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Until you can actually pierce the National Security curtain to have a frank discussion involving details on Ways and Means in the Intelligence Community, this i
by salawat 5y ago
Until you can actually pierce the National Security curtain to have a frank discussion involving details on Ways and Means in the Intelligence Community, this is a "pointless act of hyperbolic futility". The answer will just be "Need to know, and you don't" or some other platitude. As what you're asking in the end is what are the inputs that drive these decision making processes. This will never be a public conversation.
Note, I think it's an absolutely sound and necessary thing to happen, I just never see it happening.
- wayoutthere 5y agoYep, as you can see now any discussion of it is downvoted into oblivion / killed immediately. It’s not astroturfing but I think the cognitive dissonance between what we believe our country is versus what it actually does is too great. We all wonder how German citizens could have gone along with Nazi atrocities.. and the truth is that they largely didn’t know about them and what they did find out was considered “fake news”.
- ubermonkey 5y agoI'm reminded of a bit Stephen Colbert did, about the Abu Ghraib torture scandal back when he was on the Daily Show. "Even if this is something we did, it's not something we would do."
- wayoutthere 5y agoI was a big fan of his show in the 00s, but in hindsight I think Colbert did a great disservice to the media landscape in this country by normalizing this kind of sarcastic mimicry. It gives the far-right plausible deniability so they can say “lol it’s just a joke I don’t actually think that” when it doesn’t go over well.
- gmadsen 5y agoYou can't outlaw stupid. Society shouldn't be relegated to the lower common denominator