PRISM: NSA's leaked internet surveillance program

Trying sooo hard not to reply to this, but I have to. I refuse to debate abortion in any forum. But your hypocrisy screams out to be addressed. If you value your freedom and independence so much why do you feel the need to take it away from others? So it's not about freedom. It's about your way and we should all cater to that.

 

Of course, because you believe that I am infringing on some womans right to make choices about her own body, and I believe that woman should not get to choose to kill an innocent human being. There's no hypocrisy. I want limited government, but I still want the police to stop people from murdering each other.

But you seem so sure that you know exactly when a person becomes a person. There is no such line. None. No scientist has ever found a line where a 'nothing' turns into a human being. There's no debate. Humans today are so naive to think that in 2013 they are at the pinnacle of human wisdom and they have the authority to determine when a life is worthy enough to be allowed to live. It's horrendous. Generations from now, our children will look back on us with disgust.

There's a BIG difference between allowing two dudes to willingly have sex with each other in their own bedroom and killing a child that has no choice in the matter. It might be a 'war', but the body count is all on one side.

You want to know where this is leading? Read this article by Mary Elizabeth Williams:

Here's the gist of it:

We're at the point now where pro-choice advocates are admitting that life is being sacrificed, but that the baby isn't worth the annoyances of letting the child live.

There is nothing you can say that will ever even minutely change my belief on the genocide going on in our world. Make all the excuses you want, I've heard them all and they are all just that, excuses.

Every child has right to take a chance in this world! Let them open Christmas presents, go to a barbecue, feel a beach on a hot summer day, buy their first car or fall in love. They would be an human being, touching thousands of lives and making their own choices to be happy. But every moment of their lives is removed by no choice of their own. Pro-choice? All the innocent children that never get one beg to differ.

 

So what's right and wrong is up to you, got it. And what about immigrants? You want the US to build the damn fence? Or should borders be respected because???? We aren't talking about your private property here, people want to hire them and landlords want to rent to them, vendors want to see to them. So another personal rule of yours that matters, other rules don't?


I have to share a story. You know when my son figured out Santa wasn't real? When he started asking why all the kids in the world didn't get the same kind of presents he got. So how about those kids, JJ, do you buy the kids on welfare Christmas presents or prefer you take care of your own, their parent(s) take care of theirs?

And come on, is the morning after pill killing a "child"? How about that abomination when you spill your seed?


Aaarrgh! Must get out of this thread, this time I really mean it.

 

@JJ_Max I noticed you called Obama socialist. Good joke. I have lost much respect for the man so I am not trying to defend him here. What I will say however is that Obama is viewed as pretty right-wing in most European countries. As a socialist scumbag myself I daresay that you do not know what you are talking about. Liberty is a great value but the socialism I know and support does not infringe on personal liberties. The socialism I know preaches that we take care of each other. Taxes become relative to income. Often it is feared that rich people will go elsewhere to avoid such taxzation but his is not the case. Mos people are happy to share and invest. Because that is what it is. My college bills are being payed by the government, I only have a debt if I borrow from them. The society invests in me, I repay that debt later when I pay my taxes and thus provide for the new generation and for the elderly as well.

Tell me whats wrong with this. I am happy, my countrymen are by and large happy, duing election time we don't have a meager two parties to choice from, there are loads of different parties. Yes there are issues but they are minor compared to those of the us. Rape and murder are at an all ime low, we've had to close and are still closing prisons.

I am goin to be blunt, the usa is a very young country, its such a pity that you refuse to learn from European history. Take a look at Sweden take a look at Germany, The Netherlands, France. Take the systems and policies that work and copy them.

Jj, to say that Obama is socialist is to say that the US are a democracy. Neither is true. You have a congress that is bought, you get to vote once every four years, you can choose betwoon D or R and huge amounts of money are wasted on campaigning. Sorry for being the obnoxious foreigner...

 

Wow what a way to get off topic, abortion, socialism, illegal immigration fences.... yoy yoy yoy!

