Snowden on Christmas

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Comments

[trog.livejournal.com]

He was a professor of Constitutional Law at University of Chicago Law School, a very prestigious institution. I am sorry, but obviously he was nothing more than an affirmative action hire.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/03/obama-a-constitutional-law-professor/

Any president would do the same thing: agree with the national security apparatus,
if only to avoid looking weak on defense, which is something that a liberal
Democrat has to be especially concerned about. I don't think this is an Obama
problem. Since the Cold War, America has trodden down the path of the
national security state.

[trog.livejournal.com]

You are very forgiving. If presidents don't really get to shape policy because they're trapped by the apparatus, why vote? Anyway, I doubt a President Ron Paul or Gary Johnson would have agreed with the National Security nonsense. President Hillary, Biden (LOL), Rand Paul, Fatty McFatsauce, etc. all will though.

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

"I doubt a President Ron Paul or Gary Johnson would have agreed with the National Security nonsense."


And what, exactly, do you think either of them would have done about it?

[pacotelic.livejournal.com]

Dissolved congress and declared a libertarian dictatorship, natch.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Permanent revolutionary transitional government!

[trog.livejournal.com]

Anyway, Wikipedia says, "He then taught at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years—as a Lecturer from 1992 to 1996, and as a Senior Lecturer from 1996 to 2004—teaching constitutional law." That's good enough for me. Anyone who taught Con Law at UoC for 12 years and keeps Gitmo open, Patriot Act 2s us, NDAA, NSA, drone assassination, blah blah blah and so on is certainly an affirmative action hire or evil. No middle ground for this one.

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

But you are an ideologue - a purist, an idealist, of the libertarian stripe. Do you suppose that most Americans, after 9/11, are not for as much security as is possible? Don't you think that this is why a Ron Paul or Gary Johnson don't stand a chance at winning an election? If we put all these measures - the datamining, the TSA nonsense, the drones, the Patriot Acts, etc. - up for a national referendum, as a sort of menu (i.e., vote 'yes' for what you want, and 'no' for what you don't want), don't you think we'd be right where we are? Since we haven't had a big attack since 9/11, maybe there is some fair doubt, but give us another attack, and I think you know how that vote will go.

[trog.livejournal.com]

And now you know why I left. It's all doomed. Voting doesn't matter, as you rightly point out. Good luck!

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

But America is the 800-pound gorilla in the room. So you are not
at ground zero, but as the United States falls, so do you! You cannot
escape from the human condition, except through death.

[trog.livejournal.com]

Sure, but I can stay outside the epicenter of the burgeoning nanny-police-prison-surveillance state you guys are operating.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

That's called Great Britain but you're right in the sense of an ongoing creep against privacy.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Think you're scaremongering here, actually.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

You would know better. I've tried to minimize fringy sources of news because I know people alarmed about everything.

I hear stuff about government monitoring of internet and massive cctv cameras all over.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

CCTV all over. And also I suppose massive government and other folks' monitoring of phones and internet too. This is life in the C21st, but so?

Think more: there's too much information to process.

Ergo, this info is used as confirmatory after other flags.

So all my porn viewing ain't going to bother anyone much. Neither my drug use. Nor even my drunken tirades against the ignorant and stupid who govern us.
Nor even all of 'em put together.
But I identify as a gay married man with children, and a High Tory, and privileged. So I would be in favour of security within reason: reason being the operative word. When it comes to boiling a frog I'm aware of the slippery slope argument too: but discretion exists where people make it.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

I don't worry too much about my metadata either when you get down to it.