i went to a political meeting with the deputy first minister tonight and it was pretty cool. i'm going to a rally on the 21st and i'm thinking about doing some campaign volunteering. this is all so interesting.

Thank you anon for the drunk answer.

I had a couple more questions, but I don't want to start anything.

jesus fucking christ
fuck mexican politics

granted, the president is actually not as bad as everyone predicted but anyone in any lower rung is pretty much some of the worst humanity has to offer

http://web.archive.org/web/20130129213824/http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2270219/U-S-planned-launch-chemical-weapon-attack-Syria-blame-Assad.
html

>the old one had to be nuked from orbit

Usually threads get locked instead of deleted unless something major happens. So what'd I miss?

HOW ABOUT DEM DICKWOLVES DAYUM

>>384395
Dickwolves, lots and lots of them.

And on other matters...

> http://edition.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/politics/2013/09/09/tsr-intv-obama-blitzer-assad-threat.cnn.html
> Obama: Assad's threats not credible Obama: Assad's threats not credible
> President tells CNN that Syria does not have means to threaten the U.S.

Uhm, I thought a big part of the justification to go Mossad on Assad's ass, was because he was a threat to us? I recall Kerry saying that very clearly, yes I do.

>>384395
I'm actually curious too. The last thread certainly got heated, but that's kind of inevitable in politics threads. From everything I saw, a lock + telling people to drop it in the OP of the new thread would suffice.
What gives?

>>384395
>>384400
The topic of feminism/rape devolved into generics, mainly because it was everyone arguing against a single troll.

It was the only way to be sure.

>>384400
Please be quiet, you didn't get banned. Everyone who disagreed with you got banned. But apparently resorting to adhoms is not a banworthy offense.

>>384401
Who was the single troll? I know for 100% that each side had at least 2 supporters.
Slowpoke and an anon on one side, since you haven't banned him and he isn't the "one troll".

Me and another anon on the other side, which I know for sure because I'm not him. And we were keeping it civil while slowpoke and his anon called us names.

>>384401
figured it was a "drop it" moment when I saw a complete lack of that thread on the front page. Which, message received. It's a difficult topic and not much is really gained in rehashing it again, we'd just come to the same conclusions, as it were. Defending someone's right to say something shitty toes a really fine line where eventually, they're not really defensible, the exercise is simply academic.

>>384397
See, I was never under that impression that Syria had the ability to directly threaten the U.S. I was under the impression that the U.S. trying to strong arm Syria was a little bit more about appeasing Allied Nations and trade partners in that region, and in general just playing world police again.

>>384403
>Everyone who disagreed with you got banned.

You know this how?

Sage is for off topic and meta.

More on this >>384397

Is it bad that I think it's a little hypocritical that (at least in the US and Canada) we want as much privacy as we can get but expect the government(s) to turn into a glass house?

>>384406
I don't know if it's "bad" so much as "silly." The government is not a person. And "government transparency" does not mean we get any more access to the private lives of the people in charge of government than any other person on the planet--those arguing in favor of government transparency neither expect nor want Obama to let us watch him poop. At least most of them don't. I'm sure there are a couple of crazies and poop fetishists who do.

Democracy only works if people can vote based on their opinions of the performance of the people in power. If we are not told what our representatives are doing with the power we have given them, then our vote becomes meaningless--we may as well just throw a random number generator to decide who's going to be elected.

The fight for Government Transparency is ultimately about the same thing the Founders fought the Revolutionary War over--remember "No taxation without representation?" People who are in favor of government transparency feel that those who are lied to about what their representatives are doing do not have representation.

But even setting aside the question of whether or not we're being represented if we don't know what the people we elect do once they'r elected, there's the issue of accountability--accountability is the entire reason we allow government to do things that would get an ordinary citizen scorned by civilization. We allow the government to take our money to build things everyone needs because there is a paper trail showing how that money is spent. We allow the government to hire uniformed thugs to enforce its rules because when those thugs abuse their power we can get their badge numbers and find the documentation of the incidents in question. We allow the government to commit homicide because when they do, there is paperwork that can be followed to provide proof that it was necessary.

Once those receipts and paperwork are no longer available to the people of the United States, the actions of government that we accept as necessary to an orderly society no longer have any way of proving they're being done for good reasons--and such actions, with no proof of justification, become Tyranny.

>>384406
I'm actually okay with more transparency in public because everyone in America likes drinking and fucking and shitting and generally being jerks and it's all kept under wraps by this whole Christian notion being "ideal" and it makes the whole nation just schizophrenic. I think a little more transparency on both sides would be nice.

>>384407

This^

>>384408

I'm not understanding your desire for "transparency" from private citizens and their activities. Private corporations, maybe, because they are "owned" by many different shareholders, their shares change hands frequently, etc. but private individuals have no duty to disclose where they go, what they do, or how they spend their money. If they volunteer that information, as is their right, it's different; you post on Facebook you're at Wendy's, or that you like mt. Dew, it's in a public forum, and assumed you're ok with everyone and their mom, as well as Uncle Sam, knowing that info. But you have an expectation of privacy in your home, and the legal burden is on the government to justify intrusions into your home. Likewise, you're guaranteed to be secure in your person, papers, and effects unless legal justification is provided; the burden is on the state to demonstrate why they can violate that otherwise sacrosanct privacy/freedom from search.

