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You commit three felonies a day

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Re: You commit three felonies a day

#131

Post by pmiller2 »

zero_intp wrote: post #104
jasallen wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"US...are doing to journalists" The US government, still maintains a pretty strong protection of journalists. They will go after the leakers themselves, but rarely even attempt to make a journalist reveal a source, let alone prosecute the journalist directly for revealing secret information. In fact, I say still , but this tendency has actually grown stronger over the last 50 years. It has, in my not-very-researched-…

Recent DOJ opinion (that a court gave warrant for) that an AP author was party to a crime while (/because of) trying to avoid surveillance.

I'm not familiar with this opinion. Do you have a source?

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#132

Post by mpyne »

genwin wrote: post #72
ccera wrote: post #50

I read that book when it came out. The title is sensationalist garbage -- the book shows how some people get snared by some fairly stupid federal laws and have their lives messed up by willfully malicious prosecution, which isn't good, of course, but nowhere does the author demonstrate how an average person commits three felonies in a YEAR, or in a LIFETIME, let alone in a day.

Have you ever not paid sales tax to your state, on an item you purchased tax-free online? That's felony tax evasion when the amount is high enough; varies by state.

Use tax, not sales tax. If you're going to list obscure laws you should list them correctly. ;)

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#133

Post by Zimahl »

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...

Yes, please!

I get tired of quotes from fiction. Aren't there enough non-fiction quotes in the world that are much more relevant?

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#134

Post by jbooth »

gambiting wrote: post #123
brown9-2 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 appl…

These are not differences, these are similarities. Think about it for a second. Soviets had you register with the police where you were going, because there was no centralised database with that information. Today, the US government achieves exactly same result, but without making you go to the police station to register. Wherever you go, they can access your location on your phone, read your licence plates with stre…

They aren't similarities. The fundamental goal is different.

Registering where you're going, warnings that the phone call is being recorded, those things are about FEAR. It's deliberately letting you know that the government is in the driver's seat and you shouldn't even get started with counter-revolutionary thoughts. The information gathering is secondary.

Tiananmen square has probably more than 1 video camera per square foot. That's not to get better footage, it's to send message.

There might be a day when the US is the same, and this might even be a critical moment on the way to that day, but right now the fact that the US is trying to hide it's intel capabilities as opposed to rubbing them in your face makes them categorically different.

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#135

Post by diminoten »

Not new, such has been the case for most of human history.

An honest man is most able to live in the US without being harassed or condemned, more so than at any other time in history.

I'm not saying we're done, or that it can't still be bad because it's better than it was, but it's worth remembering that this isn't a solved problem that we're just "too stupid/lazy/greedy/corrupt" to fix. I'd even go so far as to argue that it's human nature to build governments where this is true, and it will never not be true.

A critical part of our justice system is the discretion of those who enforce, legislate, and interpret our laws. You can't pretend like laws exist outside of human (read: flawed) implementation, and I feel that this is more severely perpetrated by those in STEM fields because they're used to the rigor that comes with such disciplines whereas the law is a fluid and changing beast.

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#136

Post by mikeash »

542458 wrote: post #130
mikeash wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still can't understand why gun registration is supposed to be so awful but car registration is apparently perfectly fine.

Because a car isn't as valuable tool when it comes to protecting yourself from tyranny (in the NRA's opinion). The NRA's point is that the government should be incapable of immediately identifying which citizens would be capable of forcibly resisting it, for the protection of those citizens who can resist (so that they aren't singled out) and those who can't (so that the government doesn't just pick easy targets).

Hmm... does the NRA keep a registry of its members?

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#137

Post by aidenn0 »

genwin wrote: post #72
ccera wrote: post #50

I read that book when it came out. The title is sensationalist garbage -- the book shows how some people get snared by some fairly stupid federal laws and have their lives messed up by willfully malicious prosecution, which isn't good, of course, but nowhere does the author demonstrate how an average person commits three felonies in a YEAR, or in a LIFETIME, let alone in a day.

Have you ever not paid sales tax to your state, on an item you purchased tax-free online? That's felony tax evasion when the amount is high enough; varies by state.

Slight nit-pick; you need to pay use tax, not sales tax. Sales tax would be an illegal state regulation of interstate commerce.

Re: You commit three felonies a day

#138

Post by Perceval »

stygiansonic wrote: post #87
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.”

Reminds me of the quote, "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state."

"And now bills were passed, not only for national objects but for individual cases, and laws were most numerous when the commonwealth was most corrupt." —Tacitus, Annals, Book III, 27.
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