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Then they will fall. The protests were an abysmal failure. I've seen plenty of "I don't care" opinions regarding it, and that's not even factoring the 50+% of p

Then they will fall. The protests were an abysmal failure. I've seen plenty of "I don't care" opinions regarding it, and that's not even factoring the 50+% of people who don't even follow such things. People get what they deserve, and the world apparently deserves the US monitoring all of its communications. My only hope is a complete collapse of their government.

embolism 13y ago
it also deserves a whole load of other governments monitoring communications, some of which would be quite happy to take over if the us collapses
MarkSweep 13y ago
If the United States is becoming more repressive, where can one go? Other English speaking countries such as Australia, England, and Singapore have problems with freedom of expression.
- rgrieselhuber 13y ago
  Learn another language? :-)
  - randomchars 13y ago
    And then go where?
    - rgrieselhuber 13y ago
      That's a whole other question but at least it opens your options up a bit more.
    - Svip 13y ago
      Form a new country? Speaking as amateur cartographer, I support all independence movements, because it will give cartographers new borders to draw on maps and thus a reason for people to buy new maps. Declare the East Coast US States independent and be done with it; I am tired of waiting.
      - jerf 13y ago
        "Declare the East Coast US States independent and be done with it; I am tired of waiting." How does that solve this problem? I mean, I can't even guess which side of this issue you think the "East Coast" is on.
        Svip 13y ago
        Oh, it is entirely unrelated to this particular issue. But the population of America could benefit from more local democracy rather than something far away as Washington, D.C.. Now one may argue that that is already defined in the Constitution and that even if it wasn't, more local politics could be enforced by law by reducing the reach of the federal government. But I doubt either of us are that naïve. The USA have proved that democracy does not scale well. And that is why it has moved to centralise power ever since the Constitution was signed. It may not be a victory for privacy, but it would be a victory for democracy.
        jerf 13y ago
        Ah, now that I can almost get behind. One of the few plausible ways out of the mess we find ourselves in right now is a strong movement towards states rights. Nominally, the states have a lot more power in our system then they are currently exercising, so it doesn't require any new law, just some assertions of what already exists (albeit in the form of Constitutional Conventions rather than simply asserting laws, which would be simpler). It's not my perfect ideological solution by any means, but it's one of the few practical ones, inasmuch as it does involve walking up to a group of people and asking them to go grab more power as competing interests, rather than asking people with power to unilaterally disarm, which is pretty much a "fat chance" option. Secession is in some sense the ultimate State's right extreme, but I wouldn't advocate it until more normal avenues were tried and failed. It has... proved hazardous, to say the least.
        Svip 13y ago
        I realise of course you refer to the American Civil War. But there are some striking differences between then and now. I imagine it would be like this; a state (or more) announce that they will hold a referendum on independence, months (or even years) before the actual referendum will take place (similar to how it will take place in Scotland). This will give the President and the Federal Government time to react without having to sort to arms right away. Furthermore, a referendum is particularly what will set it apart from the American Civil War; this will be the will of the people (of that state, obviously) and not merely the will of the state (which was the case during the American Civil War, it was merely the legislatures that decided to secede, and not by referendum). This will make it much harder to justify for the federal government to intervene with military. Seeing as the process will open and peaceful, it would be seen as a considerable overreaction by the federal government to strike down with force on a seceding state. In addition because war has gotten so much more terrible, and I doubt you'd even convince the army of doing so. In short; I do not believe that you should be afraid of a military response to an independence, as long as you play fair. That's just intimidation. It would be sad to see that the only thing keeping the American states united was fear. However, I do agree with you that independence should be the last resort. But considering the last few decades, it seems many things have already been tried.
  - MarkSweep 13y ago
    I'm learning Japanese, but what I hear about their criminal justice system is not inspiring.
