4, Insightful)
As a german I must say we had this before, a democrcy being turned into a dictatorship and I think that's where Lucas borrowed from in the prequels. I can see some of these tendencies in the US too. And I must say I am worried...
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:3, Insightful)
How the hell did this get marked insightful?
Tim McVeigh was bugged by the Federal government. Maybe we should dismantle that after he brought his gripe to our attention with the OKC bombing.
The white-supremacists who burned those black churches a couple of years ago were probably bugged by all the black people in the country. Perhaps we should deport them.
A lot of arab-muslims seem to be bugged by the fact that we do not govern ourselves by Sharia law, women in the US vote, drive, and sometimes dress immodestly, we are a nation of infidels etc. etc. -- perhaps we should become an Islamic state to appease them...
You have to do what you believe is right, and not be swayed by people who try to make a point by murdering innocents.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
A little study of history shows us that point comes at no reasonable compromise.
Furthermore, not everyone is even INTERESTED in reasonable compromise.
Re:Where are our right wing fan boys? (Score:1, Insightful)
Bush and his ilk have taken a once prosperous populace and forced us all to fund a war the majority of people find leaves a bad taste in their mouth. And to believe I actually once spent six years in the same military. Had I been in now, I would be in real trouble, as I don't believe in what we are doing and where we are going.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:3, Insightful)
I see what you're saying, but a lot of people don't realize that this country WAS built by people whose common ground was saying "You're doing it wrong" and who worked out the details later.
And in this case, the "patriot" act is an act of treason. I don't care how thought out the details are, they're pushing this country and the world in the wrong direction.
The stupid traitors here are the congresscritters who are pushing this, and the ones who are allowing it to happen.
And as for details, I'd far rather risk my life by letting a few terrorists go free than have everything this nation is supposed to stand for destroyed in the name of "security". We don't need the "patriot" act. We never did.
Re:America's been through worse and survived (Score:3, Insightful)
The rest of the post was relatively well-argued and lucid, but this... Dude, what have you been smoking?
Do USians really believe this? Has america really become so insular that even apparently-intelligent, eloquent citizens think they and their ~300 year-old country invented something as ancient and basic as democracy?
And, of course (despite the fact I agree with the rest of what you said), you do realise you've just negated any good points you made by demonstrating clearly you have no idea what you're talking about, right?
Re:In Soviet America... (Score:1, Insightful)
I think that this thread has missed the point about Soviet America. We are now at a time when Russia is travelling in one direction and America is travelling in the other. Those that say that Russia is not democratic are currently correct but that does not mean that they always will be. Russia a world apart from what it was 20 or even 10 years ago and so is the US. No one in the US would have dreamed this possible 20 years ago and here it is. America is rapidly losing the shread of democracy that it had and is becoming globally famous for forcing its political views on other countries at the point of a gun just as Russia once did. Democracy is an ideology just like Socialism as you do not really get a free vote, someone choses who you can chose between. It is not really different to the system in Russia or China. I did not meet anyone in China that was unhappy with their political system, yet before I went I read many stories of what it was like that turned out to be complete rubbish. The country was full of educated, happy people that would laugh at me for believing stupid propoganda. The main difference between us and them is that they know it is all propoganda yet most of us think that what we read is the truth.
Russia is making it easier to visit and the US is rapidly tightening its borders. It will soon be more closed than Russia was. I know that it was easier to get into Moscow last year than it is to get into the US today with fingerprints and photos etc. Russian people are getting new freedoms each day as quickly as US citizens are losing them.
We may not be there yet but do not shout too loudly as we are moving quickly.
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:5, Insightful)
And you, will sit in jail for being a raving moron. Why was he modded insightful? Other then to show "This is not how you should act."
Here are steps you can take:
Protest the law
Write your senator/representative/governer/presidnt (threaten to not vote for them if they vote for this amendment...and then follow through.)
Sign a petition of as many people as you can get (registered voters preferred)
Complain
Do not prove them right (by breaking the law)
Use the media to your advantage
Get into politics, modify the laws yourself
I guess since the Constitution does not say anything about drinking and driving you go drink and drive right? I guess because the constitution does not mention anything about getting car insurance you don't have any but still own a car right?
