June 30, 2013

Sorry, but I don't have any voices in my head.

I see problems as puzzles. I see life as a puzzle. Information are the pieces needed to see the whole picture. With enough pieces, problems, and life makes sense. That is how I solve problems. If a piece seems to fit at the time, but later I notice the pieces around it look different, then that piece is either in the wrong place or doesn't even belong in the puzzle in the first place. I take that piece out. I do not make excuses as to why it should remain in place, when it obviously does not belong there. That is my reality. That is my world. Also, I have a fairly strong sense of right and wrong. If any of the puzzle pieces look funny according to its surroundings, I check out why.

Being on the Left politically, I'm like Will Rogers says,

He said this back when being a Democrat meant something, because Democrats back when said it, [u[were were Left of Center, unlike now.
Now we have many Democrats with Right of Center mind sets, as witness by their supporting of paranoid Republican values, such as excusing the wholesale spying on the citizenry. Trying to pass off the illegal and morally reprehensible as legal and proper because somebody's talking point said so.

June 30, 2013

It is obvious to those 6 jurors they just do not understand how really benign all this secret spying

on everyone, just in case one of us might break the law sometime in the future.
It is all perfectly legal because a secret court and some DU'ers say so.
1984 is just a figment of some drug addled psycho's imagination. That can never happen, because the United States is the bestest, most honest police country in the whole world. We are all safer when the people above the law, those who know how the best, spy on the rest of us to keep us safe.

June 28, 2013

The only mention of Jesus H or Jesus F Christ, or whatever his name is,

is in the First 4 books of the New Testament.

These idiots search the whole rest of their Bible, cherry picking for guidance, skipping over those four books about the guy their religion is named for. Strange how their version of Jesus (insert initial) Christ is always patterned after themselves, ignoring the fact that if this Jesus guy were really like themselves, God would sent his son, Jesus to Hell himself. How can God be perfect, if his only begotten son has Republican values?
I have never figured that part out. I don't hear voices in my head. That is why I am an atheist. I can't believe in something that doesn't exist. Those voices that is.

June 26, 2013

"...let freedom ring" So the NSA can listen in on the call?

For that is what is happening.
I really wonder, in whose employ, those are who defend the NSA and such? Their simple, circular, often talking point arguments come across more as propaganda and spin, than anything. Down playing facts, twisting truths.

One thing they keep pushing is it's legality, no matter how hard it it abuses the Constitution. Do they think the Constitution is just a piece of paper? I thought that went away with bu$h? Didn't we all vote for "Hope and Change"? Did they? I for one did not vote for this change we got. But the people defending the NSA seem to have.
Another is their denigrating the messenger instead of concentrating on his message and the proof of the criminality of our government that he has has exposed and the evil we are visiting on the world with our power hungry paranoia.

June 23, 2013

Snowden could not have done much or any damage to the US and her allies, junior partners in Empire,

if we, the United States were an honest, law abiding country, following our federal and State laws and interpreting our Constitution properly, as the law of the land.
Instead our government went off the rails and started gathering any and all communions information on everyone, everywhere, as if that were somehow legal and right, regardless of any actual legalities.

Any and all this communications data gathering against the law? Pass a law making it legal. If it violates the Constitution? Either ignore the Constitution or pass an unconstitutional law, making violating the Constitutional legal also. That is what we are seeing with all this spying on everyone, everywhere. Anyone that refuses to see the problem is part of the problem.
It does not matter who owns the meta data, the United States government is violating the Constitution in demanding that that information be gathered into searchable data bases for who know what nefarious ends.

June 23, 2013

Yeah but, but, but...

We have people right here on DU that basically believe the above. That our government is good and has the best interest of us citizens in mind, so it is OK when they lie, start wars, kill families in foreign countries, we are not with war with, ambushed with drones, supply both sides of a conflict with weapons. Usually not at the same time to make it harder to prove. But we have along history of doing this.
They see nothing wrong with the wholesale spying that is counter to the 4th Amendment, no matter how lightly or thoroughly the 4th Amendment is read or studied. These reality deniers make no Sense.
Our government is now turning on us, the US citizens, to be treated as this country has been treating people in other countries.

June 20, 2013

For the slow witted around here,

the Cheney/bu$h administration did know and used the known information for their own nefarious ends. And add to the fact that the outgoing Clinton Administration gave the incoming Cheney/bu$h administration a 2½ inch thick report, which they then shelved, unread. Between their own spying, the Clinton report, warnings from Egypt and several other countries, how could the Cheney/bu$h administration NOT know about the coming attack? And let us not forget that Cheney was directing war games on the morning of 9/11/2001, that duplicated what the real high-jackers were doing.

