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Obama Promises Disappear from Web

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Re: Obama Promises Disappear from Web

#111

Post by jafaku »

fear91 wrote: post #19
Buzaga wrote: post #2

~Protect Whistleblowers: Often the best source of information about waste, fraud, and abuse in government is an existing government employee committed to public integrity and willing to speak out. Such acts of courage and patriotism, which can sometimes save lives and often save taxpayer dollars, should be encouraged rather than stifled. We need to empower federal employees as watchdogs of wrongdoing and partners in…

A classic psychopathic behaviour. Blind your victim with carefully spun web of lies. Distort the reality and then when the time comes, abuse them. Psychopaths are so good at lying that they self-deceive themselves. They believe their own lies. That's why it's so easy to fall for what they say. They always fly to the top - be it at corporations, governments, crime organizations. The more psychopathic they are, the hig…

Isn't that a sociopath? I think I read that psychopaths can't really live in society and go undetected, they can't control themselves.

Re: Obama Promises Disappear from Web

#112

Post by ealexhudson »

jafaku wrote: post #111
fear91 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A classic psychopathic behaviour. Blind your victim with carefully spun web of lies. Distort the reality and then when the time comes, abuse them. Psychopaths are so good at lying that they self-deceive themselves. They believe their own lies. That's why it's so easy to fall for what they say. They always fly to the top - be it at corporations, governments, crime organizations. The more psychopathic they are, the hig…

Isn't that a sociopath? I think I read that psychopaths can't really live in society and go undetected, they can't control themselves.

Sociopathy isn't really a specific diagnosis (whereas psychopathy is, in most places) - and the term is used largely interchangeably with psychopathy when referring to an actual disorder. Any semantic difference in the terms hasn't come from the broad medical community as far as I'm aware.

Re: Obama Promises Disappear from Web

#113

Post by mkr-hn »

Regular civics reminder: the Executive is supposed to be the weakest of the three branches of government when it comes to domestic issues. If you want a president who's decent at his/her job (foreign affairs, proposing policy), but don't want him/her meddling with domestic affairs, elect a better congress.

This means actually going out to vote in primaries and main elections at the city, county, state, and federal level. All of these determine how much influence and power the federal government has, and whether or not they're doing a good job.

It's true that finding useful information on most candidates is impossible at the moment, but that's solvable.

Re: Obama Promises Disappear from Web

#114

Post by rayiner »

officemonkey wrote: post #110
rayiner wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh for fucks sake. There are no secret courts that can issue indictments.

They're not needed. The government can just declare him an enemy combatant and stick him in Guantanamo. (see: Jose Padilla.) Or, drop a drone bomb on him. (see: Anwar al-Aulaqi, Samir Khan, Abd al-Rahman, and Jude Mohammed.)

Jose Padilla was never held in Guantanamo. He was held in a military brig in South Carolina, longer than he should have because of litigation surrounding the authority of the Bush administration to hold him without charges. The Bush administration did charge him, likely because they lost Hamdi v. Rumsfeld which rejected their attempts to detain a different U.S. citizen.

The only American citizen targeted in a drone strike was Al Awlaki. The others were killed because they happened to be traveling with Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan or Yemen who were targeted. We can argue about the legality of targeting Al Awlaki, someone who was actively waging war against the U.S. and tried to evade capture for a decade, but it's ridiculous to bring up the other three. Hundreds of U.S. citizens were killed in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The fact that U.S. citizens may be killed collaterally in a military strike with legitimate targets has never been construed to be a violation of due process.

Snowden is a completely different situation. He's not waging war against the U.S. and leaking classified information is a criminal charge, not an act of war.

