161–170 of 273 posts
And they were mocking the reactionary Patriot Act. Learning from the past is hard. Or in this case, simply neglected for convenience. Cui bono?
Even if they pass the law to ban Tor, you could still use it through an SSH tunnel, which is effectively undetectable.
> obfsproxy is a tool that attempts to circumvent censorship, by transforming the Tor traffic between the client and the bridge. This way, censors, who usually monitor traffic between the client and the bridge, will see innocent-looking transformed traffic instead of the actual Tor traffic.
It is not the first time France has done things like this. In the 90s, France outlawed encryption completely, with prison sentence for breaking the ban. As tools like ssh became common, this became less and less practical. For example the supercomputer center at my university had to develop a one time password scheme for the French users (printed out and sent to them by mail), since ssh was strictly forbidden there.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear." -- Bertrand Russell But if you think this is something, wait until Le Pen comes to power. It's not just France either. Authoritarianism is rife in much of the rest of Europe, and the rest of the world, for that matter. France is a particularly interesting case, however. As on the one hand th…
Dont make me laugh. The revolutionaries were talking about fraternity while chopping heads by the 100 000s. Study your History my friend. France has always had an authoritarian face.
>The Paris massacre of 1961 was a massacre in Paris on 17 October 1961, during the Algerian War (1954–62). Under orders from the head of the Parisian police, Maurice Papon, the French National Police attacked a demonstration of some 30,000 pro-National Liberation Front (FLN) Algerians.
>After 37 years of denial, in 1998 the French government acknowledged 40 deaths, although there are estimates of over 200.
>Many demonstrators died when they were violently herded by police into the River Seine, with some thrown from bridges after being beaten unconscious. Other demonstrators were killed within the courtyard of the Paris police headquarters after being arrested and delivered there in police buses.
Here's hoping history doesn't repeat itself.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The more cynical view is that the government perpetrates the attack to provide the opportunity, ala 9/11 conspiracy theories.
I don't subscribe to that view. There is enough misery in the world that you can always find a suitable event without having to concoct your own. All it takes is the press to magnify an event out of proportion and voila: instant crisis.
The French regime again showing its ugly authoritarian and statist face with these draconian bills. It wasn't enough for them to put environmentalists under house arrest and subject innocent people to humiliating mandatory reporting to different police stations 3 times a day or obligatory curfew for certain people or neighborhoods without any judicial oversight. [0] I knew it from the beginning that they would abuse…
The police found more than 300 illegal weapons during their searches. People that were put under house arrests have a file on them because of their links with terrorists or terrorist organizations. I don't feel the government is abusing the state of emergency, I just feel they should have done all this before the attacks.
Joking aside, if activists committed any crime, you follow the legal procedures and challenge them in a court of law before a judge and let the defendants present their case in a free trial and see if any of the charges you brought against them sticks, otherwise shut up and leave them alone because if you start allowing police to hand out sentences without legal recourse to challenge these arbitrary punishments, you'll descend slowly into a police state and horrific society to live within.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> no book of religion pushes people to grab a knife or a gun to harm others Yes they do. From the old testament (Deuteronomy 13, 6-13) http://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/13.htm --- If your brother, the son of your mother, or your son or your daughter or the wife you embrace or your friend who is as your own soul entices you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which neither you nor your fathers have known…
> Granted, I have taken the quote out of context. But so do religious fanatics. You can't hand-wave this sort of thing away, since anyone can make the Bible say anything they want by selectively quoting it. You are doing more harm than good here. The Old Testament law was set up to create a theocracy. Many infractions of the law were punishable by death. Contrast that to Jesus' teaching: "You have heard that it was s…
The problem right here : context. If the teachings of the Bible (or the Quran) are bound to a specific context then they shouldn't be worshiped like some universal and perfect teachings. Following these teachings then means following moral values that were only valid 2000 or 1300 years ago, in a specific context. Obviously one cannot live in a modern society while following the Bible or the Koran to the letter. While (most) Christians acknowledge that fact, irregardless of their beliefs in a creator, that's not the case of every religious group.