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:3, Insightful)
That part?
Funny that people think the power rests in the executive branch.
Re:What I Want To Know Is... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ducking and covering. They're busy being beaten about the head and face with the term "judicial activism."
Nobody here gets it. At all. (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that people are stupid. That's all. Personally, yes, I would love to have the freedom to say and think and do whatever I like, but I'm totally unconvinced that people in the US or anywhere else are intellectually equipped to handle anything remotely like freedom.
If you're one of the people who actually thinks logically and rationally about things: sorry, but you're in a very small minority, which would explain why elections don't turn out the way you'd like.
Actually.... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Don't panic! (Score:3, Insightful)
Moderate republicans and progressive democrats need to simply point to the United States' noble origins -- Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, all progressive atheists who believed in the rights of man over the rights of religion. Religion mixed with government is *anti-america*, always has been and always will be!
Note: This does not preclude men of faith from taking office, but their oath is to their country first and faith second. If they can't make this commitment, then they should not be in government.
Re:All this because of 9/11? (Score:4, Insightful)
There are around 25,000 certified civilian deaths in Iraq as a result of the invasion.
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:5, Insightful)
If this takes away rights you had, then conservatives [webster.com] should be against it.
Re:I disagree w/the traitor statement (Score:3, Insightful)
Dissent is dead and buried. Sure, while you might not automatically be arrested attending a protest, you can be guaranteed that the people in power will ignore you, and that their cronies and financiers (who control the media) will either marginalize you and your cause or portray you in the worst possible light.
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:5, Insightful)
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
That's the part that the Patriot Act is trying to sweep under the rug.
Re:Gulag's? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:4, Insightful)
Have you tried NOT bombing them for say, one whole year?
Because that hasn't happened once in my entire lifetime.
A little study of history shows us that point comes at no reasonable compromise.
Furthermore, not everyone is even INTERESTED in reasonable compromise.
And you are right, many people, the U.S. government, for example, are not interrested in reasonable compromise. It's "do as we say, not as we do" while they kill with their own bombs at a ratio of 10 to 1 in reaction to a terrorist bombing.
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:In Soviet America... (Score:2, Insightful)
NSDAP was just a name. The party may have started out with Socialism or the concerns of workers in mind, but over the years that went by the wayside. Hitler's government was Totalitarian, not Socialist. And the term "Nazi [etymonline.com]" was derogatory and not favored by the party.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:4, Insightful)
Having people pledge alliegence to the Country they belong to is a bad thing? That's brainwashing?
Thank you for demonstrating what a huge failure the U.S. educational system is. You have demonstrated that you can't even critically regard a topic you have lived with all your life as well as a failure to understand the history behind the pledge of allegiance. It was written by a socialist who wanted to celebrate columbus arriving in the Americas. It originally had different text and did not include "under god" even though the author was a minister, and originally everyone did the whole right-arm salute thing at the end, but then we decided we looked too similar to the nazis and changed that too. Kinda interesting the parallels with the last part huh? The Nazis used patriotism as a tool to control Germany, as a result a lot of people surrendered their will and critical thinking to the government and did horrible things, all the while thinking it was "for the greater good" of the German nation.
Pledging to uphold and ethical or moral principal is one thing, pledging allegiance to a country or document, either of which can be remade to do horrible things is foolish and dishonorable. Indoctrinating children into believing that they have to align their beliefs and actions with those of the country in which they happen to be born, or for that matter eliciting an oath from someone who is too young to understand and be bound by such a thing is wretchedly unethical. It's like a parent making their four-year-old swear to always do exactly what uncle Tom says, no matter what, without considering whether what he says to do is ethical or not. Blind obedience is not a virtue.
Re:Short said: (Score:3, Insightful)
3)Serve said politicians a nice spoonfull of their own medicine.
4)Don't forget to videotape them.
5)Wait, while this shit is voted back out of excistance.