I live in France, it has a supposedly socialist government. To win last year's election Monsieur Hollande promised an and to the cuts, an end to austerity, more help for those in need, more teachers in the schools to bring down the teacher/pupil ratio, more nurses, more civil servants - until he got in when he did the exact opposite to every single campaign promise and just 15 months in he is already the least liked French Premier of all time.

He has gone against every European direct concerning free travel within Europe between Europeans and 'assistance sociale allowance 'famiale' and just yesterday even the internet as a basic human right. (ask if you want know more about his govt banning the internet for some).

So in essence my friend, you can now safely remove France from your list of European socialist govts who care about their people.

 

No. Here is why, evidently he was voted into office because his promises. So the French seem to be aligned with the socialistic ideas. Its a shame he didnt fullfil any of his promises, but that doesnt mean the promises themselves were poor. I think the French showed clearly that they wanted these promises to be fullfilled so ill make an amend, the majority of the french appear to be socialistic

 

Has murder, i.e. taking an innocent life, ever been right? Murder is wrong. Period.

Not sure where immigration came into the conversation but I will gladly share my opinion. Any sovereign country has the right to control their own borders and the US is no different. There are people that wish to come to America and make a better lives for themselves. I have no problems with this, but we have existing laws on how to do that, and anyone who breaks those laws needs to be prosecuted or at least sent packing. I think we should re-allocate funds from defense, and reappropriate them to building a secure border. I would rather have our troops doing patrols along our border than sitting in hundreds of useless bases around the world or getting blown up in Afghanistan. So yeah, there are laws against people breaking into my house, but that doesn't mean I'm not going put locks on my doors and install a security system.

I'm not really sure I understand what you're saying here. Here's something simple: Life isn't fair. Crazy, right? Not everyone is going to be rich or famous. Five year-olds are going to die of cancer, people go hungry, people die. There's no fairness in the world. Everyone does the best job that they can to make the best life that they can. All men are created equal. We are 'created' at the moment of conception and from that moment to our final breath we have the opportunity to make our lives whatever we want it to be. It may go south, it may not work and we might die alone and miserable but we all deserve the right to make a go of it. To say that a human being 'could' wind up being poor or desitute and that we should kill them out of some kind of twisted mercy is crazy.

The morning after pill prevents conception and has no effect on the child if a woman is already pregnant, so no.

I don't understand what your getting at here.

...as you wish.

Getting back on topic, when I refer to a 'socialist' Obama, I mean that he has ideologies that favor a centralized government taking money from the people to redistribute it as he sees fit. He has talked at length about his beliefs on 'fairness' and how it's not fair that all those dirty Wall St. people have so much money and the poor people are suffering. Everything he does is creating a society of jealousy where successful people are villified and attacked and every low-income sluggard is praised as a poor sap that has no control over their horrible plight. If he had his way, we take all the money from the rich, give it to the poor and 'equalize' everyone. But even my 11 year-old son knows why that can't work. Eventually, those successful people working 80 hours a week will realize that there's no point. They could sit at home and live off the government and make the same amount of money as everyone else.

Again, a welfare state is great until you run out of other people's money. Once you remove the incentive for people to be innovative and successful, then you are just left with an unsustainable economy that will collapse under the weight of all the leeches. 'Please, Mr. Obama, may I have some more?'

 

This is the problem with national elections, and dare I say the problem with popularity voting influencing an election. Sooner or later, popularity elections become a matter of who is viable for winning as opposed to whom proposes the better ideas.

Not quite so.

Emails, Private Messages, Instant Messaging, & anything else behind a private wall is equal to a private activity. They're scanned with an user-agreement in mind, that violators would be rightfully sued. The best-valid contract signed with government comes from the fourth amendment in the U.S. Constitution:

However, the keyword above is 'private wall'. Anything in public is easily viable to being searched without warrant, and no matter how many people on Facebook put any such disclaimers they think can stop others from searching their Facebook pages, anything an individual posts on his/her wall is instantly public domain.