That's basically my problem with religion. It's a travesty, it exploits the need for spirituality every man has by trying to impose some random moral values dictated by a "superior being" nobody but a prophet has access to, without even trying to satisfy that need for spirituality at first place (since we know nothing about that being except the fact that he is "our creator"). And since men are not omniscient of course these moral values are bound to the context in which they were chosen. Religion is not faith in (a) god, but more like faith in the teachings of a man that says he has seen god.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Hitler >Socialist Just because the Nazis called themselves National Socialists doesn't make them socialists. Communists and socialists were the first the Nazis sent to concentration camps.
I think that argument is pretty weak. Many of the millions that the Soviets sent to the gulags were socialists and communists, but that action doesn't make the Soviets or those they imprisoned and murdered not-communist or not-socialist. Communists and socialists have a long histories of bloody internecine conflicts.
The French regime again showing its ugly authoritarian and statist face with these draconian bills. It wasn't enough for them to put environmentalists under house arrest and subject innocent people to humiliating mandatory reporting to different police stations 3 times a day or obligatory curfew for certain people or neighborhoods without any judicial oversight. [0] I knew it from the beginning that they would abuse…
"Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear." -- Bertrand Russell But if you think this is something, wait until Le Pen comes to power. It's not just France either. Authoritarianism is rife in much of the rest of Europe, and the rest of the world, for that matter. France is a particularly interesting case, however. As on the one hand th…
Europe's recent trend towards democracy was never really more than a trend. Democracy requires peace to flourish, without it people are going to value strongman leadership. Europe has only very recently shook off the threat of war. Nobody expects another great war, but it still takes a few hundred years before democratic institutions become robust enough to resist all the different ways the area can slide back into tyranny. Europe is not yet one polity, but they're moving in that direction.
Once people start thinking of themselves as European first, and French / German / Italian / etc. second, that's when you know Europe is really ready for democracy. It takes a while. It wasn't that long ago that United States citizens thought of themselves as citizens of their state first, then of the Union, the civil war cured us of that defect.
Perhaps Europe needs one more war to draw them together. Maybe a few of them. With luck those wars won't have to be martial in nature.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm genuinely more afraid of the people who are afraid right now than I am of the people who they think I should be afraid of. The anti-Muslim rhetoric (e.g. yelling "All Muslims are terrorists" at town meetings) scares the hell out of me. How easily could that attitude be shifted towards any arbitrary group with just one or two tragic events?
On one hand, it's unquestionable that radical Islam is an aggressor that is funding and directing terror attacks. On the other hand, Muslims are people too, and it is extremely unjust to punish all Muslims for the actions of a radical sect. I think that Europe is in danger of lurching rightward and tempting the return of ethno-religious cleansing. Fascism is not pretty, and the danger for Europeans is real.
Right now, Muslims won't turn in their neighbors and children to the authorities if they're radicalized. It's only when they're more afraid of the consequences of not turning them in that extremism will finally begin to be purged from their communities.
As long as Muslims say "they're not REAL Muslims" and absolve themselves of what their neighbors and family members are doing, radicalism will never be eliminated.
Since extremist sects recruit from within moderate sects, the moderates need to be more diligent in truly eliminating the extremist element. That means more consequences to the community. Which is unfair, but it's either that or the rise of the 'Sixth Reich' in a generation because right now, we're just kicking the can down the road.
Disclaimer - this of course doesn't touch on the root causes of extremism, namely the Saudi state and its support of Wahhabism, as well as the overthrowing of several moderate states in the Middle East during the 20th century, as well as the demise of Arab Nationalism (and secularism) and rampant inequality and poverty in many Arab and Muslim countries. Unfortunately the proverbial Genie is out of the bottle...