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Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

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Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#81

Post by graycat »

mseebach wrote: post #33
jsmcgd wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Godwin's Law, or people's interpretation of it, has a lot to answer for. It's perfectly acceptable to make comparisons to the Nazis if it's relevant to where a conversation is at, at a particular moment. Not only is acceptable, it should also be encouraged. The most valuable thing to emerge from World War Two was the anti-blueprint for society. Let's not make this taboo merely for the sake of falling foul of some int…

The problem is that references to the Nazis or Soviets are very hard to get right without tripping over the slippery slope argument. Hitler was not only a vegetarian, he was a health fanatic, and there's evidence that it informed his obsession with purifying the race. That's doesn't make any number of locavore glutenfree vegan hipsters a step towards nazism. Hitler "militarized" society, and emphasized such organisat…

> the Hitler Youth where kids learned discipline, healthy living and love of the outdoors

Yes, and too soon a lot of "healthy living" "outdoors" had too many single girls 15 or so coming back pregnant, as "Hitler's brides" and had to be throttled!

Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#82

Post by dragonwriter »

embolism wrote: post #80
jbooth wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not new. You've got mandatory flood insurance from a selected group of companies, mandatory osha safety training from a selected group of companies, mandated accounting procedures that must be certified by selected people... If you disagree with the law on principle, that's fine, it's certainly not a perfect solution. But those are political objections. Based on how the interstate commerce clause has been interp…

This is a good argument for the constitution meaning essentially nothing since if there are no limits on how the government can control how people spend their money, there are no real limits on how much control the government can exert over the individual. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that your point isn't really about what is or is not constitutional, but rather that interpretation has rendered the constitution…

> I'm not saying you're wrong, just that your point isn't really about what is or is not constitutional, but rather that interpretation has rendered the constitution meaningless so anything is constitutional now.

Except that that's clearly not the case, as plenty of things remain prohibit by the Constitution, as we see the Supreme Court finding as recently as today [1].

Sure, the interstate commerce power is generally interpreted in a fairly broad manner today, but that is very different than "anything is constitutional now".

[1] http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/11-9540_8m58.pdf

Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#83

Post by dreamdu5t »

embolism wrote: post #75
jbooth wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a really bad example, given the interstate commerce clause. Pelosi was laughing it off because damn near everybody, including the majority-conservative supreme court, agrees that regulating healthcare is regulation of interstate commerce, just like 1000s of other things that the federal government does which don't happen to be hot political footballs at the moment. Conversely, most people that I've talked to a…

Ordering people to pay money to a government approved set of corporations is not regulating healthcare it's regulating the people and undermining property rights. What's next? A selected group of 'food providers' that you have to pay because the government decides that they provide a better diet than people would choose from the free market?

Shhhh.. lest people be reminded that the government's claim to power is arbitrary.

Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#84

Post by mpyne »

betterunix wrote: post #74
mpyne wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So in other words "all it would take" is for someone to do the one part of that which is actually almost impossible?

How is it almost impossible? What, other than voluntary procedures, is standing in the way?

What you ask for requires sweeping structural changes, which itself requires cooperation between a bunch of mutually-antagonistic parties, and all of that happening under the watchful eyes of the entire world who are more than happy to lace into America for the slightest fault they see.

It certainly helps that Americans are so seemingly genetically suspicious of government that even government workers despise the government (usually not their little enclave of it, but even that is not a hard and fast rule).

In short, despite all the whining on HN about how the people are just sheep, the people themselves are the reason your part of the plan is the most difficult part. The fact that you had an NSA contractor leak TOP SECRET data at great personal risk over an automated warrant compliance system should indicate that.

Likewise it was not very many years ago when some of the same senior intel community personnel that HN feels are all enemies were threatening to resign and cause a huge political explosion due to how Bush wanted to implement a program that would have benefited the NSA.

When we lose the people we'll have real problems. But if we lose the people those problems will be far, far, far worse than simple surveillance.

Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#85

Post by dreamdu5t »

dragonwriter wrote: post #63
xradionut wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem now is that who you vote for doesn't represent you. They represent themselves, their donors and their social class/circle. They've also sworn an oath to the Constitution, then passed laws that are against that oath. For all practical purposes the "classical constitution United States" that we were taught in school and media doesn't exist anymore. But we pretend it does for pragmatic reasons.

> For all practical purposes the "classical constitution United States" that we were taught in school and media doesn't exist anymore. The Constitution never existed as anything more than an idea, and it has force and meaning to the exact extent to which the people choose to give it force and meaning (the same as any other law.) Laws, including basic laws like the Constitution, aren't magical and self-enforcing; they…

I agree except I must point out that the Constitution was an agreement amongst the states, not an agreement with the people and the government.