That is the issue at-hand, not that the NSA is spying (I've always considered it common knowledge anyways). They're infringing on the right to liberty & violating their own laws just like when Congress passed the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. A.C.T. (not that spying itself should be acceptable either, especially when doing so on your own people), and if they are to violate their own laws and to violate our liberty (not to forget, what they have done very much is a violation of the principle of freedom & liberty itself), then where shall it stop? Furthermore, would you want your own worst enemy to be able to have this same ability?

Slippery slope argument? Sure, but with plenty of basis in reality and we do not need to look back more than this past decade for much evidence.

 

There is one major difference we should get out of the way. America is politically very much divided, few people trust the government. Given that there isn't that much trust, I can see why you won't trust your government with redistributing the wealth. Yes, there will be people who will leech of a socialistic government and you are right that a true, 100% socialistic government simply won't last.

Here's the rub, the same goes for limited government. It might give incentive for people to be succesfull, but out of the 300 million Americans that are being "motivated" by this, how many do you think will succeed? A hundred thousand? Two hundred and fifty thousand? Whatever the case, you are going to end up with a few people that won the competition, own almost all the money and therefore have almost all the power. Does that sound fair to you? Let me rephrase, does that sound democratic to you? It's an extreme example but so is the notion that a socialist government will make people lazy.

Sometimes my friend, there is objective truth. The greed of Wall St. might be a cliche, but they are, demonstrably, greedy. How comes that major corporations who barely have to pay taxes at all get tax refunds whereas your average Joe will have to pay his taxes as always?

Let' s talk about fair:

Exon mobil, largest oil company in the world, made 90 billion in profits in 2009. They payed no federal income taxes, it actually got a 156 million dollar rebate from the IRS.
Bank of America got a 1.9 billion dollar tax refund from the IRS in 2010, even though it made 4.4 billion in profits.
General Electric profited for 26 billion dollars over the last 5 years and received 4.1 billion in taxs refunds.
Chevron received 90 million dollars in tax refund after having amassed a profit of 10 billion dollars in 2009.
Boeing, which has a 30 billion dollar contract running recieved 124 million dollars in tax refund.

If you are working stiff, making 30,000-40,000 a year, you pay taxes. But if you are chevron and you make 10 billion in profits, you get 90 million dollars from the IRS as a bonus.

Is it so evil in your eyes to care about other people? Is it so evil for a government to try and serve all the people instead of a select few?

What a horrible, candle-snuffing thing of you to say. I wholeheartedly invite you to look poverty in the eye and dare say that again. There may be true leeches, but there are many more true poor. I have been to Moldova, the poorest country in Europe, the circumstances those people life in are utterly inhumane, yet still people with a political alignment similar to yours will tell me that these people are leeches when they life off $30 a month.

I want to ask you one more question, what would your ideal society look like? Mine would be one where all people have the same opportunities, where there is a possibility to become rich if you work hard, where you can life normally if you don't aim to become rich and where no one has to suffer poverty. By the way, the leeches you describe don't even exist that much, to get into welfare you are obliged to apply for jobs every so often, incentives and opportunities are given. Many people feel horrible at having no job and happily become independent again. Your leeches can leech all they want but its not like they will have to life carelessly. They will have to think twice before they buy anything, to check if they can afford it. The idea that welfare is some sort of free ride is utterly wrong, it's enough to keep you alive, that is all (at least that is how it works over here).

 

I don't know where you get your info on French politics.

Since the start of the fifth republic of France in 1959 Francois Hollande is only the second socialist president of France.

These are the main reasons he won power;

His predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy raised the age of retirement from 60 to 62 - pissed off everybody at, and approaching, retirement age.

Banned the burkha, pissed off every muslim in France, approx. 5 million

The conservatives had been in power since 1995, through all years of turbulence, debt riddled banks, soaring personal debt, France's worst unemployment numbers, huge govt cover ups of corruption and endless amounts of native French companies shipping out to China, Morocco and India.

