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U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records

nytimes.com

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Re: U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records

#101

Post by oinksoft »

notdang wrote: post #98
metaphorm wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the United States federal government often does shitty things in the name of national security. the U.S. foreign policy has been pretty nasty over the years as well. HOW-FUCKING-EVER...you really ought to be careful to make a distinction between those specific policies and practices and the rest of the United States as a whole. We have 300+ million people and we don't all agree with this stuff in lockstep with the fa…

Well, you voted in the elections, didn't you?

A pacifist would agree with you. In one of the founding documents of modern pacifism, the likes of which inspired Gandhi[1], Leo Tolstoy wrote

  CATECHISM OF NON-RESISTANCE.
  ..
  Q. Can a Christian give a vote at elections, or take part
     in government or law business?
  A. No; participation in election, government, or law
     business is participation in government by force.
From The Kingdom of God Is Within You: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4602/pg4602.html

While it can be easy to point the finger at figures high up in government, any participation in that system is, as Tolstoy says, conducted "by force," and all participants share the blame to some extent. The argument follows that the only way to truly banish such abusive systems is to retract all endorsement and participation.

[1] Tolstoy's relationship with Mohandas Gandhi: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kingdom_of_God_Is_Within_Yo...

Re: U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records

#102

Post by joyeuse6701 »

speeder wrote: post #53

I am from Brazil, and I must ask: Why the US citizens and government propaganda insists that US is about freedom, when US ignores its own constitution, takes away freedom from its citizens, and most important to me, takes away freedom from citizens of other countries while claiming to do the exact opposite? I am from Brazil, and many people here remember the US backed (and enforced sometimes) rightwing government tha…

I'll answer this as if it wasn't a rhetorical question:

Because U.S. society values the concept of freedom. >'Why does the U.S. gov't ignore it's constitution?'

Well for some prerogatives, freedom is less important and some people decidedly make decisions that violate the law and freedoms of a people.

> 'takes away freedom from its citizens'

See above

>'takes away freedom from...'

U.S. gov't really doesn't have any obligation to citizens of another country unless explicitly stated. I of course, understand the general premise that the United States stay largely out of other nations affairs is well intentioned, however the previous two times that happened (beginning of WWI and WWII) did not go well. So while meddling U.S. foreign policy is far from perfect, it seems as there has yet been a WWIII to be better than the other alternative, and I'd say the track record is such that more freedoms have been guaranteed to more people via the U.S. than otherwise. I've got no data to back that up though.

Re: U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records

#103

Post by sixothree »

hga wrote: post #43
vacri wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Swiss ownership of guns is nothing like US ownership. 'guns per capita' doesn't illuminate anything about the significant cultural differences.

Errrm, isn't it the case that the default is that a Swiss citizen can own guns? Which is the default for 2/3rds of the US population, and includes permanent resident aliens. I know there are significant cultural differences, but when you come down to it, does the government trust the people or not? This is the touchstone for that question.

The laws are definitely more strict. Every purchase requires a permit. If you sell a gun to an individual, you are required to keep record for 10 years.

Nevermind that Americans have no sense of civic duty.

Re: U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records

#104

Post by rayiner »

speeder wrote: post #53

I am from Brazil, and I must ask: Why the US citizens and government propaganda insists that US is about freedom, when US ignores its own constitution, takes away freedom from its citizens, and most important to me, takes away freedom from citizens of other countries while claiming to do the exact opposite? I am from Brazil, and many people here remember the US backed (and enforced sometimes) rightwing government tha…

Very little of this is actually true, at least with regards to what the U.S. does internally. As flawed as the U.S. government is, it's still better than almost any government outside Western Europe, and is in some ways better than governments in Western Europe (e.g. with regard to free speech), though worse in others.

The U.S. government very rarely ignores the Constitution, although many things it does are greeted with cries of ignoring the Constitution. It goes to great lengths to lawyer it's way around the Constitution, no doubt, but most countries don't even bother.

