|
||||||
| FAQ | Members List | Calendar | Today's Posts | Search |
Topic Review (Newest First)
|
| Jan 31st, 2006 11:41 AM | |||||
| sadie |
Quote:
|
||||
| Jan 31st, 2006 09:28 AM | |||||
| mburbank | Jesus, KiKi. Not one valid argument AND you write like shit. You should aplly for the civil service. Seriously. With your skills you could go from an entry level cog to a Bush Administration adviser in about a week. It should take you a month to get a Medal of Freedom. | ||||
| Jan 30th, 2006 09:50 AM | |||||
| ziggytrix |
Taking the judicial branch out of the equation here is damnably UNAMERICAN, and point for point you are gravely mistaken. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
||||
| Jan 30th, 2006 07:32 AM | |||||
| Cosmo Electrolux |
Quote:
|
||||
| Jan 30th, 2006 07:20 AM | |||||
| glowbelly | you're also very naive. | ||||
| Jan 30th, 2006 07:04 AM | |||||
| Kulturkampf |
Quote:
|
||||
| Jan 30th, 2006 06:45 AM | |||||
| Pub Lover |
Quote:
Quote:
|
||||
| Jan 30th, 2006 06:43 AM | |||||
| Kulturkampf |
the reason to go around the FISA court is: (1) Courts take time; if a phone call is being placed from a telephone number reputed to be of a terrorist to a US person, we need quick action to monitor the call; or if a call is originating from a satellite phone in a region known to be plotting terrorist acts towards an American place wich could act as a signal... Immediate action is needed to monitor the call. The call cannot be delayed, and it cannot be recorded unless there is a warrant to listen to it. Do we have enough time to appear before a judge and get a warrant signed in the time that the phone rings before it is picked up? (2) the amount of warrants that would be issued would become ridiculous, and (3) It is not unconstitutional being that it does not involve the monitoring of private calls of US citizens, and if it does involve a US citizen, the US citizen is likely committing an act of treason, and furthermore, it (4) doesn't violate privacy in the sense that nothing about a person's private life will be used in persecution of that person because under this warrant only evidence gathered pertinent to FIS sources and terrorst plots would be considered valid. |
||||
| Jan 30th, 2006 06:39 AM | |||||
| Kulturkampf |
Quote:
you sit at your computer (similarily to me, but I bet you are a man with your legs crossed as a female or vice vesa), and you make bizarre insults when you get angry. and you lose your debates and are too lazy to maintain a blog. |
||||
| Jan 29th, 2006 07:42 PM | |||||
| ziggytrix |
Quote:
The point isn't that anyone thinks Bush is wiretapping political enemies. The point, that seems to be totally lost on you, is that there is a system in place to make sure ANY president doesn't and our current one seems to be circumventing it. The ONLY reason to do this would be if the FISA court was infiltrated with terrorists. So trying to justify the president's actions seems more like the job of a conspiracy nut to me. |
||||
| Jan 29th, 2006 06:48 AM | |||||
| Geggy |
Ahhhahaha of course you're going to easily dismiss him as a conspiracy theorist. He is trying to tell you that Bush has been telling the public they've been monitoring phone calls for the sake of our safety from future terror attacks and keeping their ears open for any al-qaeda suspects. If that is true, then why couldn't they have just simply asked FISA for warrants when , like max had confirmed, they've turned down only 4 requests in the last 20 years? Sounds reasonable enough to me to grant them warrants if they're so concerned about terrorism. But they had never asked for warrants. It has already been proven through list of phone numbers that they've been illegaly spying on millions of innocent Americans across the country, who are supposedly have ties to al-qaeda, starting BEFORE 9/11. If they had been spying before 9/11 then why weren't the attacks prevented? Why weren't any al-qaeda members has been detained? In fact why hasn't any one of them had been detained since at all? Doesn't that make you suspicious? Of course they've been invoking 9/11 as an excuse for spying without warrants. It seems pretty clear to me not to think of it as conspiracy theory like you've so cowardly accused him of. You're just too scared to see the picture. I'm sorry but we do not have any puppy treats here for you so could you please just go away? |
||||
| Jan 29th, 2006 04:48 AM | |||||
| Kulturkampf |
Quote:
The NSA listens to calls. Pres. Bush is not saying: "Hey, can we get the Republican Party the right to monitor phone calls?" What are you talking about? You think the NSA is going to invite the RNC in to listen to rival politician's conversations and use this power to destroy us all? Go back to the conspiracy theory book section you crawled out of. |
||||
| Jan 27th, 2006 03:46 PM | |||||
| Preechr |