The people wanted change, the only alternative to Socialists were the far right/national front aka the burn everybody not French brigade.

Et voila, France is far from socialist

 

No, it's not fair and it sounds fantastic. How many people are employed in the US? A lot, right? A vast majority of Americans are working hard for a company. Every company has the successful people that created it. Apple and Microsoft started in a garage and now the owners make millions of dollars a year. But they also employ hundreds of thousands of people. There will always be a smaller number of employers then there are employees, but every employee still has the opportunity to innovate or grind to become their own boss. Or they are happy just working 9-5 and keeping the lights on.

You have to go further toward your scenario, though. Those handful of employers need to have employees to create their product, but they also need those same people to buy their products. If the employers don't have anyone else that can afford their product, it doesn't sell, and they eventually become poor and become employees of someone else again. All these people that 'won the competition' as you say, have a fundamental stake in how much money the 'losers' have. How much money would Apple make if no one could afford their products? Not a lot.

Capitalism is a self-correcting, self-sustaining economic system that works, as long as the government stays out of it.

Okay, let's talk about greed. What is greed? Greed is the intense selfish desire to accumulate wealth. Okay, we've already established that you cannot accumulate wealth without someone on the other end to give it to you. So, simplistically, there can't be 'selfish' greed in capitalism because you can't do something detrimental to your consumers without impacting your profits and thereby, losing money. Obviously if you cut corners or do illegal things you could, but there are still authorities for monitoring foul play, and if that were made public, you would lose money.

And who's fault is that? Everything you mentioned is perfectly legal. They aren't breaking any laws. Every tax benefit they are utilizing was signed into law by the same people you voted for. These tax laws were written by people who represent you. You would blame the companies for maximizing their profits legally? That's silly.

When the government started, everyone got together and said, 'Hey, we need roads and schools and police. These will be used by everyone so lets all contribute to make these things and let's have some responsible people make that happen.' and *poof* a government was born. That's where the term 'general welfare' comes in. There things in our society that are used by everyone and everyone contributes. It's a beautiful thing.

So how did we get to where we are today? Our government tells us what size beverage we can drink? They tell us how to raise our children? Now they are forcing us to buy a product.

Do you know how much a family gets on Food Stamps? Around $400-$500 a month. (The average is about $140 across all 47.7 million Americans but that's a lot of individuals as well.) Want an eye opener? Find out how much people live on in some of the poorer countries in the world. (I'll give you a hint, it less than $2 a day.)

I consider myself a survivalist and I have spent a lot of time in the woods honing my survival skills and let me tell you, the average family doesn't need anywhere near that much money to survive. Remember, food stamps is supposed to be temporary, not a way of life. The government should give you enough food to survive, and that's it. Bare minimum. With $500 a month, I could feed hundreds of people. (Once you understand nutrition and the basic building blocks of proper human sustenance, you can go a long way with beans or chicken, rice and a little cooking oil.) Will it be good? Yeah, I could make it taste alright, but it would be the same thing for breakfast lunch and dinner and would drive you crazy afer a while, but you'd get your caloric intake and nutrients.

With food stamps, I could go down to the supermark and buy Skittles, Coca-cola, Fruity Pebbles, Ho-ho's, Pizza, and anything else I want. It's a huge waste. But hey, our government is only giving out 50 BILLION dollars a year for it.

If it were up to me, they'd get a bag of rice, some canned meat and/or fish, cooking oil and all the bottled water they could carry. Don't like it? Too bad.

The poor of the world and the poor in America are two COMPLETELY different things. The biggest health problem for poor Americans is obesity. Again, I'm not talking about world economy, just US economy and US people.

See above, that's not how it works here. We don't oversee the money that's being shoveled into the giant pit called America. It's become too big to oversee and now the benefit programs are mostly just rubberstamped and the checks are printed.

