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President Obama’s Dragnet

nytimes.com

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Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#91

Post by angersock »

anigbrowl wrote: post #88
angersock wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But remember, we have to disarm, because guns are evil you see. And because we can trust big brother, you see. The government knows what's best for us--after all, it knows everything about us. This is the sort of reason the wingnuts cry about guns and gubberment, and unfortunately, they're looking a bit less alarmist with each passing day.

Be realistic, neither the political right or the NRA exhibited the least bit of opposition to the Patriot Act at the time of its adoption; 2nd amendment types were too busy printing and buying bumper stickers such as the one below for their cars. http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f258/heyman1104/My%20Rivie...

An accurate and unfortunate picture--consider how many similarly silly baubles and propaganda pieces (Darwin fish, anyone?) are sold to people on the other side of the aisle. People are dumb and silly and tacky regardless of ideology.

I'm being perfectly realistic. Every time the topic comes up here on HN--one of the more rational places of discussion I've encountered--we see the same strong anti-gun sentiment come out, very frequently with the caveat that it's okay for the .gov and .mil to be armed while the citizenry is not.

We can't at once both be outraged at the erosions of privacy and civil liberties and at the same time flabbergasted at the idea that people lack the faith in their government to grant them a monopoly on force.

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#92

Post by anigbrowl »

rdouble wrote: post #52
cookingrobot wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not true in practice. You always need to file taxes to the US no matter where you live, but you only pay to the US if you paid less overseas (you pay the difference, you don't double pay). Almost any county you'd want to live in (except tax havens) will have higher taxes than the US.

You have to file taxes for 5-10 years even if you renounce your citizenship.

Not true. Renouncement does substantially restrict your ability to re-enter the US, however.

http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Expat...

The rule you are talking about applied only to expatriation between 2004-2008 and then only if you spent more than 30 days per year in the US after relinquishing citizenship.

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#93

Post by adventured »

anigbrowl wrote: post #88
angersock wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But remember, we have to disarm, because guns are evil you see. And because we can trust big brother, you see. The government knows what's best for us--after all, it knows everything about us. This is the sort of reason the wingnuts cry about guns and gubberment, and unfortunately, they're looking a bit less alarmist with each passing day.

Be realistic, neither the political right or the NRA exhibited the least bit of opposition to the Patriot Act at the time of its adoption; 2nd amendment types were too busy printing and buying bumper stickers such as the one below for their cars. http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f258/heyman1104/My%20Rivie...

The parent didn't mention the political right or the NRA. There are a massive number of gun rights supporters that do not fall into such convenient stereotypes.

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#94

Post by adventured »

te_chris wrote: post #80
vijayboyapati wrote: post #23

Question: At what point does the average statist admit that the libertarians (s)he has been belittling for so many years as tin-foil hat crackpots were far more savvy about the nature of the state than they were? Answer: never

Yes, never, because a completely unaccountable corporatocracy is not a suitable replacement. Social democrats like myself believe in the power of a transparent, strong, supportive, accountable and fundamentally democratic state and are not going to give up fighting for it. This isn't an argument to blow up the state in favour of an alternative which has proven itself often to be worse than the state in matters of pri…

Good luck combining a strong government, with an accountable one. Political power tends to corrupt toward not wanting to be accountable.

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#95

Post by adventured »

sp332 wrote: post #59
wslh wrote: post #28

I really think of Obama government as populism (disclaimer: I live in another country with a lot of populism). The IRS scandal is part of that. He plays nice cards in public but in secret he has another agenda. At one point you connect the dots when he plays the same tricks.

From what I've seen, Obama is pretty peeved about the IRS thing. Mainly because it spent a lot of political capital he needed for other projects... like this one.

No, they're not peeved at all. If he was, he'd be burning the IRS alive. They've spent all their effort so far on deflection, lying, covering-up, etc.

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#96

Post by anigbrowl »

adventured wrote: post #93
anigbrowl wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be realistic, neither the political right or the NRA exhibited the least bit of opposition to the Patriot Act at the time of its adoption; 2nd amendment types were too busy printing and buying bumper stickers such as the one below for their cars. http://i49.photobucket.com/albums/f258/heyman1104/My%20Rivie...

The parent didn't mention the political right or the NRA. There are a massive number of gun rights supporters that do not fall into such convenient stereotypes.

'Wingnuts' (which the GP did mention) is a colloquial term for the right wing populace.

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#97

Post by yread »

angersock wrote: post #85
pessimizer wrote: post #58

Aren't you suddenly getting terrified about what the dossier created by data mining every phone call, every email, every article on every website you read, every comment you've ever left, every book you ever bought, every library book that you ever took out, the magazines that you subscribe to, every cent you've ever spent by card and where it was spent, every place you've ever lived, every place where you worked, ev…

But remember, we have to disarm, because guns are evil you see. And because we can trust big brother, you see. The government knows what's best for us--after all, it knows everything about us. This is the sort of reason the wingnuts cry about guns and gubberment, and unfortunately, they're looking a bit less alarmist with each passing day.

Aha. So, now, since you haven't disarmed yet, your government is still afraid of you, right? And they wouldn't, say, break the constitution and unlawfully spy on all their citizens, now, would they? Oh wait, they do! So how did the guns prevent it?

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#98

Post by rhizome »

yahelc wrote: post #63
khuey wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2018. But it's exceedingly unlikely that she has a realistic challenger in either the primary or the general elections.

She'll be 85 in 2018. There's a decent chance she'll retire.

My pennies are on California AG Kamala Harris being groomed for the same role and purpose.

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#99

Post by rhizome »

f1nch3r wrote: post #55
mtoddh wrote: post #25

From the article: "The defense of this practice offered by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, who as chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is supposed to be preventing this sort of overreaching, was absurd. She said today that the authorities need this information in case someone might become a terrorist in the future." That second sentence is the one that really caught my eye: She said today that the au…

Precrime. Minority Report becomes more real every day.

It's not even Precrime, more like Maybecrime.

Re: President Obama’s Dragnet

#100

Post by rhizome »

angersock wrote: post #83
jurassic wrote: post #65

> The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue. Yes. Fuck you Mr. Obama, Mr. Bush, and everyone who ever voted for the PATRIOT Act. Failed promises on Gitmo, mideast conflicts, drone murders, and civil liberties/domestic spying. I hope they impeach him for failing to uphold the Constitution. I'm cynical, so I suspected this was probably happening all along. But my anger over this is still white hot.…

Did you vote for Ron Paul or one of the minority parties, or were you complicit in this farce?

Flip all the parties next go 'round. In a reliably red district and/or state? Vote Democrat, and vice-versa. Vote the bums out, especially the Yes on PATRIOT Act ones. The law of averages will keep the distribution we have now.
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