- antocv 13y ago
  You cant flee anywhere nice, Snowden is trying to you and you see 99.9% of the world countries are willing to stuff their own constitutions and human rights treaties up their asses and stick their head in the sand at request of USA.
  - tobiasu 13y ago
    Russia is more like 11%, not 0.01 ;) scnr
    - toyg 13y ago
      Russia is not doing anything different: they are not going to grant Snowden asylum or citizenship. So they're well and truly in that 99.99% at this point, together with China and Venezuela.
      - tobiasu 13y ago
        They did offer him asylum, with the condition to shut the fuck up and not continually interfere in international politics. He rejected it for his own reasons.
        toyg 13y ago
        Their offer was clearly meant to be rejected; it was like offering Richard Stallman a job at Microsoft as long as he shut up about this whole Free Software stuff.
        lttlrck 13y ago
        Did you really take Putin at face value? I think it is a safe bet that they knew what Snowdens values were before making the offer and they fully expected him to turn it down. Or they knew it for certain...
    - ajuc 13y ago
      Try to do to Russia what Snowden did to USA and you will find polonium in your food. Also falsified elections. Not that good place if you like freedom.
- rwmj 13y ago
  There are no more wild frontiers until we move into space, unfortunately.
  - notdrunkatall 13y ago
    This Snowden affair made me realize that if no government wants to claim you, you are truly screwed. That's a modern development that I do not like.
- agilebyte 13y ago
  Also, you can go to country X that may not be repressive, but if you want to call abroad or use the internet, you are still inspected by routers in all the other countries that you would consider repressive.
- marklit 13y ago
  I you can write code there are a lot of countries you could support yourself in. I've visited and in some cases worked in 49 countries with minimal foreign language skills.
- wcbeard10 13y ago
  Seasteading?
  - ctdonath 13y ago
    Possible, but terribly expensive. There's been much discussion (see "Oceania" and other projects) but little progress.
  - gee_totes 13y ago
    There's always Sealand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand
- el_zorro 13y ago
  This sounds ridiculous, but lately I've been of the opinion that this planet is borked. I hold out serious hope for Elon Musk and his Mars colony. I seriously believe that we as a species need a fresh start in a new place. We need a new planet so we can try new things, create new ideas, and generally liberate ourselves of traditional conventions. It sounds pie-in-the-sky, but people are actively working on it and I hope to one day count myself among them. America used to be the place where things like this could happen, but that's not so much anymore. There's still innovation, but the trend doesn't look good and most of the world just doesn't care.
  - flyinRyan 13y ago
    What do you imagine will happen if Musk lands on Mars? Various countries will be claiming jurisdiction before he lands (assuming they don't already). They could simply call mars an extension of their country and hold him accountable to their laws for anything he does on Mars.
    - el_zorro 13y ago
      They could, but I'd like to see them enforce it. The worst they could do on Earth would be to stop rocket launches to Mars (which would be bad) but rockets can be launched in a variety of places. They represent a large injection of wealth into an area, and the economic benefits of hosting rocket infrastructure outweighs the cost of dealing with a loud but ultimately toothless colony. By the time Mars would represent a 'threat' it will be essentially self-sufficient and then there is little hold Earth would have over it.
      - flyinRyan 13y ago
        Those on earth would still have the biggest military and as soon as the martian colony made it clear that they didn't submit to which ever overlords claimed them, that army would be in space on its way to Mars.
  - adventured 13y ago
    Fleeing earth doesn't instantly change human nature. The risks to liberty will remain no matter where you go. The George Washington willing-to-cede-his-throne type will be just as rare on Mars in 2095 as it is today, as it was throughout history.
mtgx 13y ago
Symbolically, 4th of July was a good choice, but practically it wasn't, because it seems people would rather celebrate the concept of freedom, instead of actually defending it. Or maybe they just wanted to enjoy their day off, and has nothing to do with freedom and whatnot. Hopefully the protest will be repeated soon. This was kind of bad timing, because now politicians all over the world are also going to start their vacations, and it's summer and people don't want to think about "serious issues" anymore. But I agree it's still depressing.
- quantumpotato_ 13y ago
  A one-off protest does little (~0?) good with today's ADD media consumers.
7952 13y ago