My ideal society? Exactly what you said except for this part: "where no one has to suffer poverty." When you say, 'everyone has an opportunity' then they have a chance, not a gaurantee. The liberals in this country want to give everyone the same outcome, not opportunity.

The worst thing the government ever did was grow a conscience.

 

You are misrepresenting me, I wasn't referring to the past or to the future, I am calling it as I see it. You say yourself that there were only two choices, at the very least the majority of the French considered the socialistic option a lesser evil. I know Sarkozy raised the retirement age, I know he pissed of the muslim community, I know France used to be conservative, yet none of that contradicts what I said. All I was saying is that when Hollande was elected a majority of the French gave their vote to a socialist, perhaps 99% weren't even socialist but that doesn't matter, they supported his ideas. They are dissapointed in him now that he failed, they wanted him to succeed didn't they? All in all the French were more supportive of a socialistic government than of a right-wing one. My original point was that Western Europe compared to the USA is far more left wing, and that when JJ calls Obama a socialist, it simply doesn't add up, Obama is considered (mildly) right-wing/conservative in Western Europe, that was my point, I believe it still stands.

 

I didn't say there was two choices. I said it was either the National Front or the Socialists to take down Sarkozy - that's 3 choices but the NF have never been so close to make the final 2 as last year - next time round they will be so much stronger.

There's a difference between supporting Hollande's ideas and giving the guy a chance - the "after all, he can't be as bad as Sarkozy" attitude is what won it, nothing else.

France is not a socialist country - the people wanted a change, Hollande was the last man standing after the Front Nationale stepped down, end of story.

No one in Western Europe would consider Obama even mildly right wing/conservative - centre right at best, republicans centre left - both will soon be centre and again the circus of US elections will focus on a bucket of clowns dancing to the tune of the black cloaks playing the piano.

And I don't know why you think Western Europe is left wing, the majority is centre with the right wing taking an average 20% votes through Europe and Scandinavia and Norway. Did you know that the Right Wing Nazi party of Germany took 45% of the last vote? Kept that quiet didn't they? While 20% won't win any election, it is rising year on year as the youth gets more and more disillusioned with centre / centre left politics and 20% is a big number to take into a coalition.

The UK is all centre, labour and tory are almost identical, the only ones coming up the put side are the UKIP party - very right wing, again getting stronger every day.

Believe me - Europe is on the verge of a riot which will make the Arab Spring look like a day out.

 

[MENTION=44992]JJ_Maxx[/MENTION] Your vision of a government that provides infrastructure, education and other public services is great, all I want to add is social security. The government should look after its people if they can not (through circumstances) provide for themselves. The government should make sure that everyone can get the medical care they need. The government should tax people and companies relative to their income. The strongest shoulders should carry the heaviest loads, what is so unreasonable about that?

They shouldn't dictate what we drink and eat, but, if it's an objective fact that cigarettes and beverage harm our health then they should advertise against it (not punish its usage though). Once again, there is objective fact.

The whole idea is that the government serves the people, nothing in social security infringes on personal liberties. The problem with your vision lies in the fact that life isn't predictable, or as in your own words 'fair'. People suffer, it is in human nature to help others, why not put aside a few extra dollars every month to take care of exactly that? When we talk about companies having to put millions into taxes that might sound like alot but those companies aren't one person, they are thousands of persons who put aside a few dollars each.

We are going to disagree, and I can live with that. I find your idea of simply maintaining life for the poor instead of trying to get them in a better place quite gruesome. You are right that the spending doesn't have to be that big but you fail to realize that not many people have your survival skills. Not everyone can get by the way you claim you can.

Hey, you are a fellow human, I get the idea that if I were bleeding out on the street you would come to my aid, that to me, is enough. We aren't going to achieve either of our " perfect" societies by flat out denying that there is any truth in the opinion of the other. You made some valid points, you raised valid concerns, the threat of the leech is a very real one but so, my friend, is the threat of the totalitarian CEO.

Perhaps the best system lies somewhere in the middle...who can tell, we have yet to try it out...