You got modded funny. But how do you think that the "intelligence community" gets to make politicians give them more and more power? They know your secrets, and they'll keep them secret... for a price.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of countries in the western world don't govern themselves by Sharia law, women in those countries vote, drive and dress immodestly; but they haven't been attacked by islamic terrorists nor are they hated by the islamic world as you americans are.
Perhaps it might be that those are not the real reasons. Maybe it's because all of these other countries don't invade other arabic (or non arabic) countries just to benefit their oil industry, nor have they supported oppresive dictatorships just because those dictatorships benefit U.S. interests in their region. Or maybe because the whole U.S. pro-freedom/pro-democracy propaganda is pure bullshit, because the U.S. goverment has not supported democratic elected goverments if they were against U.S. interests. (google for "Salvador Allende")
Re:In Soviet America... (Score:1, Insightful)
> This is how liberty dies. With thunderous applause.
Re:The other way around (Score:2, Insightful)
Where's my passport?
WWII Generation (was: My new empire!) (Score:5, Insightful)
Their children and grand children haven't learned these lessons of history as well as some of our contemporaries in Germany, Russia and other parts of Europe. As the leading example, no pun intended, we have today a child of a Veteran of World War II in the White House, leading the charge to trade a reduction in civil rights in this country for promised increases in security. On the bright side, there is a debate going on here, a public debate. Consider Bruce Schneier's recent book Beyond Fear [schneier.com], which seeks to help us learn how to consider the trade-offs that security decisions require at all levels, personal and societal.
The terrorists who struck The World Trade Center want a world run by an archaic, theocratic totalitarianism with eye-for-an-eye style justice meted out by them and their hand-picked like-minded sociopaths. When we give up civil rights to fight terrorism, the terrorists gain ground. However, we have many checks and balances here and we are a very long way from sliding into totalitarianism of any sort here in the U.S. Unfortunately there are many people who don't see the slippery slope when they step out upon it.
Back on the bright side, today we have more interaction between the people of different countries than ever before. The internet provides opportunity for dialog between the citizens of different countries which is historically unprecedented. German students come to the U.S. and talk to their friends about history, Russian emigrants in the U.S. talk to their friends about what's happening now in Russia, and how strange it is to see things like secret subpoenas and detention without charges and trials in the U.S. I've heard examples of both groups express surprise in conversations with young Americans ignorant of history, "Don't you realize this is how Fascism starts?" With fear. Yoda got that right, for sure. As a citizen of the United States I would like to thank you for remembering and reminding us. There are many of us here who appreciate your patience. We are a young country, but an old Democracy. With your help, we will make it through this without sliding into an Orwellian [wikipedia.org] 1984, nor a Fascistic [wikipedia.org] 1934.
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:In Soviet America... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gulag's? (Score:5, Insightful)
Amnesty is doing the same job that the Administration has congratulated them for many times in the recent past. In other words Amnesty is quite correctly asking the Administration to follow standard humanitarian monitoring (something that is tolerated by many Middle East countries) and a qaint convention called "due process". This is so the rest of the planet can go half way to beliving that statement and as a result may put a little less effort in trying to kill you. Amnesty have done the planet a great service by asking the question loudly, unfortunately the rest of world simply shuddered when it saw the reaction. If supporting due process and accountability is a "leftist" position then I'm a pinko-eco-terrorist and your a baby-eating facist from the ministry of information.
"Go to ANY Islamic country"
Are you happy to wait until your country is worse than Saudi Arabia before you stop swallowing "trust us, were the government" statements?
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:5, Insightful)
A little study of history shows us that point comes at no reasonable compromise.
I can think of quite a few cases where compromises have been reached:
1. The end of apartheid in South Africa
2. Northern Ireland
Neither of those two solutions were perfect, but in both cases terrorism was effectively stopped by the two parties making a compromise.
Now please name a few cases from history where a compromise could not be reached and where terrorism was then stopped by all out warfare.
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is Slashdot! Do you actually believe your "right too free speech and redress of grievances" have been stifled for "political dissent"? If Slashdot really affects your life that much then you need to get out more. Besides, Slashdot seems to lean left so what were you expecting? If most of us hung out at with freepers we would be tormented, and it would be expected.