People want a quiet life where they don't have to worry about the safety of their children, and this is exactly what everyone deserves. This is a generally a force for good in the world but it can be subverted by bad regimes. Human rights are designed to protect everyone even if they lack a passion for freedom, or safety, or national security. By disdaining other viewpoints you are thinking in terms of civic virtue instead of basic rights, which is characteristic of fascism, not democracy.
- alan_cx 13y ago
  Terror is NOT their main risk. If the same money was put in to health, road safety, gun control, and so on, they would be much more secure and safe. Real lives would be saved, not hypothetical ones. But since they are high on terrorist stories fed to them by the terror dealers in government, via their media runners, they will never know that, so their sense of security is utterly false. PRISM will not save them from the real statistical dangers in any way. It will not ever give them a quiet life.
  - xyzzy123 13y ago
    I agree with you but an honest and insightful comment (in my opinion) didn't deserve to get downvoted to gray. I thought that was reserved for crazies and trolls, not people expressing a self-evident position. The fact that the priorities of most people are not necessarily aligned with reality isn't the fault of someone explaining the status quo. This gets missed, I think sometimes, in these discussions.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      If we use upvotes to signal agreement, then it is only natural that people use downvotes to signal disagreement. I don't have a link for it right now, but pg has say that as much is expected.
    - ctdonath 13y ago
      Warm fuzzies can be dangerously misguided leading to tragic consequences. The post sounds good on the surface, but such sentiment leads to ends far from what is intended. It may be honest, but not particularly insightful. A quiet life free of safety concerns is NOT a right, and attempting implementation thereof via government necessitates serious violation of other fundamental rights. A "proper" totalitarian police state is the only means to that end - and not something many of us are going to put up with. (No, I didn't downvote it, but understand why one would.)
alan_cx 13y ago
Yeah, here too in the UK but worse. As I have said before even the satirists don't seem to give a toss. The level of apathy is stunning. Frankly, I think the terror scare stories have worked a treat, as I suppose is predictable. Which is amazing since we in the UK lived through a real(1) terrorist campaign with the IRA. All I hear is, "well, I don't care if the silly spooks see my boring facebook, email, shopping data. Ha, ha to them if they are that interested.". And that is it. Heh, even heard, "well, I've got nothing to hide". I have to say, I don't really care any more. I have had enough. Yeah, I don't like what the US is doing, but my lot are in it up their necks, and are literally proud of it. My people don't care, my media don't care, no one cares. So I am the odd one out. Fine, we live in a so called democracy, so the people can have what they damn well deserve. My only hope is that I see this get really out of hand, and "normal" people start to get hurt by this. Then I can just stand there and laugh my sweet behind off at them, asking, "who did you vote for?". As for me, I'll be a lot more careful, increasingly use security and simply act in a more aware way. Its all I can do. :( (1)I say "real" because the "troubles" lasted over 30 years with sustained attacks of many kinds were successfully launched through that entire period, including the bombing of our entire government. Way worse than anything evil Muslims have done to the UK. I was indirectly involved, I know real terror. A one off attack is NOT terror. 30 odd years sustained, damn well is. Oh, a lot of it funded by Americans who saw the IRA as freedom fighters.
- Silhouette 13y ago
  All I hear is, "well, I don't care if the silly spooks see my boring facebook, email, shopping data. Ha, ha to them if they are that interested.". The problem with a lot of civil liberties situations is that while the consequences of being the victim of a deliberate abuse or simply a mistake can be severe for the individual, the probability of being such a victim remains low, particularly if you're a good little citizen and keep your head down. This allows the kind of "it would never happen to me" mentality that Pastor Niemoeller tried to warn us about. Realistically, the expected damage to an individual citizen from (for example) a busted economy or poor healthcare or low quality education really is much higher than the expected damage from a government failing to respect the civil liberties of its citizens, so the "meh, got bigger things to worry about" crowd do have a point here. It's just unfortunate that there is a lot of danger in the world and most people don't have the time to expend on every possible danger to them or their