 

Truth be told, I don't believe you, happy for it too because your idea of where Europe is heading doesn't sound very pleasant. Its funny you should mention UKIP, I actually quite like Nigel Farage, its odd how close extreme right wing (UKIP, [Dutch] PVV) can get to extreme left wing ([Dutch] SP <- I support these guys, on most of their points, most of the time).

As for your Nazi statistics, who told you that? Alex Jones? O'reilly?

Point granted, France isn't socialist. However, compared to the USA, Western Europe has alot of socialistic features. That's what I am getting at. JJ's remark that Obama is a socialist simply doesn't hold. I wouldn't even know what to call Emile Roemer ([Dutch] SP party leader) if Obama was socialist, he'd be way past socialism if you are going to extrapolate all other politicians stances on the notion that Obama is socialist.

In short, I was making a comparison between the EU and the USA. What JJ might consider socialistic isn't deemed as such here (I think, don't want to speak for all of the EU, that would be impossible).

 

apologies - just read that back, 15% not 45% of Nazis - my mistake sorry

the rest is right though, we are heading for the shit here and I think it needs it, the rich are just getting way to powerful, taking over everything. When you see one company owning hundreds of Intl brands with none paying taxes while countries are brought to its knees, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, Ireland. Riots already in Turkey, Germany, France, England - it will get organised and spread like wildfire, don't believe, hide out in Canada and watch the news. I won't be far watching from Nv.

 

The problem is our government doesn't have the manpower to determine whether they cannot or if they will not. Right now we have too many 'will nots.'

Then why can't we agree on a flat tax? Tax me 10% of my income and tax Bill Gates 10% of his income. Isn't that 'fair'? Equality and all that. Right now in the US, the top 20% of income earners shoulder almost 70% of the taxes. Is that enough shouldering for you or should we take more?

...and the bottom 20%? 0.3% of the tax burden.

Oh, and that's not even all Americans, that's just the ones that actually pay taxes. 47% of American households don't pay any income tax.

So how does a government reign in spending, when the vast majority of it's people have no stake in the funds? Answer: They don't.

In the US, we are at a point that Alexis de Tocqueville said pretty well:

So there you have it. It's actually quite obvious.

 

Getting back to the topic, , I see Cheney's making the talk show rounds claiming in his faux authoritative opinion that Snowden could very well be a Chinese spy.

My take on that: Some old guys like Cheney have a hard time believing an American could possibly reveal what Snowden did as a matter of conscience. My dad never believed young people actually protested the Vietnam war because they believed it was wrong. He thought protestors had to be dupes of the Commies.

It's an interesting phenomena, creating reasons for things because one can't believe the actual reason.

 

I answered this post in a new thread because it's off topic here.

 

Probably been mentioned a million times, but i have no idea why this is news. I mean how many days after 9/11 was the Patriot Avt introduced. When that was signed, all this stuff was happening. Not last year, or last week, but back in 2001.

Also, social media, like Facebook - Why do you think its impossible to delete your account? Hello, you'd have to be an idiot to not have known about this coming future.

Also, Echelon(sp), which records phones calls goes back decades.

 

I found this from today's Yahoo news interesting:

(Italics are quoting Snowden)

I have to agree, the resources put into preventing terrorism relative to gain need more attention, as does the fact the mainstream news is a commodity and 'source of good information' is no longer the business model for that commodity..

 

Amen!

 

The last generation created the future; now, they wish they hadn't. Our modern society is like Frankenstein.

Internet spying was inevitable from the invention of the internet, which was inevitable from the invention of computers. I can almost see the Butlerian Jihad (Dune) looming on the horizon.

 

See how I did that, erebh? That's describing how it works, no New World Order conspiracy to control all the media needed. There's still room to describe the control wielded by Rupert Murdochs of the industry but that relies on direct evidence of which there is plenty.

 

I'm agreeing with you, why are you arguing? I still think the 'information' is controlled by govts.