Re: Obama Promises Disappear from Web

#115

Post by criley2 »

chatmasta wrote: post #73
fear91 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A classic psychopathic behaviour. Blind your victim with carefully spun web of lies. Distort the reality and then when the time comes, abuse them. Psychopaths are so good at lying that they self-deceive themselves. They believe their own lies. That's why it's so easy to fall for what they say. They always fly to the top - be it at corporations, governments, crime organizations. The more psychopathic they are, the hig…

The fact that psychopaths and Obama share certain characteristics does not prove that Obama is a psychopath. Yet people continue to suggest that he is, citing the incongruent logic that overlapping characteristics imply equality. The fundamental problem is not people's flawed logic, but the psychological diagnostic tests. Psychologists broadly categorize most disorders because they cannot find a reliable symptom that…

ITT: Armchair psychologists confuse "psychopathy" and "sociopathy".

The tops of government and business exhibit the signs of sociopathy, not psychopathy.

Psychopaths generally exhibit many behaviors that makes them fundamentally unsuited for public life, such as poor behavior control.

Sociopaths, on the other hand, have just the right mix of anti-social tendencies to turn their empathy on for the crowd, and off while making decisions that affect millions negatively.

Re: Obama Promises Disappear from Web

#116

Post by d23 »

prawn wrote: post #106

How likely is it that the pre-pres Obama was as-advertised, but he's now operating with top-level knowledge about the US's place in the power struggles of the world? And that knowledge pushes him to act against some of the friendlier statements he's made in the past? Could the strength of the US WRT China (for example) be on a knife-edge that warrants the back-pedalling we're seeing?

No no no, you see. He should spend 100% of his time caring about the issues I care about! Forget foreign policy, the economy, a woman's right to choose, equal pay for women, gay rights, gun control, medicare, social security, and immigration. These issues don't concern little old me. I can't be bothered to judge him on multiple issues to come up with a nuanced view of the job he is doing. Removed his transition election website? Corporate fascist political shill!

Re: Obama Promises Disappear from Web

#117

Post by ChikkaChiChi »

3825 wrote: post #103
sampo wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> defecting to the Soviet Union Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991. 1991 was 22 years ago. You must be a real old-timer?

Perhaps a jab at Putin, if I had to guess

Russian Federation has a far less ominous sound to it than Soviet Union. When you say the Soviet Union (or USSR) you can almost hear the evil Ivan Drago music playing in your head.

Re: Obama Promises Disappear from Web

#118

Post by d23 »

samweinberg wrote: post #107
ibejoeb wrote: post #66

I think this is sensational, but it got me looking around the archive[1], and it's a pretty good read. -- Improve Intelligence Capacity and Protect Civil Liberties * Improve Information Sharing and Analysis: Improve our intelligence system by creating a senior position to coordinate domestic intelligence gathering, establishing a grant program to support thousands more state and local level intelligence analysts, and…

Don't forget this one: * New Capabilities to Aggressively Defeat Terrorists: Improve the American intelligence apparatus by investing in its capacity to collect and analyze information, share information with other agencies and carry out operations to disrupt terrorist networks.

This is what blows my mind about some of these people. They act as though Obama said he was going to legalize weed, stop all wars, and turn America into an orgyistic utopia. When in fact he basically did what he said he was going to do: be a hawk on foreign policy in a more intelligent way. Rather than getting involved in long, drawn out ground wars he resorts to drones and things like stuxnet.

Re: Obama Promises Disappear from Web

#119

Post by jasonlotito »

ry0ohki wrote: post #105
mortehu wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have civilians ever been tried in US military courts?

No, but they have been targeted by drones without a trial...

Once. Al Awlaki.

I'll refer to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6107997 for the rest.

Re: Obama Promises Disappear from Web

#120

Post by ChikkaChiChi »

ChikkaChiChi wrote: post #117
3825 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a jab at Putin, if I had to guess

Russian Federation has a far less ominous sound to it than Soviet Union. When you say the Soviet Union (or USSR) you can almost hear the evil Ivan Drago music playing in your head.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwBH3Fj1zSc

I had to YouTube it immediately after typing this. There's just something terrifying about a man who speaks better English than I do, playing a man who speaks English like a man who grew up behind the Iron Curtain, that punches with the power and effectiveness of a chemical engineer.

Sometimes, I too miss the 80's.

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