Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

Godwins Law was necessary in the early-mid 90s on Usenet where every conversation would degenerate into people calling each other Nazis. Now, not so much.

They will care if they are given a compelling reason to care from some new case someone brings.

The system is designed so that it's super tough for politics, etc. to cause the court not to care. It is likely true that the court wants to maintain a lot of respect from the citizens, but their level of respect is fairly high now.

If the court gets an opportunity to strike down some of the Patriot Act, etc. and wants to, then they likely have plenty of 'political capital' to do so. Indeed, one reason now to make a big stink in the public media, including HN, that what the NSA did violates the Fourth Amendment, etc. is to provide 'political capital' for the court to strike down the relevant laws.

My reading is that at the present time, US citizens are heavily on the side of keeping their phone calls, e-mail contents, Internet usage, etc. private instead of trashing the Constitution so that the NSA can try to catch another Boston bomber.

The way I have tried to put the issue is to say that the Constitution is a big part of what is worth protecting in the US so that it is logically impossible both to protect the US and trash the Constitution and, instead, we need to protect both the Constitution and the rest of the US. For this goal, maybe we need some better police work.

I have high confidence that we can protect both the US and the Constitution. If that view is popular in the US, then the court will have plenty of 'political capital' to protect the Constitution.

Your writing is not clear enough for me to respond to all of your points. For

> nazi cunts who abused it for their ends

I'm guessing you mean Cheney and the "neocons" who, for reasons of Mideast oil and having a position to put more pressure on Iran (note the map of the huge number of US military bases within 200 miles or so of Iran -- it's amazing), etc. (which can cover a lot if are willing to believe).

I didn't like Gulf War II. I would have let Saddam stay there since as bad as he was we had no real way to engineer something a lot better. And I would have ended the no fly zone over Iraq as essentially just pointless. Leave carriers in the Persian Gulf? Likely. Be ready to jump back into air bases in Saudi Arabia? Likely. Keep a big presence in Kuwait? Okay.

But, whatever anyone thought of W, Cheney, the neocons, Gulf War II, in fact W, etc. had a lot of help from Congress. There was plenty of war authorization and money voted.

Basically have to blame the US voters. But, then, maybe should blame the US MSM -- which I do. One W Admin guy said that Gulf War II would cost $120 billion and got fired because W, etc. wanted to say the cost would be $80 billion or some such. One guy said that to occupy the country (an occupying force is supposed to ensure police protection) would take 500,000 US soldiers, and the W Admin fired him. Still the MSM didn't raise a big stink and basically public opinion went along with Gulf War II. So, who to blame? Basically the public.

For the places I said it was "bad", that's a euphemism to admit it was not good or acceptable but to try to avoid a hot rehashing of the old issue. If you believe much worse than "bad", fine with me.

For Building 7, I've heard this and that but really have tried to avoid following the issue because I doubt I could put back Building 7!

For the "nazi cunts", my guess is that in part they rubbed their hands with glee, told themselves that with the Patriot Act, our military, the NSA, CIA, etc., we were going to "take the gloves off" and really roast the Jihaders and teach them a lesson, not to mess with the big bad US, that would last for 1000 years. For the Patriot Act being constitutional, they just took the position that it would take years for legal cases to reach the Supreme Court and get the act struck down as unconstitutional and in the meanwhile they would bend the Constitution for a while and roast all the Jihaders.

But the "nazi cunts" in the end were quite dumb, wasteful, and ineffective. One reason is, if want to use Nazi techniques, they were not enough like the actual Nazis: In some area the Nazis occupied, if something went "boom", the Nazis were not reluctant to round people up, torture them, and level much of the area. The US, however, kept wanting to be loved from building roads, bridges, hospitals, and schools, of course, including for the girls (which totally torqued off nearly every Muslim for 2000 miles), setting up a constitution and holding free elections. Didn't work at all well.

Instead, nearly every low level thug, every leader of a small gang, a large fraction of everyone with some military training, various tribal and Muslim leaders, various international opportunists, etc. all saw that the US occupation in both Iraq and Afghanistan was a golden opportunity for mischief, money, power, etc. while the W Admin and any of their Nazis didn't. We were writing term papers on the lessons from Ireland, Indonesia, and anywhere else, guessing, etc. The short answer is, we blew it.