If you're talking social transparency, that's different. People will always be two-faced and hide socially/personally shameful activity/beliefs, whether legal or not, from others. The phenomena of social media and the ubiquity of recording devices connected to the internet means it'll be harder to do so, but not impossible. But I feel I have no more right to know my neigh it's secrets or non-publicized vices than he does mine.

Every society has the problem you describe. America it's just exaggerated by our Calvinist culture ("if you do bad/bad things happen to you, you're predestined to hell; same reason we became so gung ho capitalist) combined with a sense of entitlement (we've had it really well the past century, no wars on our own soil; manifest destiny/thinking we're some exceptional nation with divinely ordained importance).

The cure for it is education, not a loss of privacy

>>384415
Except that loss of some privacy would act as a kind of education.

It's that Calvinist Ideal that needs to die. That is the single largest thing that fucks our country and our ability as a people to have mature discussions about what's going on. It's the single largest thing that fuels the loudest, brashest idiots who inject the most confusion and doubt into the entire system. For no reason other than to secure power for people who don't give a shit about them.

I actually like the idea of Big Data. I like the idea that on an unprecedented level, we can monitor people and see what they're actually doing, and see it in aggregate. That we can affect policy with an idea of What's Actually Going On, not What We Think is Going On.

All this NSA stuff comes out and everybody sucks their panties straight up into the blackhole of knowledge and burritos that is their asses. At the same time, I just saw an article from the Associate Press that's like, "Google was War Driving Unencryptd Wireless Networks while it was taking pictures for Maps". And everyone's up in arms about a practice that has been possible for anyone to do with cheap equipment and free software for 20 years. It's the reason your wireless router comes standard with encryption protocols that dipshits don't enable.

I am in favor of Social Transparency as an Education Experience. I am in favor of showing people the vast divide not just between economic income but between education, experience, and frankly ability. If the Federal Government comes out and goes "by processing Phone Records, we've figured out that 70% of the nation smokes pot. So we're going to De-criminalize that Federally and let the rest of the shit work itself out", I would be ecstatic.

After a Lifetime on the Internet, a Lifetime of being force to post links to the Relevant Research and then let the forum savage that as it may, I am ready for a Federal Government that actually does rely on Data, and not Supposition.

Yeah I realize that's largely unreasonable but I'm sick of being stuck in a Country where the perception is we're all fucking idiots. Clearly that's not fucking true, and we should stop acting like it is. That just makes people okay with being stupid, and treating every opinion like it has the exact same weight when they don't.

>>384419
Okay, but here's the thing: let's say you're writing a book about a MacGuyver type character, and you need to know what materials he would need to have available to rig up a bomb to get out of a place. In a sane world, you just look that shit up and be done with it. In a world where everything you do is constantly surveilled, suddenly you start asking yourself if you should be looking up that information--it has a chilling information on our actions because we're afraid of giving the appearance of guilt.

Additionally, most of the people who have access to this sort of information are contractors, young people who aren't necessarily that loyal or disciplined--look at how Snowden defected once his principles were challenged (or, depending how you see him, once he saw an opportunity for glory). However you see Snowden, one assumes that with that many contractors with so little accountability, you're going to get people who are going to abuse their power. And they have more or less unfettered access to everything the NSA can crack--which includes things like financial statements, bank numbers, and the ability to personally stalk on love interests or exes using taxpayer money and the power of the entire government spy machine, which they've actually been caught doing. How long until we find out they use their access to steal money, or to play the stock market based on insider information gleaned from spying on companies before they make major decisions?

For that matter, the government has the power to spy on the phone calls that criminals make to their lawyers. That alone is fucking terrifying.

But even if you don't care about any of that, there's the other elephant in the room: it doesn't work.

Do you remember 9/11? The government had all the information they needed to know that it was going to happen. Do you know why they didn't act on it? Conspiracy theorists say it was because it was a false flag that would've required untold amounts of secrecy and competence that the government has never indicated it's capable of, but those people are lunatics. The actual reason, and the reason they've copped to, is much simpler and much more telling about why wide-range surveillance is stupid: they had too much information to be able to tell what was important. They had tons of memos to go through to figure out which ones were worth acting on, and they weren't able to get to the ones about 9/11 until too late. Dragnets do not work because all they do is decrease the signal to noise ratio even further than it already is.

>>384421
Well, that and Paul Wolfowitz ten years ago made a big thesis about continuing Republican relevance with perpetual war and that it needed a catalyzing event to occur that would be strong enough to throw America into conflict.

And then they have multiple chances to end it symbolically with Osama's capture or hunting down this or that guy, and then don't because REASONS. If there is a conspiracy, it would be one of willful ignorance because it does fit into the goals of this document. There's probably attacks all the fucking time we know nothing about they stop.

Do I buy it? Not really, I much prefer the 'Administration was incompent' idea. But a conspiracy doesn't necessarily need convoluted plans. It can just be a level of disconnected avoidance of the issue. The winning move, or the move you want to play, can be to not play at all.