Sometimes you have to sit back and realize this is a forum, not the government, not work, and not your next door neighbor. Get a grip.
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:3, Insightful)
Repeat after me: The terrorists don't give a shit what happens inside America. The terrorists don't give a shit what happens inside America.
Got that?
They are bugged by U.S. foreign policy. They are bugged by U.S. military bases in the Middle East. The are bugged by the support that the U.S. gives to Israel etc. etc.
This "they hate us because of our freedoms" is 100% bullshit.
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What I Want To Know Is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Reaganites control the horizontal AND the vertical.
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:1, Insightful)
In formal logic this is referred to as the "straw man fallacy." The poster didn't actually advance this behavior. By (incorrectly) suggesting that this is the logical conclusion of what he was saying, and demonstrating that it is absurd, you are seducing the inattentive mind into believing that what he was really advancing is absurd.
This is one of the most famous fallacies because of how well it works. Caught you this time, though.
Incidentally...
Greater men than you and I have said things like "An unjust law is no law at all," and "one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."
As an aside...food for thought...if YOUR religion (whatever it may be) was made illegal, would you still practice it in secret?
Proposed Constitutional Amendment (Score:2, Insightful)
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
If we only had some language like that in the Constitution we'd be protected from these expanding government powers. But I doubt that enough elected officials or the people would ever support such a radical notion.
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:In Soviet America... (Score:2, Insightful)
I find it very amusing that most of the replies I get of things that the "evil" Russians are doing that make them not qualify for a democracy, are done by perfectly "legitimate" democracies worldwide. Being myself a citizen of a very new-found democracy. I can tell you one thing, It IS very corrupt, and cencorship does take place. It's just that now everybody KNOWS it's happening. Maybe it is just because it is a new democracy. But articles like this convince me otherwise.
Let's just face it, all governments do these things. Just like there is no true communism, there is no true democracy.
Anyway, besides Russia, what democracy is NOT sliding towards socialism? They all are.
The main reason I see for this? The majority is poor. They like getting free stuff. Socalism/Communism promises free stuff (Even though it never delivers). Thus popular vote (In the world according to Chatsubo) will always favour those who promise more socialistic behaviour from government.
Look at the way politicians canvas. They PROMISE YOU STUFF! "We'll build more houses for the poor", "We'll provide cheaper medical care" etc. etc. etc.
Like I said, they never actually deliver (where I'm from), but then again, the majority is usually not all that smart anyway (Not necessarily the same group of people who are poor, which makes it even worse...)
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:2, Insightful)
In addition, even if a politician is found to be a bad guy, he's somebody's bad guy. "Sure, this guy is a crook, but he's better than those crooks from the other party."
I haven't resigned myself to passive acceptance, though. Often, civil disobedience is the only appropriate tool available to us. I believe that electoral politics is really just a clever way of tying up our political energy, which prevents us from focusing on ways that we could bring about meaningful and lasting progress in our society.
(I think it's time to take my meds.
Re:Gulag's? (Score:2, Insightful)
Fake Conservatives (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:and has this impacted you? (Score:2, Insightful)
For me, this is what started it all: http://www.justacitizen.com/articles_documents/May 14-05-Gagged%20but%20not%20Dead.htm [justacitizen.com] It's unreal.
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:4, Insightful)
I also completely agree about accountability. I however would extend that accountability past the high-level administrator and also include any congressman who for it or president who signs it. I mean what is the compelling reason for this? If there is something that important (national security) and you have the proof, you can get a judge to issue a warrent in a matter of minutes. Remember, this isn't about "in pursuit" cases which are already allowed to handle situations where a matter of minutes make a difference. These are about getting bank records, etc. We've moved past the days of Pony Express here! We have cell phones, faxes, email, etc, etc. The only reason to not put this before a judge is if you really don't have the probable cause the law requires.
I understand you are comfortable with all this and don't think they will be abused, but what do you base that on? Look at any regime which has welded these powers and you will see plenty of abuses (some quite shocking). I know this is the USA and all and we are supposedly the "good guys", but I find this type of blind faith quite disturbing.