And when the attack did happen, the rest of the world came forward, with sympathy and condolences, ready to help with offers of police actions to catch the perpetrators. The offers were refused, in favor of war, by invasion of a country - Iraq, that had nothing to do with the attack. Shock and Awe, turned tens of thousands of innocent people into a pink mist in the middle of the night. Many hundreds of thousands of people have died and are still dying because of the resultant, ongoing war crimes, being done in our name, for the fun and profit of a few.

June 12, 2013

What most people do not understand is, this has nothing to do with stopping actual terrorism.

With a little digging, we can find plenty evidence of that.
But spying on people so a to keep US compliant and under control. No matter how legal this spying is made to sound, it is still unconstitutional.
As common carriers, AT&T, Google, Verizon, etc., do not own that information that we want to impart elsewhere. The information that generates the metadata. As for the metadata itself, that is a by-product of making sure the system is working correctly, and it is still private information. For the government or anyone else to make use of this data needs the use of real warrants issued by real courts, for real investigations, spelling out the real reason for the warrant and the real information that is being sought. None of the data bases the government has setup to acquire and store this information, square with the 4th Amendment. No crime, nor any suspected crimes has been put forth as justification for this whole spying on all the citizens in this country and elsewhere, either. After all, how can we all be criminals, when the government is supposed to work for us? These actives by our government are proof our government is working against us. Remember the "We the people.." as the preamble of the Constitution starts with? Apparently not many people do anymore.

What the government is doing is obtaining this data, from all sources, with threats of duress, if the sources do not cooperate. The secret court system set up to issue these warrants are, in reality nothing more than Star Chambers to rubber stamp the requests to give a cover of legitimacy. Our owners are doing this because the technology has advanced enough so they can.

June 8, 2013

Wrong! The telephone company is a common carrier. That data, thet information does NOT belong

to them.

Common carriers only provide the means of communication. The information itself is or at least used to be as private as the information is in snail mail. You needed a court order, a warrant to listen in. Then we let the paranoid power mongers have their way.
There is no real actual difference between the information contained in a land line phone call or using a cell phone, or using the Internet. E-Mails are private communication also. We are being told they are not private and we meekly bow our heads and go along. We should not be allowing that.
Land line, Cell phone and Internet communications all use Common carriers. Why do you think they are not recording the conversations, yet? They have the capability. Though just not enough yet to record everything - again yet. They are working on the storage problem.
Simple semantics, because they say so, is the distinction. And we believe them and allow our Constitutional Right to be dissolved away..

June 1, 2013

What no one here seems to be addressing is the fact that the age of adulthood used to be 21, period.

Then you could vote, drink, smoke, and screw around with anyone willing, who was also 21 or over, starting with your 21st birthday.
Then the Viet Nam war happened and the age of maturity was dropped to 18, three years younger, because that was the age you, as a male, could be drafted for canon fodder and you had no vote in the matter, because you were not yet 21. No other reason.
But, you were still not fully an adult, in the eyes of the law. Laws prohibiting smoking and booze until 21, were still in affect some places. Other places allowed one or the other, or both at 18.
The 'Who Could Fuck Who Laws' also had to be adjusted. After all, that immature 18 year old, teenager was suddenly a mature adult now, with the passage of the law applying "Adulthood" at 18.
No longer could an 18 year old safely date a 14 or 15 year old. Or sometimes even a 16 year old, even though you could still get married at those ages, depending on the state. Some states had the age of consent at 14, even with someone over the age of 21. It was all good, in whatever state, at the time, till some blue noses tried to set the age of consent, hard lined at 18 - And they took the booze and cigarettes away too.
It all eventually shook out to what we have now. It is still shaking.

What escapes many here is the fact relationships are not stamped out like cookies. We do not all 'mature' at the same rate, or even to the same levels of maturity, no matter how old we are, or may get to be. Each relationship is unique and changing. At best, they only loosely follow some formula or another. Age, maturity, personality, experiences of both, all play apart. What works with one couple, is detrimental to another. What is glue for some couples, is a solvent that ends the relationship for others.
Just because it doesn't work for you, doesn't mean it can't work for others. Just because you are 18 or 21, does not necessarily mean you are mature. Just because you are only 14 or 15 does not mean you are not mature. It depends on the individual. And sometimes the situation.