loved ones, so they naturally favour concentrating on the dangers they perceive to be the biggest threats. We're supposed to have representative governments as a way to balance this problem, so that the people who are there as professional public servants have more time to consider the issues that aren't numbers 1-N on the list. Alas, numbers 1-N on the list then become the deciding factors in the elections that determine those representatives instead, and anything from N+1 on down can be handled or mishandled as the representatives and whatever special interest groups have their ear see fit. I'd like to say I have a solution to this, but it seems to be an inherent problem built into typical modern political systems. However, it's deeply ironic that many governments' own actions in these cases seem to be doing exactly the opposite, letting the fear of a high-impact, low-probability event like a major terrorist attack dominate their agenda rather than dealing with vastly more important issues like the ones I mentioned before. I still don't quite understand what's really in it for them to constantly perpetuate the fear of crime and terrorism, nor for the media to collaborate in doing so. Surely spending all that time and money and public attention on high-profile, high-value projects that would actually make a difference to a lot of people's lives would give them more political capital come election time, but at the moment it seems as if the political classes have lost all perspective.
snsr 13y ago
> The protests were an abysmal failure. They were scheduled to take place on the fourth of July. I understand and appreciate the symbolism, but the date makes a large turnout unlikely.
- medde 13y ago
  yes and if they gathered at the same location and time as the 4th of July festivities, like many protests, it has a large chance of not even being reported by the media...
saraid216 13y ago
> People get what they deserve, and the world apparently deserves the US monitoring all of its communications. Ironically, this is exactly the mindset behind statements like "I don't care" and the 50+% of pepole who don't even follow such things.
- tokenizer 13y ago
  In a status quo versus change debate. An "I don't care" vote, is a vote for the status quo.
adventured 13y ago
It's not: will fall; America has fallen. It's a realization most are just starting to come to. America collapsed in four waves. 1913, 1930, 1971, 2001. By almost any metric you could measure, America has lost substantial ground over 40 years. The late 1990s or early 2000's was the peak of the visible projection of "superpower" status, but it was mostly a fraud. Even the temporary budget surplus was a fraud, made possible by an extreme economic bubble and stealing from social security inflows. The real US standard of living has declined since the late 1960s. And that huge standard of living was only possible due to the rest of the world having been blown up in WW2; America was left with half the global manufacturing base by default, with little competition for two decades. In the most straight-forward of terms: America got rich with manufacturing, and poor with consumption; one creates wealth, the other eats it. China is now the one getting rich off of manufacturing, along with a few other nations. We've been floating on borrowed time for 30 years in the form of ever cheaper credit, sustained by the military reach of a superpower that convinced the likes of Japan and China to buy trillions of dollars of worthless paper. The dollar, as the global reserve currency, has been living on a reputation it hasn't deserved for many decades, namely that it's good as gold. The end of cheap money has arrived. You can easily guess what happens next. US national debt has a mere 64 month turn over period to it. Countries like China have shifted most of their treasuries to short term holdings. 5% * $20 trillion = $1 trillion in interest alone. See Japan for an example of what happens, they currently pay half their tax revenue toward debt interest.
- kaonashi 13y ago
  You have it completely backwards. We were net exporting post-war, now we're net importing. Imports are benefits; net importing is a good thing if the rest of the world is letting you get away with it.
  - adventured 13y ago
    No, I've got it 100% spot on. The proof as they say, is in the pudding. By the time the world stops letting you get away with massive debt binging, it's too late and you're screwed. Exactly as we are today. Which is why our central bank has to 'print' in order to fund the government or it would instantly be insolvent. The QE programs are primarily about debt monetization (which is what quantitative easing was always about historically) to keep the Federal Government from collapsing. Net exporting is how you create rapid domestic wealth: you sell manufactured goods to the rest of the world at a profit, and consume less than you earn. Just ask China about their massive increase in national wealth built on the back of net exports.

