The worst part is that people aren't shocked anymore. If and when this does pass it will just be another nail in the coffin of the freedom that the generations of servicemembers have died to protect, both here and overseas. As for the plague we don't need one, we just need to stop treating ourselves with kid gloves. The time has come to returne to social darwinism. If you can't figure out that sticking a fork in the toaster will shock you then piss off, you don't need to metaphorically shit in the gene pool. Hell who knows where we would be if we had followed that idea all this time, GWB might have pulled a vending machine over on top of himself in high school rather that get that stupid stickman warning that sayd you may cause serious injury or death as this machi9ne may tip over and fall on you,

Indeed. I'm so sick of people claiming that they have nothing to hide so let them spy on them. They're clueless idiots to be quite frank...uneducated in the history of how such invasion corrupts those in prior and in up oppressing us all. Benjamin Franklin said, "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.". There is a reason he said that...it's because he was no fool and knew the consequences of such a thing. But as long as people do nothing to tell Them we do not want such spying, then They will proceed. Frederick Douglass said, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning.". The summary is that those that expect freedom but do nothing for it have already lost it. Personally, I have been doing whatever I can against this crap since before 2000, mainly be be active with the
ACLU and EFF. It may not seem like much but it is a centralized voice that is already organized.

They need to let more of this sort of thing happen so they can use all the tragedies as ammo for their case that we "need" this surveillance. Why do you think it's all so widely televised everywhere on the universal propaganda machine (otherwise known as TV)? The Truth, of course, is that none of this spying will stop those who really want to do whatever evil they want. It will merely oppress the rest of us. Frederick Douglass has a nice quote which is, "The life of a nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.". This is someting that the government needs to work as well as the majority of the people. The hippie idealist in me has to wonder, "Why can't we all just get along?".

Wrong! The NSA has already worked with a private company and designed an artificial intelligence search engine to sift through the massive amount of audio, visual and electronic test data that it collects. (I believe they have since purchased the entire company and dismantled it's entity since I originally read about that gem.) No new jobs needed. The wonderful computers do all the core work of cataloguing, organizing, sifting and assembling complete reports for them. Isn't that super?

Apparently, you never read any Neal Stephenson or William Gibson. Have you at least worked for a Corp? I mean, they're pretty much evil.

I'm pretty sure this is exactly how it went in "Children of Men"... minus the infertility thing.

I weep for this country... and start to pack my bag so I can move to Australia and claim political asylum.

Has to be one of the most misquoted things Franklin said.

The actual quote is
Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

And reasonable men can argue what is "essential".

Corporations are not evil. They are simply
amoral.

I'll be dead soon. fuck everybody...

I kissed the Constitution goodbye long ago.

We're fucked. Our beautiful Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights are a part of history now. The United States is now a second-tier nation and our freedoms have been truly and completely compromised, and all in the name of saving them.

Ha!

True, true. The premise of the Corps are at least amoral. The evil comes in because those in power get corrupted by greed and what they do while in power creates that "evil". Evil is, of course, another matter of perception and opinion. The surmise is then that the amoral Corps become evil through greed corrupting those in power. I just skip to the chase and call them evil.

P.S. I enjoyed your other comments. Good show!

Thank you. I couldn't find the right quote and in haste used the version I found. I think that his use of the word "essential" is not in the context of which liberties may or may not be essential but rather that libery itself is essential.


P.S. Yikes! I had an entire sentence all messed up in that post. I guess I should pay more attention before submitting. I seemingly only have a short time to go back and edit the post.

Splitting hairs on the Franklin quote: "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

It's oft attributed to him, this quote on liberty and safety, either from 1755 or 1759. But, some researchers now believe it was from another diplomat (Richard Jackson) that had a book published by Franklin. Franklin claimed he didn't write it, too, in a private letter to David Hume saying Jackson was the author. Perhaps we'll never know. Whoa, the problems of historiography and primary sourcing...

He did say this one, though, in Poor Richard's Almanac, 1738- "Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."

Anyway...Close enough, no matter who said it, it's worth hearing again. So, sorry for this entry!

Who is the "we" you're talking about? I never ever worry about bending over for the government, no matter who's in office.

I'm not sure where your references to North Korea and Burma came from, so I'm just gonna leave them alone.

As far as all the "pesky 'freedom' and 'personal liberties' we keep blathering on about"... Last time I checked, we Americans are still free... unless they've declared martial law in Florida.

What personal liberty did you lose?

Here's the deal... there's a lot of dumb shit happening in the world of politics these days... no secret about that. However, it's never as bad as the media, political activists, and bloggers make it seem. Even when most conservatives talk about the 'defeatist liberal machine' I still don't buy it cuz the conservatives were just as bad when Clinton was in office. Do you remember when the whole Monica Lewinsky thing broke out. Holy shit! Maybe you weren't watching the same news I was, but the conservatives made it seem like the whole country was gonna implode in a massive hole of immorality. All of the huffing and puffing about the sanctity of the office of the President, and all that shit... and what did it amount to? Not much more than nothing, as far as I can see.

If you feel that strongly against what George Bush has done as president, I've got two pieces of good news for you:

1. George Bush cannot seek another term.

2. With each and every election, you have the chance to right whatever wrongs you perceive in the United States.

I just have a hard time believing that the country as a whole has any reason to feel that big brother is watching. I would actually feel bad for anyone who is that paranoid.

We have one... it's called the Bush/Cheney Virus and it seems to be very pernicious!