>>384421
Bill Clinton was also aware of OSama Bin Laden and was discussing what to do with him up through the end of his Administration. It was only once Bush got into power and moved his guys in that everything got screwed up as they tried to refactor the Intelligence Agencies. There weren't too many reports or garbage information, there were people who were unable to process them effectively.

Too much information is not the Problem. People who cannot deal with that information but still believe that they should be in charge are the problem. 9/11 was totally preventable, but no Conservative will listen to that viewpoint (or read a lot of memos).

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/clinton-passed-on-killing-bin-laden/

>>384421
It should also be pointed out that the NSA Dragnet as such did not exist at that point and time, and one of Clinton's gripes about Intelligence at the time was that they did not really have effective Intelligence about what was going on from a digital perspective:

>For the last three years of his presidency, Clinton says, he and top national security officials discussed bin Laden "several times a week." U.S. intelligence agencies "didn't succeed in either getting bin Laden or telling us where he was. And I was sometimes frustrated thinking they were recommending that I not do things more than that I do. It was frustrating to me."

>Clinton also discusses a proposal to restructure U.S. intelligence agencies. "The best minds in each of our intelligence agencies should be given a common office somewhere and they should have a joint doomsday planning operation," he says.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1967393

As for Snowden, yes, I'm totally sad that a broken Security Clearance process allowed some guy to get into the system and then tip us all off:

http://nation.time.com/2013/06/15/potential-blind-spots-in-clearance-process-that-gave-snowden-top-secret-access/

>>384423
>>384424
and the great takeaway here is that even when the system isn't actually in full effect, it still kind of works. The instant you put somebody who can't deal with this in Office (along with his whole administration), the whole thing falls to shit. Or worse. Obama had to improve the system that Bush initially okay'd. Half the shit that guy has had to deal with is the fallout from the United States of Dumbfuckistan.

>>384425
That's a good point: an institution that can't continue running at an acceptable level when an idiot is in charge is an institution that cannot remain a part of government, because you can pretty much guarantee, regardless of your political affiliation, that at some point someone who you think is an idiot is going to be in charge.

Good Job Australia, this is the most fucked thing I've heard in a while.

http://www.cchr.org.au/component/content/article/35-front-page-news/222-children-consent-to-sterilisation

>>384423
Bill Clinton partly made the 9/11 attacks possible.

If you actually look back, the majority of the 9/11 hijackers had Bosnian passports granted to them by people Clinton 'protected' in the 90s, or were trained in Bosnia in mockups of aircraft. Clinton also supported the Afghani Mujahideen in the Afghan civil war, which is where Al Qaeda gets its foot soldiers from. And since Bosnia wasn't considered a watch high risk country, they slipped past controls without problems.

Not enough time to get into the Saudi link or how Clinton pretty much created the recession, the point is that he was a bad president and shouldn't be used as a good example.

>>384437
WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? Who in their right mind could possibly think this is a good idea?!

>>384439
Australia is slowly morphing into a republican haven of batshit insanity.

Which is a damn shame for the poor sane ones who have to deal with the crazy bullshit of the likes of Tony Abbot.

>>384437

Australia.

Th'fuck, mates.

>>384437
Why??? Politics here have OFFICIALLY gone to shit.

I'm not sure if this is EXACTLY the right thread for this, but I've been reading the Illuminatus! trilogy for the first time recently, and it is just ridiculous how applicable it is to the current political climate. Almost every line or joke they make about various government agencies, political groups, religious organizations, laws, court decisions, and even government surveillance, could have been a line in a topical serial from 2013.

Not bad for books that are forty years old and not even set in the future.

Just thought I'd share this.

Alright, interesting !

http://www.theonion.com/articles/poll-majority-of-americans-approve-of-sending-cong,33752/

>>384455
Huh. When did the Onion start reporting facts?

>>384456
They secretly always where.

>>384455
That was funny. This one, however, not so much.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/nations-female-joggers-know-they-will-one-day-be-a,33746/

I know what they're getting at, but it's still in rather poor taste.

Polite sage, and crossing fingers that this won't re-ignite the rape jokes/dickwolves debate.

>>384438
> Bosnian passports granted to them by people Clinton 'protected' in the 90s
[Citation Needed]

From Wikipedia:
>According to James Bamford, the NSA had picked up communications of al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi back in 1999, but had been hampered by internal bureaucratic conflicts between itself and the CIA, and did not do a full analysis of the information it passed on to the agency. For example; it only passed the first names on, Nawaf and Khalid.[25]

>Bamford also claims that the CIA's Alec Station (a unit assigned to bin Laden) knew that al-Mihdhar was planning to come to New York as far back as January 2000. Doug Miller, one of 3 FBI agents working inside the CIA station, tried to send a message (a CIR) to the FBI to alert them about this, so they could put al-Mihdhar on a watch list. His CIA boss, Tom Wilshire, deputy station chief, allegedly denied permission to Miller. Miller asked his associate Mark Rossini for advice; Rossini pressed Wilshire's deputy but was again rebuffed.[26][27]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijackers_in_the_September_11_attacks
The time frame for them entering the country falls more onto Bush's lap than Clinton's, and attempts were still being made to notify various agencies, in the midst of the restructuring they were going through with Bush. It's also worth noting that at the time, none of these people had actually done anything; Osama was suspected of having funded terrorist plots and operations, but there was no concrete ties to anything where we would've actually been justified in picking him up.