Definitely fat and complacent. BTW, I'm not an anarchist, man... I just want government to be no bigger than it has to be in order to do just what we need it to be doing. Think of it like sometimes you find yourself in need of a chipper/shredder... one of those big, industrial suckers they pull behind a truck. It's an extremely dangerous, violent machine that will certainly fuck you up completely if you use it for the wrong thing, like, say, shaving your nuts. Of course, in this world, there exist certain reprehensible characters as the amoral industrial-sized, truck-pulled chipper/shredder salesman and his cousin, the politician... each dying to sell you and everybody else on the idea that their product is much more universally useful than it actually is. Anyhoo... I still hold out hope for you. You do know that you can still call yourself a populist (even a Jew) once you become a libertarian, right? It's a freakin big tent over here. Not a very filled tent at the moment, now that everything wrong with everybody is now officially someone else's fault... If you are so critical of those seeking political power, why are you so quick to look in that bucket for solutions to all our problems? I don't care who might have been in office since 2000, the only thing stopping any politician from doing exactly what Bush has done was the expediency of each abuse toward whatever that person's ultimate political goal might be. No ultimate political goal is ever all that different from any other. I understand what you're pissed at, and I totally respect your point here. I still say the only difference here is that Bush is being much less obfuscatory than have his predecessors. I say great. Bring it on. Fat and complacent, meet arrogant and running your life. I'm only a little disappointed that he didn't recommend Jesus Christ for the Supreme Court. That would have rocked. I want a slap fucking crazy president. Let's kick this pig, dammit. |
||||
| Jan 27th, 2006 03:05 PM | |||||
| mburbank |
Not a chance. Although I mostly agree with everything you've said, I still believe in banding together to protect ourselves as a group from ourselves. Why? Because the alternative leads rapidly to my being killed and eaten. I'm more puzzled and frigthened by how much more it takes to wake the culture up than it used to. The worm turned on Mccarthy, it turned on Vietnam... is the current gang so much better, or is the nation so much more fat and complacent? I'm highly cyncial about anyone with a taste for power. But here's what I'm saying, and I'll keep saying it. This bunch has expanded the nevelope dramtically. way more than anhthing I've seen in my liftetime. I've never seen a president I liked, and I've seen a few I outright hated, but I never thought before 'here's a gang who's intention is to topple the country as we know it.' That might have been a biproduct of other Presidents, but I never saw it as the singular intention. I never imagined Bush I or Reagan or even Nixon wpuld establish a facist state if they could. I feel like these guys haven't tried yet because they don't think we're in the proper position for it to succeed. So in the meantime they keep seeing just how much they can push in that direction, waiting for the next big terrorist attack or bird flu or whatever other excuse they can use like they did 9/11 to solidify their power and make it permanent. Of course they will fail, there are no thousand year reichs. But man, fuck these bastards and fuck everyone who doesn't see them for the lying, coniving, sould dead bastards they are. |
||||
| Jan 27th, 2006 11:10 AM | |||||
| Preechr |
Quote:
Those that are not willing to protect their rights lose them. Most Americans could give a rat's ass that TeamBush© has been paring down what it means to be an American citizen since Jose Padilla. Nobody cared then, and they still don't. Nobody cared about Janet Reno. Nobody listened to Bush41's New World Order speech or the 1000 points of light and got a little sick and shivery. We have amply proven that we do not care to protect our rights. The funny thing is: we still have most of them, almost as if on loan from a government to which we've already surrendered them. Inalienable was a bad choice of wording. Sounds nice, but something more tenuous might have painted a more accurate picture. But look at me! Having this discussion with a died in the wool Taxachussetts Pinko! All good things emanate from government, right? It's our government that makes us the greatest country evar! If only we could just somehow get the right people to run our lives, everything would be just hunky-dory and all the trains would run on time. To me, gubbermint is as gubbermnt does. What you see is what you get. It is simultaneously the most dangerous and inefficient machine ever devised by man and the largest criminal enterprise on Earth. As you said, the Constitution was all about using it as sparingly as possible... well, that's not exactly how you said it... But what else is our government if not us using our elected representatives to do stuff for us? The constitution is ALL ABOUT removing any occasion to trust politicians. The three branches are supposed to watch each other like rabid dogs equally distanced from enough food for one of them... ~mburbank So, we shouldn't trust politicians except for when we are supposed to trust them to watch each other. It's just amazing that a plan that cleverly engineered broke down! Wait a minnit... Maybe it was supposed to be US watching them! Step over the line, max... Join me on the dark, libertarian side... You know you want to. All the cool kids are doin it. |
||||
| Jan 26th, 2006 12:43 PM | |||||
| Geggy |