It's all to fight terrorism .. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes you think these guys have spent a LOT of time studying the Nazi takeover in Germany and 1984.
Who wants to bet that Co-Intel Pro (or the modern equivalent) is already up and running again.
Me must give up our freedoms to keep our freedoms. Hah, I'll take rampant terrorism over THEIR brand of freedom.
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:2, Insightful)
The government's War on Drugs, improper care for the mentally ill, and welfare system that often encourages dumb behavior (such as having many kids to receive more money or poorly timed withdraw of benefits upon re-employment) promotes poverty.
Dumb choices such as buying Twinkies and soda pop rather than meat and milk causes the poor nutrition. Trading food stamps for recreational drugs is another choice that leads to bad diet.
Re:In Soviet America... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:America's been through worse and survived (Score:3, Insightful)
Either you support Essential Liberties or you don't. Either you think trading Liberty for Security is a nifty idea or you don't. Either Liberty is a Luxury or a Necessity. Thousands of years of human history have demonstrated how well the philosophy of authoritarianism works. But we're about to re-learn that lesson here, in America.
Re:Fake Conservatives (Score:3, Insightful)
Real "liberals" are entirely consistent with real "conservatism", without the straitjacket of "no change" in the brand name. Liberalism is focused soley on more freedom, especially freedom from the government. In Jefferson's time, the government (the king) was the primary means of executing all the oppression that modern conservatives say they challenge. Jefferson, an applied philosopher with much success to recommend his methods, was able to produce much of the "conservative" agenda through revolutionary change. Modern liberals often differ from his central exercise of limiting government power. But Jefferson didn't have to deal with the privatized power of corporations, empowered by government to oppress people once the government lost its franchise. Jefferson's work stated clearly that people have rights, and we create governments to protect them. Now that we have corporations, all we've got is government to protect our rights from those corporations. So liberals find that the smallest possible government is larger than was possible in Jefferson's time. Of course, there are all kinds of people calling themselves "liberals" who just want freedom for themselves, at someone else's expense. Or just less freedom for everyone, as they join the means of protecting our rights, without regard to the ends which destroy them. Fake conservatives have no monopoly on orwellian exploitation of labels for recruitment and promotion propaganda.
Libertarians also have ranks swollen with people hiding behind an conveniently marketable propaganda mask. I've known many, including registered party members, in New York, California, and points between. Usually, they're people who want political license to have power over neighbors who won't exercise all their rights and responsibilities. Libertarians who can't recognize the qualitative quantum leaps in results from aggregating personal actions on a huge scale. Gun control is a clear example: Libertarians are often people who want a "get out of jail free card" in case they decide to shoot someone. Corporate governance is another: lots of Libertarians want a monopoly of their own, so they protect the monopoly rights of others who've already got one. Neither of those principles respect universal freedom, or the rule of law. But they're popular marketing techniques for getting new Libertarians by registration, fake libertarians by agenda.
Another Option (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Anyone get the feeling... (Score:3, Insightful)
Real terrorists are Evil. There is no moral ambiguity here. They need to be hunted down and destroyed. They cannot be reasoned with -- you've seen the propaganda videos, those young men and women suicide bombers have been completely brainwashed.
On the other hand, they only need to be stopped when they're in a position to harm our citizens. I don't support unilaterally going to war in Iraq. Yeah, they harbor terrorists, but they're half a world away. When they enter the US, bust 'em hard, but don't throw away thousands of lives in some desert somewhere out of some sort of misplaced revenge motive.
Judicial Review Still Applies (Score:3, Insightful)
Funny how when you learn more about something, it's often not as bad as it first seems.
Simply Brilliant (Score:5, Insightful)
The terrorists who struck The World Trade Center want a world run by an archaic, theocratic totalitarianism with eye-for-an-eye style justice meted out by them and their hand-picked like-minded sociopaths.
You know why? Because from my perspective, those hard line "conservatives" (very large air quotes) who run our government speak about this daily...