>The point is that he was a bad president and shouldn't be used as a good example

Wikipedia:
>Clinton left office with the highest end-of-office approval rating of any U.S. president since World War II
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_clinton

>The Clinton years showed the effects of a large tax increase that Clinton pushed through in his first year, and that Republicans incorrectly claim is the "largest tax increase in history." It fell almost exclusively on upper-income taxpayers. Clinton’s fiscal 1994 budget also contained some spending restraints.
http://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

By every non-conservative estimate, that is, every objective appraisal of his Presidency, Clinton was the best President of the last 50 years, since Kennedy. And even if he wasn't, it's really fucking weird that for some reason whenever a Democrat gets into Office the Economy Magically starts to work and function and actually turn around. It is even happening under Obama despite all protests to the contrary. It's almost like one party actually knows what they're doing and the other party just believes they should rule. Which, based on the freakish mutants they have rolled out on their presidential selections, is probably the actual case. Fuck, even Kerry just helped defuse the situation in Syria!

It's almost like for years the Democratic Party has been saying "Let us Actually Help You" and the Conservatives have just gone "YOU ARE TRYING TO SUBVERT MUH FREEDUMS". The economic track records are certainly striking.

Why do convenience and consumer rights have to be mutually exclusive? I just don't get it.

>>384570
I imagine the answer boils down to money.

>>384570
i dont get the question?

>>384570
i dont get the question?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/15/times-square-shooting_n_3928601.html
From police.

They should only have whistles and billy clubs.

>>384607
This is what happens when you grant a large segment of the population the ability and outright responsibility to enforce their view of social order through violence, and train them to believe they suffer no consequences for doing so.

>>384607
Not exactly the best idea for a country the size of the United States.
Hell, even regular states.

>>384607
Aren't cops trained not to shoot when there are bystanders in front of or behind a bad guy?

That's what TV keeps telling me.

>>384642
TV is full of lies, both fictional and non-. Even on shows that will delve into the likes of Internal Affairs, they usually paint the scenario as a half-dozen cops at most being corrupt/abusive, or at most a unit collectively hiding a few cops that do so, when the reality appears to be (or, at least, I believe it to be) that most cops are either
A) corrupt
B) power hungry bullies, or
C) enabling A or B, either directly or indirectly (by remaining silent when they know about the wrongdoing)

Dont Talk to Police

On a side note, a show that focuses on Internal Affairs could be highly interesting ("Law & Order: Code Blue"), and may have the added bonus of raising the national debate about the powers given to police and lack of oversight/punishment.

> crazed asshole starts shooting people in a school, college, or any sort of public area, kills lot of people
> argument is made that if people were allowed to be armed in such instances, the murderer would not be able to kill as many
> crazed asshole starts shooting people in a US Navy base, a place you would assume has at least a good number of armed personnel going around
> he kills 19, and it's actually the police who shoots him down.

Odd. I am really not making an argument for gun control here, just curious by the whole thing. I am not American, so perhaps I am assuming wrong and there are not really that many armed people quickly available in a military base, could somebody shed some light on this?

>>384667
While I've not been on a Naval base, nor have I read into the details of what happened, I have to assume that it's like an Army base: If we're not under direct military threat, only the MPs (Military Police) and anyone assigned as a bodyguard actively carry weapons. Everyone else's assigned weapon is locked up somewhere in their unit, and then the ammunition for that weapon is kept at a separate, central facility.

Even when we got our weapons for field missions, we didn't even get blanks.

Same reason the same thing happened at Fort Hood a few years back: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Hood_shooting

Now if all military personnel had been packing, then the shooter would have gotten one, maybe two people from the element of surprise. But because such an instance is so rare it's not deemed worthy to have all personnel armed; and, sadly so far as I can tell from my experience, most basic military personnel have very limited range time and would be as likely to hit a civilian as the shooter. :( (It is probably for this reason and such nearby high drug cartel activity that, at least on Fort Bliss, you couldn't carry your personal weapon, either; all personal weapons brought onto base had to be checked into the unit's armory or the post's gun club.)

>>384668

>would be as likely to hit a civilian as the shooter

That's one of the points gun control advocates bring up in cases such as this: even if civilians and such were armed at the exact moment of a shooting such as Sandy Hook or the Aurora theater shooting, they're typically not trained to handle those situations. A handful of training courses on guns and gun safety wouldn’t and couldn’t prepare the average person to handle the kind of situations that the police and the military train to handle. Thus, their chances of accidentally shooting an innocent civilian go up. That’s not to say that cops, MPs, etc. couldn't do the same thing, but they have a much lower chance of doing it than a scared civilian who only took a couple of hours’ worth of safety courses at the local gun club.

Can gun grabbers please stop obsessing over the AR-15. This dude didn't even bring one but the media somehow managed to shoehorn "AR-15" into every. single. broadcast.

It's not an assault rifle, it is not a machine gun, it is not used by the military. It's just a standard hunting rifle with a plastic coating instead of wood.

Similar to this actually
http://www.ruger.com/products/mini14/

>>384667
People aren't allowed to have weapons on bases in USA unless they're MPs. America is not a war zone, if a regular soldier is issued a gun it's usually to clean it and put it away again.