embolism 13y ago

it also deserves a whole load of other governments monitoring communications, some of which would be quite happy to take over if the us collapses

MarkSweep 13y ago

If the United States is becoming more repressive, where can one go? Other English speaking countries such as Australia, England, and Singapore have problems with freedom of expression.

rgrieselhuber 13y ago
Learn another language? :-)
- randomchars 13y ago
  And then go where?
  - rgrieselhuber 13y ago
    That's a whole other question but at least it opens your options up a bit more.
  - Svip 13y ago
    Form a new country? Speaking as amateur cartographer, I support all independence movements, because it will give cartographers new borders to draw on maps and thus a reason for people to buy new maps. Declare the East Coast US States independent and be done with it; I am tired of waiting.
    - jerf 13y ago
      "Declare the East Coast US States independent and be done with it; I am tired of waiting." How does that solve this problem? I mean, I can't even guess which side of this issue you think the "East Coast" is on.
      - Svip 13y ago
        Oh, it is entirely unrelated to this particular issue. But the population of America could benefit from more local democracy rather than something far away as Washington, D.C.. Now one may argue that that is already defined in the Constitution and that even if it wasn't, more local politics could be enforced by law by reducing the reach of the federal government. But I doubt either of us are that naïve. The USA have proved that democracy does not scale well. And that is why it has moved to centralise power ever since the Constitution was signed. It may not be a victory for privacy, but it would be a victory for democracy.
        jerf 13y ago
        Ah, now that I can almost get behind. One of the few plausible ways out of the mess we find ourselves in right now is a strong movement towards states rights. Nominally, the states have a lot more power in our system then they are currently exercising, so it doesn't require any new law, just some assertions of what already exists (albeit in the form of Constitutional Conventions rather than simply asserting laws, which would be simpler). It's not my perfect ideological solution by any means, but it's one of the few practical ones, inasmuch as it does involve walking up to a group of people and asking them to go grab more power as competing interests, rather than asking people with power to unilaterally disarm, which is pretty much a "fat chance" option. Secession is in some sense the ultimate State's right extreme, but I wouldn't advocate it until more normal avenues were tried and failed. It has... proved hazardous, to say the least.
        Svip 13y ago
        I realise of course you refer to the American Civil War. But there are some striking differences between then and now. I imagine it would be like this; a state (or more) announce that they will hold a referendum on independence, months (or even years) before the actual referendum will take place (similar to how it will take place in Scotland). This will give the President and the Federal Government time to react without having to sort to arms right away. Furthermore, a referendum is particularly what will set it apart from the American Civil War; this will be the will of the people (of that state, obviously) and not merely the will of the state (which was the case during the American Civil War, it was merely the legislatures that decided to secede, and not by referendum). This will make it much harder to justify for the federal government to intervene with military. Seeing as the process will open and peaceful, it would be seen as a considerable overreaction by the federal government to strike down with force on a seceding state. In addition because war has gotten so much more terrible, and I doubt you'd even convince the army of doing so. In short; I do not believe that you should be afraid of a military response to an independence, as long as you play fair. That's just intimidation. It would be sad to see that the only thing keeping the American states united was fear. However, I do agree with you that independence should be the last resort. But considering the last few decades, it seems many things have already been tried.
- MarkSweep 13y ago