Yeah Kiki is at where he is at now because he is not asking enough questions but plays along with the authority like a lost puppy. Good article Max. Pretty spot on. Hillary is all about PR stunt and she knows it too. Everytime we (regular citizens) complain about the way things are being handled by the current administration, she comes right into the scene after she looked at the stats that more people are complaining than those who aren't. She's doing it all for political gain whereas in reality she doesn't give a shit about what we say or want. Also I can't trust anyone who stays with their husband after he's cheated on her hundreds of times. Something's just fucked up about that. |
||||
| Jan 26th, 2006 09:22 AM | |||||
| mburbank |
Hey Kiki; ever hear of the Nixon presidency? Did you know he frequently wiretapped politicl enemies and peace activists without a warrant? Thank GAWD we know for a fact W. would never abuse his power like that. OF COURSE he says he only listens to Al Quaeda phone calls, but if that were true, why not present is evidence to FISA, who have only ever turned down four wire tap requests in more than twenty years! If there's no FISA and there's no way of knowing who he's spying on accept what he tells us. And the next democrat in office would have the same power! Golly, what if a LEFTY HOMO got to be President! Would you take their gay lefty homo word that they wouldn't abuse their unquestioned authority? You may not care because you're already a perfect little grunt cog proto brown shirt robot slave unit ready to take any order without question, but I like my freedoms. |
||||
| Jan 26th, 2006 08:44 AM | |||||
| Cosmo Electrolux |
Quote:
|
||||
| Jan 26th, 2006 06:03 AM | |||||
| Kulturkampf |
The act allows the monitoring of terrorists and other scum, essentially, and how it is described in law, simply allows that if people receive calls from known terrorists people are going tolisten to what is said over the phone as opposed to simply note "Shit, a phone call from a terrorist is being placed to someone in our country." I do not think i tis irrational. You would have to be as paranoid and as ludecris as Michael Moore in order to eblieve this law is going to be turned into a 1984 state; we are so far from that it isabsurd (rather what would brign us closer to 1984 is if we all begin giving our private property to the gommint in the name of wealth redistribution) mburbnak = loser of the debates! |
||||
| Jan 25th, 2006 04:13 PM | |||||
| mburbank |
Hey, Geggy; Here's a little something from a Texan I like, Molly Ivins. AUSTIN, Texas --- I'd like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Hillary Clinton for president. Enough. Enough triangulation, calculation and equivocation. Enough clever straddling, enough not offending anyone This is not a Dick Morris election. Sen. Clinton is apparently incapable of taking a clear stand on the war in Iraq, and that alone is enough to disqualify her. Her failure to speak out on Terri Schiavo, not to mention that gross pandering on flag-burning, are just contemptible little dodges. The recent death of Gene McCarthy reminded me of a lesson I spent a long, long time unlearning, so now I have to re-learn it. It's about political courage and heroes, and when a country is desperate for leadership. There are times when regular politics will not do, and this is one of those times. There are times a country is so tired of bull that only the truth can provide relief. If no one in conventional-wisdom politics has the courage to speak up and say what needs to be said, then you go out and find some obscure junior senator from Minnesota with the guts to do it. In 1968, Gene McCarthy was the little boy who said out loud, "Look, the emperor isn't wearing any clothes." Bobby Kennedy -- rough, tough Bobby Kennedy -- didn't do it. Just this quiet man trained by Benedictines who liked to quote poetry. What kind of courage does it take, for mercy's sake? The majority of the American people (55 percent) think the war in Iraq is a mistake and that we should get out. The majority (65 percent) of the American people want single-payer health care and are willing to pay more taxes to get it. The majority (86 percent) of the American people favor raising the minimum wage. The majority of the American people (60 percent) favor repealing Bush's tax cuts, or at least those that go only to the rich. The majority (66 percent) wants to reduce the deficit not by cutting domestic spending, but by reducing Pentagon spending or raising taxes. The majority (77 percent) thinks we should do "whatever it takes" to protect the environment. The majority (87 percent) thinks big oil companies are gouging consumers and would support a windfall profits tax. That is the center, you fools. WHO ARE YOU AFRAID OF? I listen to people like Rahm Emanuel superciliously explaining elementary politics to us clueless naifs outside the Beltway ("First, you have to win elections"). Can't you even read the damn polls? Here's a prize example by someone named Barry Casselman, who writes, "There is an invisible civil war in the Democratic Party, and it is between those who are attempting to satisfy the defeatist and pacifist left base of the party and those who are attempting to prepare the party for successful elections in 2006 and 2008." This supposedly pits Howard Dean, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, emboldened by "a string of bad new from the Middle East ... into calling for premature retreat from Iraq," versus those pragmatic folk like Steny Hoyer, Rahm Emmanuel, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Joe Lieberman. Oh come on, people -- get a grip