>>384669
Civvies often get more range time than cops. The thing is the police might have to pass a firearms certification course once every two years and the passing grade is ridiculously low, some states don't even require that. Imo the cert requirements need to be raised and tested every month, with range time required every week. The problem is that people say "oh the police only use a gun once or twice in their career, expense isn't justified" and other bullshit.
Which is why things like this >>384607 happen.

On the other hand gun enthusiasts go to the range every weekend. Nobody buys a gun and just ignores it, it would be like buying a cake and not eating it.

Also, the police aren't trained to handle themselves in a stressful situation, there is really no training for that. Even military basic is more of a physical stress (lol 20km run with full gear) than a mental or a reaction one. They're cutting down on the physical stuff because of so many fatty applicants
In counties with high standards cops get a short firearms training course, obstacle courses, law courses, and occasional powerpoint presentations on how to handcuff someone in a wheelchair.

I blame Hollywood for all these misconceptions.

>>384669
Aye. I'm a strong ardent of the 2nd Amendment, but I agree that such an idea is quite preposterous. At best, there's equal potential of a civilian (or even under-trained military support personnel) defender hitting (not necessarily killing or even stopping) the shooter as there is of the defender hitting another bystander.

And, considering the apparent mix of low-critical-thinking and paranoia in America, I can easily see a second civilian coming onto the scene immediately after the defender takes their shot, thinking the defender is the shooter, then shooting the defender (or another innocent bystander.)

Even armed military in this situation would have done little unless they had the training and education of the police or MPs, because from my experience your standard army enlisted's training is "aim, shoot, then think," and that third step is optional. (Since the Navy is more about boat warfare, they likely have even less training thanks to furloughs.) I would not have trusted half my company with a loaded weapon near me (and we were attached to an Infantry battalion!)

>>384671
>Even military basic is more of a physical stress (lol 20km run with full gear) than a mental or a reaction one.
Right. When I was in Basic, we had some weapons training and combat stress training, but they were never mixed (likely out of safety concern). We did do a stress shoot run (but it was only about two miles in full gear) to get us used to aiming after weariness (we arrived too early and ran circles around a turnabout in front of the range until it was our turn). The combat stress training (I forget what it was called) involved a four mile hike to the training grounds, at which point we had to climb a mostly vertical cement wall to get to a sandy area, then crawl about 1000ft, about half under barbed wire, while simulated mortars went off all around and live rounds were fired about 25ft off the ground (at the end you could turn around and watch the tracer rounds fly through the dark). We had our weapons, but no ammo.

>They're cutting down on the physical stuff because of so many fatty applicants
Also unfortunately true, and this shouldn't be the case at all.

>>384671
>Even military basic is more of a physical stress (lol 20km run with full gear) than a mental or a reaction one.
Right. When I was in Basic, we had some weapons training and combat stress training, but they were never mixed (likely out of safety concern). We did do a stress shoot run (but it was only about two miles in full gear) to get us used to aiming after weariness (we arrived too early and ran circles around a turnabout in front of the range until it was our turn). The combat stress training (I forget what it was called) involved a four mile hike to the training grounds, at which point we had to climb a mostly vertical cement wall to get to a sandy area, then crawl about 1000ft, about half under barbed wire, while simulated mortars went off all around and live rounds were fired about 25ft off the ground (at the end you could turn around and watch the tracer rounds fly through the dark). We had our weapons, but no ammo.

>They're cutting down on the physical stuff because of so many fatty applicants
Also unfortunately true, and this shouldn't be the case at all.

http://phys.org/news/2013-09-brazil-us-centric-internet.html

>>384678
THANKS OBAMA

>>384678
Way to ruin the biggest addition to human history sense language.

>>384678
So the government is concerned other countries might isolate themselves. Well it might have to do with us spying on them. Sad thing is we will probably lose this fantastic tool that allows global communication because the feds thought blatantly peeping on everyone was a good idea.

>>384692
This has probably been a long time coming, unfortunately. Part of the reason that the NSA has been able to perform to this level is because most of the network controls and the standards that define the Internet are based in the U.S., which I believe still has the largest population of Internet users?

Fracturing the network into multiple networks does actually make a kind of sense from a job generation and border security perspective. China's already done it and they're one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Communist and repressive, but growing fast.

I am little distraught though, and though I might wager that the cultural bleedover on the internet doesn't happen on a wide scale, the scale we do get is an important one. I think the important question is, if this becomes the new business model, will we still be able to access extra national sites without being stopped or limited, or worse, in some cases hunted.

It was our first strong step to global unification.

Maybe one day.

>>384685
He couldn't have done it himself. Out of the 541 politicians that steer this country only 37 expressed a negative opinion on the PATRIOT or NDA act.

>Baldwin, Blumenauer, Burton, Capuano, Clay, Conyers, Cummings, Davis, DeFazio, DeGette, Farr, Frank, Hastings, Honda, Jackson, Jackson-Lee (TX), Johnson (GA), Jones, Kucinich, Lee (CA), Lewis, McDermott, McGovern, Miller (CT), Nadler, Olver, Paul, Payne (ME), Rush, Schakowsky, Scott, Serrano, Stark, Thompson, Tierney, Waters, Watt, Woolsey.