  I'm learning Japanese, but what I hear about their criminal justice system is not inspiring.
antocv 13y ago
You cant flee anywhere nice, Snowden is trying to you and you see 99.9% of the world countries are willing to stuff their own constitutions and human rights treaties up their asses and stick their head in the sand at request of USA.
- tobiasu 13y ago
  Russia is more like 11%, not 0.01 ;) scnr
  - toyg 13y ago
    Russia is not doing anything different: they are not going to grant Snowden asylum or citizenship. So they're well and truly in that 99.99% at this point, together with China and Venezuela.
    - tobiasu 13y ago
      They did offer him asylum, with the condition to shut the fuck up and not continually interfere in international politics. He rejected it for his own reasons.
      - toyg 13y ago
        Their offer was clearly meant to be rejected; it was like offering Richard Stallman a job at Microsoft as long as he shut up about this whole Free Software stuff.
      - lttlrck 13y ago
        Did you really take Putin at face value? I think it is a safe bet that they knew what Snowdens values were before making the offer and they fully expected him to turn it down. Or they knew it for certain...
  - ajuc 13y ago
    Try to do to Russia what Snowden did to USA and you will find polonium in your food. Also falsified elections. Not that good place if you like freedom.
rwmj 13y ago
There are no more wild frontiers until we move into space, unfortunately.
- notdrunkatall 13y ago
  This Snowden affair made me realize that if no government wants to claim you, you are truly screwed. That's a modern development that I do not like.
agilebyte 13y ago
Also, you can go to country X that may not be repressive, but if you want to call abroad or use the internet, you are still inspected by routers in all the other countries that you would consider repressive.
marklit 13y ago
I you can write code there are a lot of countries you could support yourself in. I've visited and in some cases worked in 49 countries with minimal foreign language skills.
wcbeard10 13y ago
Seasteading?
- ctdonath 13y ago
  Possible, but terribly expensive. There's been much discussion (see "Oceania" and other projects) but little progress.
- gee_totes 13y ago
  There's always Sealand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand
el_zorro 13y ago
This sounds ridiculous, but lately I've been of the opinion that this planet is borked. I hold out serious hope for Elon Musk and his Mars colony. I seriously believe that we as a species need a fresh start in a new place. We need a new planet so we can try new things, create new ideas, and generally liberate ourselves of traditional conventions. It sounds pie-in-the-sky, but people are actively working on it and I hope to one day count myself among them. America used to be the place where things like this could happen, but that's not so much anymore. There's still innovation, but the trend doesn't look good and most of the world just doesn't care.
- flyinRyan 13y ago
  What do you imagine will happen if Musk lands on Mars? Various countries will be claiming jurisdiction before he lands (assuming they don't already). They could simply call mars an extension of their country and hold him accountable to their laws for anything he does on Mars.
  - el_zorro 13y ago
    They could, but I'd like to see them enforce it. The worst they could do on Earth would be to stop rocket launches to Mars (which would be bad) but rockets can be launched in a variety of places. They represent a large injection of wealth into an area, and the economic benefits of hosting rocket infrastructure outweighs the cost of dealing with a loud but ultimately toothless colony. By the time Mars would represent a 'threat' it will be essentially self-sufficient and then there is little hold Earth would have over it.
    - flyinRyan 13y ago
      Those on earth would still have the biggest military and as soon as the martian colony made it clear that they didn't submit to which ever overlords claimed them, that army would be in space on its way to Mars.
- adventured 13y ago
  Fleeing earth doesn't instantly change human nature. The risks to liberty will remain no matter where you go. The George Washington willing-to-cede-his-throne type will be just as rare on Mars in 2095 as it is today, as it was throughout history.

