7 ms·

If any politician ran on bringing the 4th amendment back, they'd have my vote. But spying on the populace is bipartisan.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> spying on the populace is bipartisan Because of attitudes like this. Political nihilism never won any battles.
- xtian 4y ago
  Statements of fact are now “nihilism”, I guess
- pilgrimfff 4y ago
  > Because of attitudes like this. I had no idea my attitude could magically make party elites care about this basic constitutional right! Thanks so so much for setting me straight. > Political nihilism never won any battles. Refusing to criticize politicians because they wear the tie color you like is the least effective thing you can possibly do. I say it's nihilism to ignore this fact and vote these same people into office again and again.
- sneak 4y ago
  You seem to be blaming the victim.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
autoexec 4y ago
Obama ran on the promise to end domestic spying by the NSA, and as president he would have had the authority to do it at any time, but once he got into office he expanded the domestic spying program. The most simple explanation is that he lied through his teeth and that he had no intention of stopping it. It's also possible that once he got elected he was convinced that it was so worthwhile that it was worth violating his campaign promises, but what worries me most is the possibility that Obama honestly believed, and still believes, that it was a unacceptable violation of our constitutional rights and that he only had to be shown a sample of the data collected on him and his family to get him to fall in line and approve whatever the NSA wanted. "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." The NSA has so much data on us that they could blackmail anyone, and could likely plant incriminating data as well. That power exists for them to use at any time. If they're willing to use it in order to keep that power over anyone they see as an enemy then it's possible that no president or politician will ever be able to do anything to stop America's domestic spying program.
- cowpig 4y ago
  > The most simple explanation is that he lied through his teeth and that he had no intention of stopping it. This doesn't really fit anything I understand about Obama or about the world. Much more likely is that upon taking the responsibility of president he learned a lot of new things and received a lot of new advice/opinions and changed his mind.
  - wrs 4y ago
    I imagine that anyone who becomes POTUS is quite suddenly exposed to a whole lot of new information that might change some of their previous views. Also, in so many areas of life (management, parenting, writing device drivers) you may have strong and idealistic views from the sidelines, but once you’re responsible for actually doing it your default view becomes “it’s complicated”.
    - ch4s3 4y ago
      It seems more to me like having the kind of power a modern president of the US wields is inevitably going to change all but the steeliest person, and mostly for the worse.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Once you have access to classified information, you can spend literally every waking hour reading nothing but classified reports prepared for you. It can seem foolish to waste time reading anything else, which "might not be the whole story". But it puts you entirely under the thumb of whoever is preparing your reading material. Thus, Colin Powell famously had no idea he was being played when he persuaded senators to vote for invading Iraq.
  - scottyah 4y ago
    He was also determined to shut down Guantanamo Bay, but things ended up being a lot more messy than signing a paper to make bad things go away
    - 4y ago

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> spying on the populace is bipartisan Because of attitudes like this. Political nihilism never won any battles.

xtian 4y ago
Statements of fact are now “nihilism”, I guess
pilgrimfff 4y ago
> Because of attitudes like this. I had no idea my attitude could magically make party elites care about this basic constitutional right! Thanks so so much for setting me straight. > Political nihilism never won any battles. Refusing to criticize politicians because they wear the tie color you like is the least effective thing you can possibly do. I say it's nihilism to ignore this fact and vote these same people into office again and again.
sneak 4y ago
You seem to be blaming the victim.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

autoexec 4y ago

Obama ran on the promise to end domestic spying by the NSA, and as president he would have had the authority to do it at any time, but once he got into office he expanded the domestic spying program. The most simple explanation is that he lied through his teeth and that he had no intention of stopping it. It's also possible that once he got elected he was convinced that it was so worthwhile that it was worth violating his campaign promises, but what worries me most is the possibility that Obama honestly believed, and still believes, that it was a unacceptable violation of our constitutional rights and that he only had to be shown a sample of the data collected on him and his family to get him to fall in line and approve whatever the NSA wanted. "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." The NSA has so much data on us that they could blackmail anyone, and could likely plant incriminating data as well. That power exists for them to use at any time. If they're willing to use it in order to keep that power over anyone they see as an enemy then it's possible that no president or politician will ever be able to do anything to stop America's domestic spying program.

cowpig 4y ago
> The most simple explanation is that he lied through his teeth and that he had no intention of stopping it. This doesn't really fit anything I understand about Obama or about the world. Much more likely is that upon taking the responsibility of president he learned a lot of new things and received a lot of new advice/opinions and changed his mind.
- wrs 4y ago
  I imagine that anyone who becomes POTUS is quite suddenly exposed to a whole lot of new information that might change some of their previous views. Also, in so many areas of life (management, parenting, writing device drivers) you may have strong and idealistic views from the sidelines, but once you’re responsible for actually doing it your default view becomes “it’s complicated”.
  - ch4s3 4y ago
    It seems more to me like having the kind of power a modern president of the US wields is inevitably going to change all but the steeliest person, and mostly for the worse.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Once you have access to classified information, you can spend literally every waking hour reading nothing but classified reports prepared for you. It can seem foolish to waste time reading anything else, which "might not be the whole story". But it puts you entirely under the thumb of whoever is preparing your reading material. Thus, Colin Powell famously had no idea he was being played when he persuaded senators to vote for invading Iraq.
- scottyah 4y ago
  He was also determined to shut down Guantanamo Bay, but things ended up being a lot more messy than signing a paper to make bad things go away
  - 4y ago