So the majority of the political establishment would have to be fired out of a cannon, into the sun for America to have a chance.

>>384698
>Fracturing the network into multiple networks does actually make a kind of sense from a job generation and border security perspective. China's already done it and they're one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Communist and repressive, but growing fast.
Their economy isn't growing because of internet restrictions... it's growing in spite of their internet restrictions.
Next people will say their economy is growing because they execute 90% of their prisoners instead of bothering to house and feed them like America.

>>384698
> the U.S., which I believe still has the largest population of Internet users?

China has twice as many internet users than the US. Of course, their population is much larger, so the % of people actually using the internet is significantly lower. Still, in sheer numbers we are #2.

Because US control of the internet was such a problem and clearly inhibited its growth.

This is utter garbage and will just result in multiple, competing internets accessible from only certain countries apiece. What utter horseshit.

>>384707
Well, they also don't have the highest per capita percent of prisoners in the world like the U.S. does.

But explain your reasoning to me. I thought part of their economic boom was tied to them not using outside internet service like Facebook, or the strain between their Government and Google. I was under the impression that it was creating a somewhat lucrative dot com bubble for them.

China is one of those economies everyone's supposed to watch what they do in the coming years, and Brazil's another one. That Brazil is contemplating something like what China has is not insignificant, nor do I think you should just dismiss it offhand for a reason that looks like "lol communism".

>>384717
>Well, they also don't have the highest per capita percent of prisoners in the world like the U.S. does.
Yeah maybe we should have roving execution vans that execute people on the spot for basic things like small time theft and drug use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Execution_van
Oh wait, we actually place value on human life, silly Americans.

> I thought part of their economic boom was tied to them not using outside internet service like Facebook, or the strain between their Government and Google. I was under the impression that it was creating a somewhat lucrative dot com bubble for them.
lolwut, you realize their economy has been increasing at the same rate long before facebook was a thing? Do you know what a dot com bubble even is?

>China is one of those economies everyone's supposed to watch what they do in the coming years, and Brazil's another one.
All of BRIC is. Their economies are improving because corruption is falling and efficiency levels are approaching that of the west.
As in, their people are producing more per person, and their GPD per capita is approaching the west.

They aren't doing anything better than the west, they're approaching the ability to do things similarly.

>>384719
>Oh wait, we actually place value on human life
Only rich male heterosexual white people's lives, though.

>>384723
Lets not start the troll train.

Prison stats by number of incarcerated, race, and gender:
1. Black men
2. White men
3. Black women
4. White women
5. East Asian men
6. East Asian women

Considering the rates of homosexuality in women's prisons, it seems that Asian lesbians are the most highly valued members of our society.

>>384732
My hard drive certainly agrees.

>>384732
That's a disingenuous statistic, since it's going by raw numbers rather than a per capita incarceration rate per group. But even if it weren't, it's unrelated to my actual point which I assumed was pretty non-controversial: the United States government and mass media don't much care about sanctity of life for poor people and minorities. Keeping people from starving to death or dying of preventable diseases solely because of lack of financial resources is not a priority for America, nor is providing nutritious foods at prices that the poor can afford. Saving women's lives is not as important as saving the lives of their fetuses. Saving black people, hispanics, middle easterners, or especially Amerindians' lives is not important ever.

This is not about trolling, it is about combating a very dangerous piece of misinformation that the United States tries to sell to its citizens: that the other powerful nations are somehow less humanitarian or more prone to neglecting its citizens. But here's the thing--those nations believe that, too. Because that's what their countries, and their countries' medias, tell them. Hell, North Koreans actually believe that the people of the United States are only able to eat because of North Korean humanitarian efforts! Do you honestly believe a country like China, which has more than a billion people in it would not be able to pull off a successful revolution against a government that was truly heinous? Of course they could. But just like America, China is just tolerable enough for them convince themselves that "Well, it sucks here, but at least it's better than INSERT OTHER COUNTRY HERE."

Do not make the mistake of assuming the United States is some saintly nation, or even an above average nation, in terms of how it treats its people. No nation with a military industrial complex as powerful as the United States, nor with a political system as dependent on private investment of money from the wealthy, will ever be any better than Lawful Evil.

I am not suggesting we need to change allegiance to some other country--I don't honestly believe there are many countries left where this sort of shit doesn't happen. But don't believe the lies that try to convince you that your country is somehow more valorous than the rest of the world. No matter what country you live in, chances are it is run by villains who want to encourage you to buy into their tribalistic nonsense about how much better you have it than the other Tribes, because the people in power have it much easier when you think they're the best chance you've got.

>>384735
I was gonna say

>25% of the population incarcerated, mostly black and entirely poor and disenfranchised
>Incarcerated population is used by defense contractors to build bullets, bombs, and drones for pennies an hour (to undercut free Mexican contractors who work at around the same prices, supposedly)
>Murder innocents in the name of tracking a terror network that arguably wasted all its' talent in its' first attack (seriously most of these so called terrorists have trouble getting their explosives to work)

idk man Murderbus' economy is on the rise, they must be doing something right. Something you still haven't attributed to any mechanical action. I thought the limited network combined with their somewhat more lax attitude towards copyright law, which allows a lot of copycatting to go on. Which in turn is financing other bubbles like a housing bubble over there as well. Every bit of material I've heard discussing their economy is primarily focused on the fact that they've had to re-invent everything out here within their own network, and then compete against copycats.