As for externally--the Constitution puts almost no limits on the American government's ability to intervene in foreign affairs, and most Americans would agree that the U.S. has zero obligation to do anything internationally other than what advances its own interests. No other country in the world would do any differently if they were in the U.S.'s position. Remember, as far as global hegemons go, the U.S. is the most benevolent such entity in the history of the world.

Re: U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records

#106

Post by mikecane »

>>>The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

News organizations that have consistently rolled over and let the government have its way with secret this and secret that -- and they're shocked! shocked! that they are subjected to secret ops too? Wake the eff up, special snowflakes.

Re: U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records

#108

Post by hga »

sixothree wrote: post #103
hga wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Errrm, isn't it the case that the default is that a Swiss citizen can own guns? Which is the default for 2/3rds of the US population, and includes permanent resident aliens. I know there are significant cultural differences, but when you come down to it, does the government trust the people or not? This is the touchstone for that question.

The laws are definitely more strict. Every purchase requires a permit. If you sell a gun to an individual, you are required to keep record for 10 years. Nevermind that Americans have no sense of civic duty.

Is the permitting based on the "shall issue" principle? I.e. do the authorities determine if the applicant is not a banned individual and then automatically issue the permit? Or does the applicant have to jump through hoops?

Re: U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records

#109

Post by speeder »

coffeemug wrote: post #95
angersock wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now, you can hardly judge a country on one or two acts of unrelated political activism abroad... :P More seriously, it's complex--painting it in the simplest broad strokes of "The US only cares about corporations" is unfair. The US is not the US; it's a combination of local, state, and federal governments and bureaucracies. There's almost certainly near no magical evil council sitting atop it all scheming about how t…

I don't disagree with you that the U.S. is a very complex system with millions of variables, and like any complex bureaucratic system is extremely difficult to change. I also don't disagree that there almost certainly isn't an evil council scheming to make corporations more powerful (I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories, and this particular conspiracy sounds especially absurd -- I'm not even sure that the corporation…

I never said there is a conspiracy...

It is only the observable behaviour, it is that the people in power do have ties in the corporation, what they do, naturally go in the direction of self-preservation, not fairness or justice.

For all the people in power in the US, when a situation is bad for them (for example the risk of the USD becoming valueless, or of a country stopping to do business with their companies), why they would refrain themselves from using that power to their interests?

Specially in a individualistic society...

What bothers me is why people lie to themselves, and lie to others about it?

Why the US sent a aircraft carrier here in 1964 to defend "freedom" and instead helped dictators?

Why when Brazil announced it found massive amounts of oil on its coast, US announced the reactivation of the Fourth Fleet and sent ships here while claiming it was to fight drug smugglers? (that by the way, were sent back that time when Brazil invited Russia to do "exercises" here, and the Russian ships did came, probably for their own selfish reasons too)

EDIT: Lincoln Gordon (US Ambassador) before brazillian 1964 coup: "covert support for pro-democracy street rallies…and encouragement [of] democratic and anti-communist sentiment in Congress, armed forces, friendly labor and student groups, church, and business"

CIA message to Washington recently declassified message after the coup: "The change in government will create a greatly improved climate for foreign investments."

Now tell me the coup was about freedom and not corporate interests.

Re: U.S. Secretly Obtains Two Months of A.P. Phone Records

#110

Post by olalonde »

speeder wrote: post #53

I am from Brazil, and I must ask: Why the US citizens and government propaganda insists that US is about freedom, when US ignores its own constitution, takes away freedom from its citizens, and most important to me, takes away freedom from citizens of other countries while claiming to do the exact opposite? I am from Brazil, and many people here remember the US backed (and enforced sometimes) rightwing government tha…

> Why the US citizens and government propaganda insists that US is about freedom

I didn't have this impression at all but then again I might spend too much time on http://www.reddit.com/r/libertarian.

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