on the concept of leadership. Look at this war -- from the lies that led us into it, to the lies they continue to dump on us daily. You sit there in Washington so frightened of the big, bad Republican machine you have no idea what people are thinking. I'm telling you right now, Tom DeLay is going to lose in his district. If Democrats in Washington haven't got enough sense to OWN the issue of political reform, I give up on them entirely. Do it all, go long, go for public campaign financing for Congress. I'm serious as a stroke about this -- that is the only reform that will work, and you know it, as well as everyone else who's ever studied this. Do all the goo-goo stuff everybody has made fun of all these years: embrace redistricting reform, electoral reform, House rules changes, the whole package. Put up, or shut up. Own this issue, or let Jack Abramoff politics continue to run your town. Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country really means. That, or you could just piss on them elegantly, as Rep. John Murtha did. Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless "string of bad news." Do not sit there cowering and pretending the only way to win is as Republican-lite. If the Washington-based party can't get up and fight, we'll find someone who can. |
||||
| Jan 25th, 2006 02:56 PM | |||||
| Geggy |
You guys misunderstood. When I said Kiki was a character I meant in a sense that he is an unrealistic, political poser who thinks he knows what he's talking about, well enough to start a neonazi socialist movement  I don't know a lot about Bill Clinton because before Bush was elected, I was politically retarded as in clueless and indifferent. But I'm not so crazy about that war-mongering hypocrite Hillary either. My question is what do I say to the women who don't know shit about politics and only want Hillary to win the next election because they're all so pro-femnine and would like to see first woman president elected? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for female president but Hillary is far from it. |
||||
| Jan 25th, 2006 02:53 PM | |||||
| mburbank |
GOOD LAWS, YOU ARE A COMPLETE NUTJOB! "I don't trust any politician to limit his or her own activity to that which is just. It's not cynicism. It's the foundation of our country. " I agree compeletly! The constitution is ALL ABOUT removing any occasion to trust politicians. The three branches are supposed to watch each other like rabid dogs equally distanced from enough food for one of them. "I understand that much worse abuses of power happen all the time. MUCH worse. ALL the time." I don't doubt that in the least, but here's my problem with it. The envelope of evil extends as far beyond the legitimate as the powerful can reach. W et al are trying to move the line of legal legitimacy WAY forward to cover warantless spying, torture, detention without charge, disapearance. If they succeed in making thse things, (which I'm sure they've done before in countless administrations) solid, legal, unasailable ground to stand on, think how much further into the darkness their reach would extend. Nixon said he was not a crook. Clinton sad he did not have sex with that woman. When it became crystal clear they'd lied, Nixon had to leave and Clinton got impeached. Bush says "I did it, I'm going to keep doing it, and I can do whatever I want". That HAS to be challenged. It changes the game completely. Until now it has been 'I can do whatever I want until I get caught'. That makes Presidents a whole lot more circumspect than 'I can do whatever I want.' |
||||
| Jan 25th, 2006 02:36 PM | |||||
| Preechr |
At the risk of sounding like a complete nutjob, I believe the only difference between Calvin Coolidge and Pol Pot is what they were allowed to get away with. I don't trust any politician to limit his or her own activity to that which is just. It's not cynicism. It's the foundation of our country. While I'm already on record as being more or less ambivalent toward the whole NSA spying "scandal," that's not because I like the idea of it happening as much as I understand that much worse abuses of power happen all the time. MUCH worse. ALL the time. |
||||
| Jan 25th, 2006 01:51 PM | |||||
| mburbank |
I'm all ablush you think I'm reasonable. My parole officer disagrees. AND I'll have you know I'd be even MORE outraged if a Clinton or a Kerry assumed these powers, since nominally I'm a democrat and expect at least the appearance of better behavior. And for the record, I really, really, really don't like Hillary Clinton, for about the millionth time I was not a fan of her husband, although the little weaselly fuck we've got now makes me very nostaligic. I am WAY more a fan of checks and balances and separation of powers than I will ever be of any party. Hell, if Dean were president, shit, if McGovern, if Clean Gene McCarthy rose from the dead Christ-like and became president, I would never, ever want them to claim the power to spy on US citizens without a warrant. How dare you sir! And while in general I share your cynicism and disdain regarding government in general and politicians in particular, I would still say that one could draw a degree or two of difference between, say, Calvin Coolidge and Pol Pot. |
||||
| Jan 25th, 2006 01:51 PM | |||||
| Preechr | pthpthpth | ||||
| This thread has more than 25 replies. Click here to review the whole thread. | |||||