But you haven't really explained how, mechanically (that is, what are the jobs/actions the people are undertaking to make it a growing economy), how this is all working. You've just held up the Murderbus.

So, Navy Yard shooter? Had secret-level clearance, which is how he gained access, despite multiple firearm incidents (shooting his ceiling, tires on someone's car, and more).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/contractor-would-not-have-hired-aaron-alexis-if-past-brushes-with-law-had-been-known/2013/09/17/e5bc83da-1faa-1
1e3-8459-657e0c72fec8_story.html

Go Go America.

>>384739
I really really really wish I could find that article with that ex-agent detailing just how fucking pathetic the secret clearance system is now but suffice to say that secret clearance is basically a certification and all you have to do to get one is apply for it then pass a really dumb test

but I can't and I don't know where it went so

http://www.npr.org/2013/09/20/224294330/11-people-injured-after-shooting-in-chicago-park?ft=1&f=1003
This kind of stuff is just going to get worse as the GOP tries their damnedest to pull up the safety nets, for-profit private prisons increase, focus on education/shouting at science decreases, and more.

I reckon that much of this kind of thing can be solved within 15 years, but doing so means destroying a lot of income for a lot of rich people that have bought a lot of congressmen/Presidents.

Second shooting in Chicago, another city with strict firearms restrictions. Proving once again that gun control works perfectly!

>>384717
Well to be fair ever since police started throwing everyone in jail for everything (c.'89), USA has had a massive drop in crime. Organized crime is mostly broken and only really exists south of the border, all that remains are small time street gangs. (pic 1)

As for race... the problem is a real and tangible social collapse within the African American community, not racist judges sending black men to jail disproportionately. When you ignore this problem or blame it on racism, you might as well be pulling the trigger yourself. (pic 2/3)

>>384798
>Well to be fair ever since police started throwing everyone in jail for everything (c.'89), USA has had a massive drop in crime.
Pretty much the entire world's crime rates have gone down since then, and they haven't been locking up their citizens in anywhere near those levels since then. Correlation does not imply causation.

>>384798
That time frame also includes two other possibilities:
1) About the time that poor kids start to reach major crime-committing age, but there are far less thanks to legalizing abortion (legalized nation-wide in 1973) (go go Freakonomics)
2) About the time that any kids start to reach major crime-committing age, but these kids grew up with far less exposure to lead paint (banned in 1978) and so are far less impaired.

There was also a lot more racial integration by that point (much of it starting in the 50s-70s), which may have helped.

I know this is more a military question than a political one, but what areas would be destabilized the most if America was to suddenly shut down all of its foreign military bases and bring its troops home?

Just curious, is all.

http://www.theonion.com/articles/enjoyment-of-steve-miller-bands-
jungle-love-last-p,33903/

http://www.theonion.com/articles/hell-now-a-thriving-epicenter-of-gay-culture,33928/

>>384860

Some individual areas may have trouble (Yemen) when the insurgent groups we've been drone-ing get a break, and shit would get...interesting in Korea/Japan China/Philippines, but overall, things would (imho) eventually balance out and be more stable. Our meddling (drone strikes, assassinations, arms sales, pressuring gov'ts with our military) creates more instability than its absence would, and if countries like Israel (ok, especially Israel) had to shoulder the cost of their own defense and couldn't count of US air/sea power being a phone call and fifteen minutes away, they'd probably focus more on diplomacy and compromise than posturing and saber-rattling.

>>384868
> and shit would get...interesting in Korea

I am curious (because I seriousy have no idea), in all these years has SK not build up a military good enough to stop a Zerg rush from the north? Because that would be incredibly dumb.

I mean, at least Israel has nukes as a detterrent.

>>384874
>I mean, at least Israel has nukes as a detterrent.
Right. "Deterrent." That's what they have those nukes for.

>>384875
"Destroy us, and be destroyed yourself"

Sounds like deterrent to me. What else would they do with the nukes, perhaps a ritual to summon the Metatron detailed in the forgotten sixth tome of the Torah?

>>384877
>Sounds like deterrent to me. What else would they do with the nukes, perhaps a ritual to summon the Metatron detailed in the forgotten sixth tome of the Torah?

Gojiratron!

>>384877
I'm implying that Israel is an instigator, and is therefore using those weapons not just to say "Destroy us and be destroyed yourself," but also to say "Do what we want or be destroyed."

>>384880
The problems is that you could arguably use nukes to force somebody else an ocean away to do your bidding, but it doesn't really work if said "somebody else" is your neighbor since the nukes would also harm your people. Plus, Israel already has the US for that purpose, to serve as an enforcerof their will. The very real threat of aircraft carriers and cruise missiles fucking shit up is much more effective than making empty boasts of nuclear armageddon in your back yard.

>>384880
Right, because the threat of nuclear attack over some minor bullshit is viable. I suggest you bone up on game theory.

