RNC Calls For Halt To Unconstitutional Surveillance 523
Bob9113 writes "According to an article on Ars Technica, the Republican National Committee (RNC) has passed a resolution that "encourages Republican lawmakers to immediately take action to halt current unconstitutional surveillance programs and provide a full public accounting of the NSA's data collection programs." The resolution, according to Time, was approved by an overwhelming majority voice vote at the Republican National Committee's Winter Meeting General Session, going on this week in Washington, DC."
Re:even a broken clock... (Score:5, Interesting)
In another 10 years as more of the traditional GOP retires or is voted out, hopefully they get repaced by more libertarian leaning candidates, or even better the libertarian party will become one of the big 2.... (i can dream)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:even a broken clock... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:even a broken clock... (Score:4, Interesting)
Over 75% of the people I spoke with out of over 3000 said the number one thing they want is to cut spending, cut taxes, and reduce the reach of the federal government.
Unless it involves cutting our absurdly bloated defense department and DHS. Anything to keep us safe.
Re:Realization Dawns (Score:4, Interesting)
Were they? Sounds more like a rationalization or ex post facto justification for those wars. I would argue that they didn't exist at the proclaimed threat level that was presented, given the lack of any real attacks in the mentioned time frame.
We'll just ignore, like the GOP did, that the IRS went after "Occupy" groups as well, and that every group investigated did get its non-profit status eventually.
I know that people who hate Obama love to make baseless claims, so I'm going to have to ask you for some examples of this.
And they were ignored wholly from 2001 to 2008, then suddenly they became the biggest threat ever.
Watergate? (Score:3, Interesting)
Wait a minute. Weren't these the same people who broke into the Democratic Natl. Committee's headquarters seeking to pilfer with documents and information?
Re:even a broken clock... (Score:2, Interesting)
Before they die off, the baby boomers want their social security.
Basically our only hope is that all the drugs in the 60s and 70s, leaves them short lived now. Otherwise we're printing money.
Re: even a broken clock... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:even a broken clock... (Score:5, Interesting)
What a lot of people seem to be missing is that the GOP is in the middle of a transformation. I will not get into whether or not it is good or bad for the country or the party but the establishment republicans, those like romney or mccain are being pushed aside by more libertarian bent candidates.
Then how come McCain and then Romney were the presidential nominees? How come the rising stars that were supposed to be the next great Republican president were all fairly old school folks? How come the "more libertarian bent" rising star Paul Ryan is advocating what amount to the exact same policies Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich were pushing decades ago?
There are some people in the Republican Party who would really like it to not be the party who's primary demographic is old white people from the southeast. There are some people in the Republican Party who would really like it to not be as corrupt as it is (I'm not suggesting the Democrats are even close to saints in this regard). There are some people in the Republican Party who would like it to no longer be the party of bigotry. But right now, the core of the organization as a whole is a corrupt bunch of old white bigots from the southeast.
As far as the Republican's connection with libertarianism, they're libertarian whenever they're talking about tax rates, social welfare programs, or guns, but definitely not libertarian when it comes to military spending, personal freedoms, corporate subsidies (and subsidies disguised as tax loopholes), and religion.
Re:They now have proof that it can be abused (Score:2, Interesting)
"That, and there's a democrat in the white house they can try to blame the whole thing on."
What do you mean "TRY"?
Obama supports more government surveillance. He's said so. Hell, he said it again just the other day. And his purported "fixes" don't stop anything or slow it down, they just try to shift the blame.
Several government oversight bodies have ALL said this is unconstitutional and needs to be stopped. Who says nay? Obama and his cronies in the current administration. Nobody else. (Of course the NSA does, too, but they're just employees. They don't count.)
The hemorrhage may have begun under Bush, but Obama was the one who deliberately grew it to completely, hilariously, outrageous dimensions. Nobody else. He has no excuse that it was an accident either, because he has defended it publicly.
These are statements of fact. And here's one more:
When the Republicans have to rescue our "civil liberties" from Democrats, it's pretty damned clear that you have a bad administration.
Re: even a broken clock... (Score:5, Interesting)
libertarian
You keep using that word. I do not think you know what it means. Nor do I think people who call themselves libertarians really are libertarians. Many of them, for instance, are down with the small gov thing, but have no hesitation to stick their noses into a woman's health care decisions. Also do you guys really want to liquidate our National Parks, Federal Interstate system, etc, etc? Cause true libertarians believe that private business should own and run just about everything. As an unashamed Progressive I believe that there are some things that only big government can do well. History shows us what happened when free enterprise took care of (or, all to often, did not) everything, and it wasn't pretty. I for one do not want to go back.
Re:even a broken clock... (Score:4, Interesting)
"Undoubtedly some of the motivation behind a structure with states having power was due to the realities of a sparsely populated country and frontier, and recent bad experiences with a monarchy."
Great book: David Robertson, "The Original Compromise: What the Constitution's Framers Were Really Thinking". Basically it's a boiling-down of the Federalist Papers (notes from debates at the original Constitutional Convention). The point being, there was no overarching principle or methodology, our constitution is the end result of a 55-man scramble, argument, and horse-trading over whose interests would get the most power behind them. The prime mover, Madison, absolutely came in with a plan and coalition to basically make the states negligible and have one strong federal government; but the people who didn't agree with what his group would likely do with those powers resisted and ultimately fractured the coalition, with every state looking to defend its own competing interests (e.g., ship-building versus trading versus slaves, etc.). Southern states were all pro-strong federal government (anti-states) for a few weeks until it appeared that the feds would get the power to stop slavery, then they pivoted and started demanding defenses for state governments. No single principle was agreed on in general; it's a mixed business negotiation basically. Including intentionally ambiguous language in places to avoid prolonged argumentation that summer.
Re:even a broken clock... (Score:4, Interesting)
When you abdicate your role in a participatory democracy, of course you are going to get worst possible version of governance.
Nationalism is feudalism writ large. Libertarians would simply like it writ smaller, because they are sure that they are superior to the rest of us and will wind up lord of their own little fiefdom. A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the vast majority of them will wind up serfs, but math isn't their strong suit. Selfishness is.