Now we've got one in Syria: Assad is an ugly guy. He's in with the Iranians we are pissed at. He's in with Putin who, I guess, stole a Superbowl ring and is not running a Jeffersonian democracy. A lot of innocent people in Syria are suffering. So, there is US political pressure "to do something". A point is, it's not the least bit clear that there is a better alternative, and there's a fear that the main alternative is Al Qaeda or some such and worse. So, it appears that Obama is trying to appear to do 'something' but actually is doing very little, which to me means that he will please the people who want him to do 'something' but not really seriously piss off the people, like Palin, who just want to "leave it to Allah". The Pentagon has said no fly zones, shooting down Assad's air force, etc. would all be too darned expensive, e.g., 400 US air sorties.

So, no politician wants just to come out and say, "The situation stinks. What we can do about it is next to nothing -- we could throw in a lot of effort and come up with a big, fat zero for making the situation better. In time, the civil war will burn itself out with likely not much impact on essential US interests.". US politicians don't want to say that. However, politicians in nearly every other country on the planet are eager to say just this. Really, only the US is all vulnerable to rushing off to more 'international adventures'.

I believe that the US voters need to wise up and then wise up the politicians.

The US is somehow a naive country (for no good reason) with more money than wisdom about 'foreign adventures'. So, the US messes up a lot. I wish we didn't. As Churchill observed long ago, the US always does the right thing after trying everything else.

Some countries a lot less democratic than the US end up with much more wisdom in foreign policy.

If you have some specific objection with what I wrote, then quote it and argue against it. If I return to this thread, then I will try to respond.

There was a case in the news today: Some US woman reporter went into Syria (she couldn't have been too bright) and met in a room with a lot of women and children. The men were mostly off fighting.

One of the women was 14 and had a small baby. The reporter explained that the main reason was that the family wanted the girl to get married so that she would have more protection against rape (the reporter didn't go into what might have been the result had the girl been raped). Then the reporter went on about how horrible it was for the girl to have a baby at age 14 (and get married and pregnant at age 13). Yes, there are potentially some medical problems due to her young age and lack of physical development. And, as the reporter made clear, the girl was not going to be able to finish high school.

Gads! The US reporter was projecting onto that poor family in Syria her strong US views about women in the US.

Instead, consider: The women and children in the room looked well enough fed and clothed. They were not obviously suffering. The young mother actually looked quite happy and calm and really happy holding her baby. The baby looked good, calm, happy, well fed and cared for (the US reporter did mention that the baby had not yet had some inoculations it should have). Otherwise the young mother looked like she was being a good mother. Moreover, the young mother was just surrounded by family -- her mother, brothers, sisters, likely aunts, etc. She was in an 'extended family' and no doubt just awash in emotional support and feeling of belonging. There was no shortage of expertise on how to care for the young baby. That she had a baby at age 14 is not ideal but, apparently, Mother Nature is not wildly against it. Also, likely in some Muslim countries, such young mothers are not so rare. As far as finishing high school is concerned, commonly in Muslim countries that's not a big consideration for girls (although maybe Syria, like some Muslim countries, except for the civil war, is more advanced about such things).

That's just the way it is in some Muslim countries. I don't want to live that way, but since they've been living that way for 1000+ years, it can't be all bad. For the person under stress, it looked to me that it was only the US reporter.

Net, the US needs to be more accepting of other cultures. That doesn't mean we want US girls 14 being mommies, but it does mean that what that girl was doing in that house and extended family in that country was not so bad there.

If the US gets itself all bent out of shape over lives such as that of that young mother, then we will be chasing absurd 'foreign adventures' until we are white from loss of blood. To avoid this, we have to wise up.

Good discussion. But all those places you said that the Executive or Legislative branches believed something was 'unconstitutional' and applied that belief to their actions, really they were just using the powers they had and could have done the same thing just saying that they just didn't like the law. So when such a branch says "unconstitutional" nice to have their opinion.

When the Supreme Court says "unconstitutional", that's different because there the court is using one of their fundamental powers. The court can't strike down a law just because they don't like the law.