A slogan of the Texas republican party (of whom George W Bush is the most prominent member) states "The Republican Party of Texas affirms that the United States is a Christian nation." Several right-wing organizations actively state "Jesus Christ is Lord in all aspects of life, including civil government." Among other things, the push for Christian Theocracy is more thinly veiled at the top reaches of our power structure (and actually spoken openly in some circles) than it has been since 15th century Puritans.
In addition, today's "conservatives" are leading the push to increased usage of the Death penalty and increasing mandatory sentences while reducing or in some cases completely removing the judiciary's ability to diverge from these mandatory requirements due to extenuating circumstances. This is the first time in America, at least since the Salem Witch trials where the punishment for certain crimes far outstrips the damage or harm caused by that crime. One great example involves "crimes against children". While there are serious crimes perpetrated, the sentencing for such crimes has grown significantly out of proportion with actual research findings showing harm and danger to children. A simple pat on the butt or even a hand on the shoulder can net a mandatory minimum sentence of more than 10 years, though studies show that non-penetrative abuse is statistically shown to have very small long term effects on children when the issue is treated with open discussion, trust and patience.
Small-time drug usage also has been shown to have statistically very little negative effect on society as a whole, but is punished with ever-increasing sentences that far outstrip the crime.
On top of this, top officials in our government often speak of the courts or opposition parties as "getting in the way of progress" when they strike down things like the patriot II and DMCA or the Internet Decency Act... when in reality they are struck down because they grossly infringe on our rights as citizens and people. The proper reaction is to be embarassed that they would make the MISTAKE of outstripping their power,but instead they vow revenge and simply re-write the bills with more "sneaky" language to see if they can get them passed in a second round of voting.
Then, they push laws giving the executive branch power to overrule (war powers act) and oversee (2001 PROTECT act) the legislative branch and judicial branch. Soon, they are appointing chairmen sympathetic to their cause regardless of their qualifications to handle the job and instituting collective organizations through wich they can better consolidate the power base and coordinate covert activities and actions. And a small bit of trivia, KGB loosely translates to "Comittee for Motherland Security" through which most Soviet intelligence and covert operations took place. That was Stalin's equivalent to consolidate his power into a single state entity that reported directly to him rather than to other arms of his power base.
I won't even go into the list of seven countries who have directly violated UN resolutions in the last 5 years (S Korea, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, US) or the countries that have executed minors in the last 25 years (Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, US) or the first-world countries that currently prisioners without trial and without recourse (uhhh US, maybe Russia, China, if they count) or should I point out that the US was the second greatest contributor to what are referred to today as "terrorist organizations", as recent
Re:Home of the brave... (Score:3, Insightful)
WTF?
If anything, this place is pretty right-wing. Hackers tend towards anarchism and libertarianism; most of the politics I've seen here, and indeed in this discussion, have been along the lines that government should get the hell out of our lives as much as possible.
Slashdotters, it seems, would rather take their chances with the terrorists than entrust more power to central government. That seems quite a right-wing notion to me; the left tends to prefer government intervention to solve social problems.
come, come, let's be reasonable (Score:3, Insightful)
But so what? It's proof one is doing something good, I say, if people try to use a common fallacy (claiming someone is a troll to invalidate what he says, while, even *IF* he was a troll, it still wouldn't say anything about the validity of *what* he said) to shut you up.
That said - and mind you, I have had experience with (the stiffling of) free speech, as one can see on my blog - I do think slashdot is one of the greatest systems invented yet, to allow ALL people their free speech. It is true: things that are considered crap get a low rating, and people can decide to skip that, but in principle, you ARE given the possibility to speak your mind and to be read by the public that wishes so.
Look at this thread: even while you are on 'troll, -1' I still read your post, and I still replied.
So, first of all, I doubt you are being targeted for political reasons; slashdot may have a 'libertarian' viewpoint most of the time, there are enough zealots from the right and left (both to the extremes and not) to be pretty balanced on the pure political side.
But, even if you *are* being targeted for political reasons, it is incorrect to claim your right to free speech has been taken away. If they would *delete* it, yes, then you might have a point. But because the readers rate your postings low, does not mean you are derived of your free speech right on this forum, IMHO.