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…
"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-…
You commit three felonies a day
111–120 of 172 posts
Re: You commit three felonies a day
#112As 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…
I wasn't trying to suggest in my comment that US is slipping into a soviet state.
However, I think it can remain democratic and anti-socialist, but still use surveillance methods against its citizens that would be a Stalin's wet dream.
And you might not be moving towards clearing people for travel - but at the same time, you don't need to. If you have information where everyone is and what everyone is doing, it achieves exact same result, doesn't it? Communist government would keep your passport to stop you from leaving - but nowadays governments can do that even if they let you keep your passport. Boarder agents have access to a central database, and a single note there can stop you from leaving the country forever. US government can effectively exile its own citizens by placing them on the no-fly lists while they are abroad,and obviously no one will ever tell you why you ended up on one. US might not be literally using the same methods Soviets did, but if you think about it, the final results are frighteningly similar. And yes, I am glad that the general populace is NOT happy with the government's actions and that there is an uproar against them. There is still hope. But I find it absolutely sickening how US is presenting itself as a "bastion of freedom" even though it still has places like guantanamo, or where journalists are forbidden from writing about some cases, under the threat of spending several years in prison. This is not how a free country should look like.
Re: You commit three felonies a day
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are better and worse slave masters. But slave master is a slave master still.
If you are working at will for pay, you are not being enslaved. Get a grip.
Unless basic human needs are free (health, housing, food & water), no one is working "at will".
Re: You commit three felonies a day
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 someti…
dylangs1030 said: "We are not anything like chattel slavery. It weakens your argument to try to argue otherwise."
Where is your disagreement? I'll reiterate:
> We definitely do not live in a system of chattel slavery...
Re: You commit three felonies a day
#115...while I don't find this implausible, must the only provided example be a CEO?
Re: You commit three felonies a day
#116And the felony history never goes away now. Just think, a child who gets their first smartphone today, will have their entire phone history recorded until death. Their geolocation saved. Their email saved. All their financial transactions. All their friends and family will be known. Every intercontact in society. Where they shop, eat, etc. Who they date. I mean why would the NSA ever delete it? They can just get taxp…
I work with a Muslim from Yemen at an investment bank. He's as American as anyone I know but be recently got a gun permit and got a visit from the FBI about a week later. They wanted to know if he felt threatened, if there were problems at his Mosque, why he wanted a gun, if there was anyone at his Mosque who used hate speech, etc. Something tells me he government knows if you have a gun.
More likely, the guy at the gun store called the "See something, say something" number.
Or your friend (or someone with a similar name) is on a list. A friend of mine with a very common name (think John Smith) had a similar experience after getting a license from a local jurisdiction.
Re: You commit three felonies a day
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Silverglate talks about a number of cases, some of which have been addressed either before the book was written or after, but the overall problem is still out there. For example, see the honest services fraud charges against Jeff Skilling (of Enron fame), on the idea that anything dishonest any corporate executive might do would be depriving the corporation of honest services. Now the Supreme Court reversed Skilling'…
No, I want to know what felonies I commit.
Without knowing what you do, it's impossible to say. Did you have sex before the age of 18? You've committed statutory rape. You've probably violated copyright many times. You've probably violated the computer access law many times (forget name but violate a eula/TOS and you are in violation). Ever sell anything or make any money (say a bet between friends) and not report it on your tax return?
Re: You commit three felonies a day
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
So stop quoting Rand. Quote the ideas in their original and better articulated form.
Re: You commit three felonies a day
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Silverglate talks about a number of cases, some of which have been addressed either before the book was written or after, but the overall problem is still out there. For example, see the honest services fraud charges against Jeff Skilling (of Enron fame), on the idea that anything dishonest any corporate executive might do would be depriving the corporation of honest services. Now the Supreme Court reversed Skilling'…
No, I want to know what felonies I commit.
The somewhat dramatic "three felonies a day" mostly boil down to some variant of "Honest Services Fraud". Commonly cited examples include calling in sick without being sick
It's also very easy to trivially commit wire fraud.
Re: You commit three felonies a day
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 s…
Although this is off topic, I'd argue that there are indeed literal slave masters in the United States today, and they are the private prison owners that profit off convict laborers that are forced to work and earn orders of magnitude less wages than minimum wage.