The rhetoric of "the people" is extremely deceptive. Me, nor my forefathers, had their opinion represented at the constitutional convention. The people in "... a statement of intent about what the people will insist upon" is solely people who were at the convention.

Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#86

Post by embolism »

dragonwriter wrote: post #82
embolism wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a good argument for the constitution meaning essentially nothing since if there are no limits on how the government can control how people spend their money, there are no real limits on how much control the government can exert over the individual. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that your point isn't really about what is or is not constitutional, but rather that interpretation has rendered the constitution…

> I'm not saying you're wrong, just that your point isn't really about what is or is not constitutional, but rather that interpretation has rendered the constitution meaningless so anything is constitutional now. Except that that's clearly not the case, as plenty of things remain prohibit by the Constitution, as we see the Supreme Court finding as recently as today [1]. Sure, the interstate commerce power is generall…

Presumably that set of opinions is meant to make the point that the Supreme Court is still ruling things unconstitutional and therefore some things are still unconstitutional. This is true, but irrelevant.

The point is that if anything can be ruled constitutional, then the ruling something unconstitutional is merely a tool for the federal government to use to regulate the states and lesser courts, not any kind of protection against the power of the federal government itself against the rights of the individual.

Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#87

Post by jacoblyles »

gknoy wrote: post #76
graycat wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd say there's nothing that the minority can do (if it matters I'm not from the US) No, not at all. The situation is still all well within the US Constitution in the sense of want people "can do". In particular, as I will outline, there is a very fast, simple solution well within what "the minority can do". Background: In the US Federal Government, there are three branches, executive (e.g., headed by the president…

> My guess is that much of the relevant laws will be struck down. > If the Supreme Court strikes down the laws, they will be gone -- out'a here.... > What matters are the laws, not what Presidents ... say.... Instead what matters here is what laws the Supreme Court says are Constitutional. I wish I shared your optimism. I sincerely hope that the laws will get struck down, but I also fear that the classified nature of…

Part of the NSA's surveillance program was already found to be illegal and the executive branch classified the court's ruling:

http://blog.rongarret.info/2013/06/court-finds-nsa-surveilla...

How screwed up is that?

Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#88

Post by mpyne »

gasull wrote: post #70
mseebach wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Making the causal link all the more slippery.

The point I'm trying to make is that having surveillance in place gives them the power of effectively building such camps later.

Surveillance is orthogonal to camps. They could build the camps first and start dumping in undesirables and then start surveillance immediately after, for all we know.

Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#89

Post by jacoblyles »

jbooth wrote: post #71
CWuestefeld wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is a constitutional democracy Actually, it's a constitutional republic . But my real concern here is with the "constitutional" part, because most reasonable readers seem to agree that the PRISM surveillance violates the Constitution. Yet the federal government only seems concerned about Constitutionality when it suits them, (literally) laughing it off otherwise: CNS: Madam Speaker, where specifically does the…

That's a really bad example, given the interstate commerce clause. Pelosi was laughing it off because damn near everybody, including the majority-conservative supreme court, agrees that regulating healthcare is regulation of interstate commerce, just like 1000s of other things that the federal government does which don't happen to be hot political footballs at the moment. Conversely, most people that I've talked to a…

It was actually a very close ruling (5-4) that hinged on whether "regulating interstate commerce" gave the power to the government to compel people to participate in commerce.

Personally, I disagree with the Wickard v. Filburn ruling that gave the power to the government to control what a farmer grows on his own land to feed to his own cattle under the "interstate commerce" power. The Constitution was distorted beyond any reasonable reading of the English language during the FDR administration and we never recovered.

The Republic is dead, FDR killed it. It's just taken us awhile to get used to living in a totalitarian state. Well, here we are.

Re: Edward Snowden: Saving Us from the United Stasi of America

#90

Post by microcolonel »

There is no hope if that's the extent of the “solution”, no meaningful work will come in the form of more politics and oppression.

The only reasonable conclusion is that to stop the bloodshed and invasion, one must stop supporting the oppressors.

You are quite literally paying many thousands of thugs to fly to the middle east and support a paedophilic, incompetent, oppressive regime which directly hurts people's lives. At home you're paying many more thousands to pick on people carrying small amounts of plant trimmings, specifically targeted by the colour of their skin. Those people are then sent to buildings and force fed in contract-incestuous CEO-laden prisons with an economic incentive to cost more money to their handlers.

Aggression is the problem, and paying people to use it against you, or anyone else for that matter, is probably not going to help.

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