You commit three felonies a day • Hacker News Board

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#91

Post by skaevola » Tue, Jun 11, 2013, 3:49 PM UTC

flyinRyan wrote: post #65

Uchikoma wrote: post #9

From Atlas Shrugged: “Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them broken. [...] There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”

Like everything else Rand ever did, this was expressed better by other sources. Can we please stop quoting this hack [1]? [1] http://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/comments/15r6sj/why_is...

That post has no relevance. Ideas are what matter, not people.

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#92

Post by dylangs1030 » Tue, Jun 11, 2013, 3:50 PM UTC

npongratz wrote: post #81

pekk wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are working at will for pay, you are not being enslaved. Get a grip.

True only if chattel slavery were the only kind of slavery. The ruling masters treat those who work "at will for pay" like livestock when the masters demand taxes, threatening violence upon those who withhold the protection money. The livestock are being milked with every paycheck. We definitely do not live in a system of chattel slavery, but that's only because chattel slavery is so much less efficient (for the mast…

"Chattel slavery"...I'm sorry, but what are you on about?

This comparison doesn't reflect the current state of affairs in the United States.

Yeah, the NSA did some shitty things that circumnavigated loopholes in the Constitution.

But you still don't realize how good you have it. Being in a Western country like the United States is spectacularly better than living conditions on many other entire continents, and sometimes many countries on others.

I agree we should fight the NSA on this. No doubt about this. But you're not convincing everyone of your point by comparing journalists and citizens to "chattel slaves"...come on now.

Journalists are still afford a lot of protections, and incidents like this leak in the United States are still outliers.

The very fact that this leak is an outrage, that we are not desensitized to this news, demonstrates the state of our society. We are afraid of it devolving, but it is presently many tiers above your implied quality of life.

There is no slavery. There is virtually no indentured slavery, named or in practice. We still have a variety of liberties the KGB never expected themselves to have, let alone fought for.

We are not anything like chattel slavery. It weakens your argument to try to argue otherwise.

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#93

Post by gasull » Tue, Jun 11, 2013, 3:50 PM UTC

This is why "nothing to hide" argument is wrong.

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#94

Post by mpyne » Tue, Jun 11, 2013, 3:51 PM UTC

moron4hire wrote: post #68

kyllo wrote: post #61

I'm not so convinced Nacchio is an innocent victim. And I also find it rich that a former telecom CEO guilty of numerous financial crimes is being held up as an example of targeted political persecution using frivolous laws. Insider trading is not the type of crime you commit unknowingly. Has anyone even refuted his guilt convincingly? That is a serious crime and also one with a clear paper trail. If he did it, there…

Insider trading is only a crime when people want to find you guilty of a crime. That's why congresscritters are not prosecutable for insider trading. Insider trading is the entire point of trading, you wouldn't make any money if everyone had the same information.

You would possibly make money if people had the same information but came to different conclusions about the resultant effect of that information.

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#95

Post by pietro » Tue, Jun 11, 2013, 3:52 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #12

Uchikoma wrote: post #9

From Atlas Shrugged: “Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?” said Dr. Ferris. “We want them broken. [...] There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”

It may help to remember here that Ayn Rand wrote that stuff as an ex-citizen of a country with a communist regime that employed exactly those tactics against their citizens, I highly doubt that she intended or foresaw those words to be used against the rulers of the country that she chose to live in.

Atlas Shrugged is set in the United States. I'm sure she wouldn't be surprised.

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#96

Post by mpyne » Tue, Jun 11, 2013, 3:53 PM UTC

kolinko wrote: post #32

There was a soviet saying - "Give me a person, I'll find you an article/a paragraph". Meaning - for any person, finding a law that the person breaks is just a matter of time and resources. It's interesting to see Americans discover this...

It's not new to Americans either, despite how stupid we're considered by the rest of the world. There's been news articles noting the same issues with the complexity of the legal code since even before 9/11.

Any student of the law has undoubtedly been aware for decades prior, when they had to research volume after volume of legal decisions and statutory code to establish what precedent (if any) to use in helping decide a later case, and what laws (if any) applied.