mtgx 13y ago

Symbolically, 4th of July was a good choice, but practically it wasn't, because it seems people would rather celebrate the concept of freedom, instead of actually defending it. Or maybe they just wanted to enjoy their day off, and has nothing to do with freedom and whatnot. Hopefully the protest will be repeated soon. This was kind of bad timing, because now politicians all over the world are also going to start their vacations, and it's summer and people don't want to think about "serious issues" anymore. But I agree it's still depressing.

quantumpotato_ 13y ago
A one-off protest does little (~0?) good with today's ADD media consumers.

7952 13y ago

People want a quiet life where they don't have to worry about the safety of their children, and this is exactly what everyone deserves. This is a generally a force for good in the world but it can be subverted by bad regimes. Human rights are designed to protect everyone even if they lack a passion for freedom, or safety, or national security. By disdaining other viewpoints you are thinking in terms of civic virtue instead of basic rights, which is characteristic of fascism, not democracy.

alan_cx 13y ago
Terror is NOT their main risk. If the same money was put in to health, road safety, gun control, and so on, they would be much more secure and safe. Real lives would be saved, not hypothetical ones. But since they are high on terrorist stories fed to them by the terror dealers in government, via their media runners, they will never know that, so their sense of security is utterly false. PRISM will not save them from the real statistical dangers in any way. It will not ever give them a quiet life.
- xyzzy123 13y ago
  I agree with you but an honest and insightful comment (in my opinion) didn't deserve to get downvoted to gray. I thought that was reserved for crazies and trolls, not people expressing a self-evident position. The fact that the priorities of most people are not necessarily aligned with reality isn't the fault of someone explaining the status quo. This gets missed, I think sometimes, in these discussions.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    If we use upvotes to signal agreement, then it is only natural that people use downvotes to signal disagreement. I don't have a link for it right now, but pg has say that as much is expected.
  - ctdonath 13y ago
    Warm fuzzies can be dangerously misguided leading to tragic consequences. The post sounds good on the surface, but such sentiment leads to ends far from what is intended. It may be honest, but not particularly insightful. A quiet life free of safety concerns is NOT a right, and attempting implementation thereof via government necessitates serious violation of other fundamental rights. A "proper" totalitarian police state is the only means to that end - and not something many of us are going to put up with. (No, I didn't downvote it, but understand why one would.)

alan_cx 13y ago

Yeah, here too in the UK but worse. As I have said before even the satirists don't seem to give a toss. The level of apathy is stunning. Frankly, I think the terror scare stories have worked a treat, as I suppose is predictable. Which is amazing since we in the UK lived through a real(1) terrorist campaign with the IRA. All I hear is, "well, I don't care if the silly spooks see my boring facebook, email, shopping data. Ha, ha to them if they are that interested.". And that is it. Heh, even heard, "well, I've got nothing to hide". I have to say, I don't really care any more. I have had enough. Yeah, I don't like what the US is doing, but my lot are in it up their necks, and are literally proud of it. My people don't care, my media don't care, no one cares. So I am the odd one out. Fine, we live in a so called democracy, so the people can have what they damn well deserve. My only hope is that I see this get really out of hand, and "normal" people start to get hurt by this. Then I can just stand there and laugh my sweet behind off at them, asking, "who did you vote for?". As for me, I'll be a lot more careful, increasingly use security and simply act in a more aware way. Its all I can do. :( (1)I say "real" because the "troubles" lasted over 30 years with sustained attacks of many kinds were successfully launched through that entire period, including the bombing of our entire government. Way worse than anything evil Muslims have done to the UK. I was indirectly involved, I know real terror. A one off attack is NOT terror. 30 odd years sustained, damn well is. Oh, a lot of it funded by Americans who saw the IRA as freedom fighters.

