by the way it's not just the patriot act. you can't move more than $10000 without the fed knowing where and why

back in the day you could wire as much money as you wanted anywhere you wanted without any bullshit. now that's impossible.

Further more thrax, I'd prefer we do as Ron Paul suggested and employing foreign policy that incites terrorist attacks, nip it in the bud y'know

Further more thrax, I'd prefer we do as Ron Paul suggested and stop employing foreign policy that incites terrorist attacks, nip it in the bud y'know

Edit: alright i hit my quote for typos i definitely need to sleep. keep it trill rob

I hear ya and I'm telling you I'm OK with this method so far. It's not so intrusive that it affects my life nor the lives of 99% of Americans. As long as the governments powers of snooping don't increase beyond this AND we remain terrorism free I'm OK with it.

Now, I can definitely agree that a change in foreign policy is the preferred method, but I think we can both agree that neither the GOP nor the Democrats have any desire to make enough of an adjustment to foreign policy that it will keep the terrorists at bay. Besides, do you really think the terrorists will stop being terrorists simply because we change our political vantage point? At best they'll aim there ire in a different direction and at worst they'll spin it in a way that keeps Americans as the target.

ok, thraxle, can I have your bank statements, your health reccord, a complete cellphone reccord, and a list of all the pages you browse?

I will keep it all in a box, and have a computer software scan it all for suspicious behavior.



problem is; there is always a crime that can be found, the moment I decide that your political speach is too agressive, or to popular, all I have to do is to figure out ONE of the more than 11000 different federal crimes that can be comitted, scholars are actually unsure about how many there are.

I have your taxt reccord, great, surely you can say with you hand on your heart that you are in compliance with ALL of the provisions of the Internal Revenues Service? after all, it is not like even the people that work there have trouble remembering, and undstanding all of the provisions.


a crime can always be found, it is just a matter or chosing to find it, and with this survailence it require so much less effort, so that one can do many more, if deemed neccesary

@BO, I totally agree with your grandfather and the premise of the whole story. Btw; you are lucky to have a someone in your family with that perspective. A lot of people aren't fortunate to experience the "frog boiling" approach of how tyranny starts. Btw; I'm not sure why you despise Ayn Rand so much; because she is basically saying the same thing as your grandfather; we going down the same road as the USSR.

@Greekboi, Thraxle; I totally get where you are coming from; but please watch this video. It is Rand Paul's reasoning for not supporting the patriot act. This is exactly my reasoning as well. Btw; it also mentions some really crazy things that are in the patriot act that you may not know about. Anyway please watch it and let me know what you think. Very though inspiring.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXLGyOdE_tc

MrK! Great post.

read on wikipedia the other day that the whole boiling frog anecdote is perhaps more theory than fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boiling_frog

Damn lol; now I have to come up with another analogy.

To Rob: Yeah I think we have too many business investments (and probably stuff we don't even know about) to give up the empire. Frankly, I watch speeches by people like Kucinich or Ron Paul and I couldn't agree more with their analysis of many of our problems. What I like about a lot of libertarians (at least the more prolific ones) is that they recognize the same problems I recognize, they simply wish to address some of them differently. And that's okay, I'd rather a consensus on the issues at hand than the solution (solutions are to be debated anyhow).

Dead: As far as Ayn Rand goes, my understanding is that the premise of Atlas Shrugged is that inventors and innovators will 'shrug' if their is no incentive. Knowing what I know about the Soviet Union and its ridiculous innovations and inventions (planes with diagonal wings, the beast of the caspian, etc) I know communism doesn't stifle innovation or invention. In fact that's how the Soviet Union managed to survive as long as it did. Communism stifles the growth of organic infrastructure. You'll see ghost towns in China and Russia because they were projects that didn't come about organically. This is the crux of communism and a command economy, not innovation or invention.

In fact that's not new either, Marx even said socialism and communism would come about in the nations with the most infrastructure. The reason being these nations would be the best equipped to support collectivism. A peasant revolution like what happened in Russia was not expected to be the first communist or socialist revolution and it eventually failed for reasons including the above.

My point is, I can observe evidence that counters the scenario Ayn Rand paints. That's why I don't pay her any mind. That being said, just because I dismiss Atlas Shrugged as inaccurate doesn't mean I dismiss the use of incentive.

This is sort of tangential but I saw a pretty good video on psychology and incentive. I think you'd find it interesting dead, if you have some spare time watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFZfj__baDs

The basic point you took away from it is that monetary is not in fact the most motivating incentive for productivity. And actually this was the only incentive the Soviet Union could not use (tying this in with what we're discussing).

-Sorry for the typos if there are any, I typed this on my phone