>>384888
You need to bone up on your history if you think that countries base their foreign policy on well thought out, rational decisions. Even relatively "sane" countries make their foreign policies based on emotion and nationalistic pride more often than on sound logic, and Israel isn't even THAT competent at foreign policy.

>>384888
I don't think it's the threat of nukes so much as it's the threat of modern military technology, which has come pretty ridiculously far and would, I imagine, be part of Israel's arsenal if they have up-to-and-including Nukes. Things like Drone strikes are somewhat more dangerous than nukes because they can eliminate individuals so rapidly, rather than eliminating everyone. Certainly, having the American military in their pocket would be a boon, but there's also a giant boom in military hardware occurring from private contracting companies in that region. Threat of nukes doesn't seem necessary when there's threat of artillery strike.

If Israel actually launched a nuke (which they won't), America would drop them like a hot potato. Thinking otherwise is like thinking China would back NK if THEY launched a nuke.

>>384921
They've committed war crimes in the past and we've stuck by them. But then, we don't consider them war crimes if our side does them. Like when Hussein used that gas we sold him when he was still our ally.

http://thisisnotasian.tumblr.com/post/58482193901/just-out-of-interest-what-is-your-guys-opinion-on

Honestly I find that response to be incredibly ignorant. The man is in country where he is the minority and treated the lesser for it. Bringing up history is an odd defense. It doesn't give you a pass for being a shitty person now.

Hey, where do you guys get your news? Like, regularly. At the moment, I only check Wired (website) and the NY/LA Times (newspapers). I feel this isn't broad enough.

>>384960
Slashdot, Engadget, Ars Technica (mostly tech stuff, but sometimes more general things) and NPR.

I don't read actual newspapers/magazines.

>>384960
I read Reddit's /r/politics and /r/news. /r/politics is notoriously slanted left, but then so am I, so whatever. Even with the slant, you get a pretty eclectic mix of news links that way that at least gives you an idea of what people with different politics think.

Ars Technica, Wired sometimes, Tumblr and Twitter when I'm arsed to check it from my phone, which is technically considered the fasted News Delivery service of any kind at the moment. Though it's also a very good case study for why a lot of News Organizations need to grow up and concentrate more on getting it right, and providing actual expert insight into events, rather than getting it first. Getting it first is useless to almost everyone.

Well good job Republicans. You, the party that ostensibly wants to save money for the public, in your quest to stop sick people from getting treatment, tried to push said quest against a pro-sick people Senate and White House. Now you have brought the government to a shutdown, costing us millions in cash and god knows what else.

This is why John Boehner is commonly known as the Prince of Lies.

>>385085
In Boehner's defense, I don't think he wanted this at all. I think the tea party has managed to gain so much influence in the party that even the insiders who are actually capable of rational thinking can't act in logical ways without risking their jobs.

Now one can call into question his integrity if he's willing to sacrifice the well-being of his country in the interests of keeping his job, but he probably justifies it to himself by convincing himself that he can do more by remaining in office so they can't replace him with someone who won't even push back against the Tea Party.

But at this point I'm convinced: we're not going to be able to move on as a country until the Tea Party splits from the Republican Party. They might not ever be able to win another Presidential race the way they are now, but thanks to Gerrymandering the Republicans can continue to fuck up Congress for decades to come. This split needs to happen for the good of everyone, democrat or sane republican. The only people who lose in that equation is the Tea Partiers, and they don't live in the real world so they'll probably see themselves as winning, too.

>>385087
You say it's the Tea Party but there is no clear distinction between them and Republicans. Obviously it seems like they're getting something done (even if it is crippling their already crippled party), although it's still amazing to me that the Tea Party is considered in any way legitimate, rather than a mutant freak baby of rich republicans.

>>385089
You haven't been paying attention, if you believe that. There's a clear split between GOP Establishment (Boehner, McCain, Rove, etc.) and Tea Party (Cruz, Rand Paul, etc.). GOP Establishment wants to limit the regulations on corporations and industry, increased spending on defense and reduction on taxes on the rich. They don't like working with democrats, but they recognize the importance of sometimes making concessions to win over Moderate voters.

The Tea Party seems to want nothing less than anarchy, and are more than willing to shoot themselves in the foot if the win condition would get them closer to anarchy, even if that win condition is unattainable. They are the ones who will elect primary candidates who have no chance at all of winning in a general election because their "Conservatism" is more "Pure" than the guy who wants to admit that, say, immigrants have basic human rights or that the Post Office actually works or that Social Security doesn't actually cost the country anything and given how many old people vote Republican, hamstringing Social Security is the most retarded thing a conservative politician could do.

>>385091
I don't differentiate between rhetoric that is essentially the same. The differences seem arbitrary and like they'll result in the same thing. Certainly there doesn't seem to be any divisiveness with this shutdown. Everyone seems on board with that, save maybe the one or two that are against it to coddle their fanbase.

You say there's a difference but from the outside looking in there doesn't seem to be any difference. Congratulations, each half of the party has chosen a different path towards destruction. Don't ask me to pretend that either of them is less ridiculous for agreeing with the other, because they're both ridiculous.

The happening has only begun, wait some weeks until we hit the debt ceiling with a suspended goverment. Now that will be fun.