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#97

Post by dylangs1030 » Tue, Jun 11, 2013, 3:54 PM UTC

JanezStupar wrote: post #73

JamisonM wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a false equivalence. Just the fact that the US government feels compelled to hide a program like PRISM is a strong indication that there is a big difference between the Russian government and the US government (and certainly the Soviet government). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_journalists_killed_in_...

There are better and worse slave masters. But slave master is a slave master still.

What? Where are you pulling this from?

The only form of arguably existing slavery in the entire United States is the lack of social mobility exacerbated by a lack of education in lower income classes, which becomes both a self-fulfilling prophecy and a cycle.

Other than that - and I note slavery would be a passionate, emphatic term for that, not anything close to a literal one - there is no slavery and there are no slave masters in the United States.

I'm not singling you out, because others are doing this, but it vastly weakens your point to make statements like that. Journalists are allowed to pursue stories and leads aggressively and practice freedom of speech.

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#98

Post by darkarmani » Tue, Jun 11, 2013, 3:56 PM UTC

kyllo wrote: post #61

I'm not so convinced Nacchio is an innocent victim. And I also find it rich that a former telecom CEO guilty of numerous financial crimes is being held up as an example of targeted political persecution using frivolous laws. Insider trading is not the type of crime you commit unknowingly. Has anyone even refuted his guilt convincingly? That is a serious crime and also one with a clear paper trail. If he did it, there…

It was only considered insider trading because the gov't cancelled all of the contracts in retribution and then claimed that he sold knowing they would cancel the contracts and tank the stock. Can't they make this claim of any company that they do business with? Wait to an insider makes a sale, and then cancel their gov't contracts and arrest for insider trading.

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#99

Post by dylangs1030 » Tue, Jun 11, 2013, 3:58 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #47

As a person coming from a former soviet republic, I am very familiar with the saying "show me a man, and I will show you the crime he is guilty of" - which basically meant that if KGB wanted to charge you with something, they always could find a paragraph for you, because there were so many and so vaguely defined. As an outsider, to me it seems that the USA is not a "free" country and I honestly don't see any differe…

I agree with you that the United States should not be engaging in mass surveillance, and there needs to be reform and checks on the power. And I agree with you that we'll repeat history if we're not wary.

But I don't think this is evidence of the United States "sliding" into a soviet state. I may be wrong in my interpretation of your comment, but that seems to be your overall warning.

I believe that the people of the United States are a good barometer of our democratic health. We might not vote as much as we (arguably) should, but the shock and outrage on such a nearly universal scale illustrates that the government still doesn't have absolute, corrupt power.

The fact that this was hidden and not designed as a deterrant also demonstrates to me that the United States is still, if not consciously, afraid of the power of its people. I can't say that it will last indefinitely, but at the moment, I believe the people are doing a good job of showing that this is not okay and we aren't moving towards people disappearing in the night and needing to be cleared for travel.

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#100

Post by brown9-2 » Tue, Jun 11, 2013, 3:59 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #47

As a person coming from a former soviet republic, I am very familiar with the saying "show me a man, and I will show you the crime he is guilty of" - which basically meant that if KGB wanted to charge you with something, they always could find a paragraph for you, because there were so many and so vaguely defined. As an outsider, to me it seems that the USA is not a "free" country and I honestly don't see any differe…

> As an outsider, to me it seems that the USA is not a "free" country and I honestly don't see any difference between what the US and Russian governments are doing to journalists and people who disagree with them.

You seem to describe at least five stark differences:

1. If you wanted to travel out of your town - you had to register that fact with the nearest police department.

2. Wanted to travel abroad - had to apply for a passport, which was only issued for a strict number of days and had to be returned upon return.

3. If you were placing a phone call, it would always start with a warning "This call is being monitored. This call is being monitored".

4. The post office would open your parcels and letters.

5. There was book censorship on a massive scale.

Comparing the US today to drastic Soviet republics doesn't really help the conversation - these far-off hypothetical comparisons make it easier for other people to dismiss your argument.