Silhouette 13y ago
All I hear is, "well, I don't care if the silly spooks see my boring facebook, email, shopping data. Ha, ha to them if they are that interested.". The problem with a lot of civil liberties situations is that while the consequences of being the victim of a deliberate abuse or simply a mistake can be severe for the individual, the probability of being such a victim remains low, particularly if you're a good little citizen and keep your head down. This allows the kind of "it would never happen to me" mentality that Pastor Niemoeller tried to warn us about. Realistically, the expected damage to an individual citizen from (for example) a busted economy or poor healthcare or low quality education really is much higher than the expected damage from a government failing to respect the civil liberties of its citizens, so the "meh, got bigger things to worry about" crowd do have a point here. It's just unfortunate that there is a lot of danger in the world and most people don't have the time to expend on every possible danger to them or their loved ones, so they naturally favour concentrating on the dangers they perceive to be the biggest threats. We're supposed to have representative governments as a way to balance this problem, so that the people who are there as professional public servants have more time to consider the issues that aren't numbers 1-N on the list. Alas, numbers 1-N on the list then become the deciding factors in the elections that determine those representatives instead, and anything from N+1 on down can be handled or mishandled as the representatives and whatever special interest groups have their ear see fit. I'd like to say I have a solution to this, but it seems to be an inherent problem built into typical modern political systems. However, it's deeply ironic that many governments' own actions in these cases seem to be doing exactly the opposite, letting the fear of a high-impact, low-probability event like a major terrorist attack dominate their agenda rather than dealing with vastly more important issues like the ones I mentioned before. I still don't quite understand what's really in it for them to constantly perpetuate the fear of crime and terrorism, nor for the media to collaborate in doing so. Surely spending all that time and money and public attention on high-profile, high-value projects that would actually make a difference to a lot of people's lives would give them more political capital come election time, but at the moment it seems as if the political classes have lost all perspective.

snsr 13y ago

> The protests were an abysmal failure. They were scheduled to take place on the fourth of July. I understand and appreciate the symbolism, but the date makes a large turnout unlikely.

medde 13y ago
yes and if they gathered at the same location and time as the 4th of July festivities, like many protests, it has a large chance of not even being reported by the media...

saraid216 13y ago

> People get what they deserve, and the world apparently deserves the US monitoring all of its communications. Ironically, this is exactly the mindset behind statements like "I don't care" and the 50+% of pepole who don't even follow such things.

tokenizer 13y ago
In a status quo versus change debate. An "I don't care" vote, is a vote for the status quo.

adventured 13y ago

It's not: will fall; America has fallen. It's a realization most are just starting to come to. America collapsed in four waves. 1913, 1930, 1971, 2001. By almost any metric you could measure, America has lost substantial ground over 40 years. The late 1990s or early 2000's was the peak of the visible projection of "superpower" status, but it was mostly a fraud. Even the temporary budget surplus was a fraud, made possible by an extreme economic bubble and stealing from social security inflows. The real US standard of living has declined since the late 1960s. And that huge standard of living was only possible due to the rest of the world having been blown up in WW2; America was left with half the global manufacturing base by default, with little competition for two decades. In the most straight-forward of terms: America got rich with manufacturing, and poor with consumption; one creates wealth, the other eats it. China is now the one getting rich off of manufacturing, along with a few other nations. We've been floating on borrowed time for 30 years in the form of ever cheaper credit, sustained by the military reach of a superpower that convinced the likes of Japan and China to buy trillions of dollars of worthless paper. The dollar, as the global reserve currency, has been living on a reputation it hasn't deserved for many decades, namely that it's good as gold. The end of cheap money has arrived. You can easily guess what happens next. US national debt has a mere 64 month turn over period to it. Countries like China have shifted most of their treasuries to short term holdings. 5% * $20 trillion = $1 trillion in interest alone. See Japan for an example of what happens, they currently pay half their tax revenue toward debt interest.

kaonashi 13y ago
You have it completely backwards. We were net exporting post-war, now we're net importing. Imports are benefits; net importing is a good thing if the rest of the world is letting you get away with it.
- adventured 13y ago
  No, I've got it 100% spot on. The proof as they say, is in the pudding. By the time the world stops letting you get away with massive debt binging, it's too late and you're screwed. Exactly as we are today. Which is why our central bank has to 'print' in order to fund the government or it would instantly be insolvent. The QE programs are primarily about debt monetization (which is what quantitative easing was always about historically) to keep the Federal Government from collapsing. Net exporting is how you create rapid domestic wealth: you sell manufactured goods to the rest of the world at a profit, and consume less than you earn. Just ask China about their massive increase in national wealth built on the back of net exports.