7 ms·

And what are we to do when their bluffs are revealed to be truthful, and the NSA's sway over all levels of government to be absolute? What if we were to learn t

by ihsw 13y ago

And what are we to do when their bluffs are revealed to be truthful, and the NSA's sway over all levels of government to be absolute? What if we were to learn that the Constitution is simply a feeble veneer meant to conceal the fact that there is certain legislation we're powerless to exert pressure over? What happens when the sea of democracy recedes and all that's left are naked, stinking husks that were once called "congressional oversight" and "judicial oversight"? My comment may the height of hyperbole and scaremongering, but it's difficult to ignore the opportunity to express myself in such a colorful manner.

ohyes 13y ago
Vote the bums out and defund the NSA. It's clear no one on the intelligence committee has been doing their job, so let's start there. http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/memberscurrent.html http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/memberscurrent.html http://intelligence.house.gov/about/hpsci-majority-members http://intelligence.house.gov/about/hpsci-majority-members
- arh68 13y ago
  Even Udall & Wyden? I understand the clean-house sentiment, but do you deny them credit?
- ganeumann 13y ago
  I'm curious how Californians feel about Dianne Feinstein (Chair of the intelligence committee.) I'm not in CA; do people there plan to vote her back in when she's up for reelection or has the NSA scandal hurt her?
  - fsckin 13y ago
    She effectively has a lifelong term.
    - AnthonyMouse 13y ago
      I don't buy it. Obviously a Republican is not going to beat her in California, but someone with enough money and popular support could primary her. And you don't even have to win -- just force her to stop being complacent and change her outrageous positions in order to mitigate the risk of losing.
      - anigbrowl 13y ago
        A primary challenge is unlikely, since the person's career within the Democratic party would come to a swift end. Schwarznegger could possibly have beaten her, but a) he had a sleazy sex scandal and b) CA Republicans seem to dislike him even more than democrats because he has the temerity to take things like global warming seriously.
        AnthonyMouse 13y ago
        >A primary challenge is unlikely, since the person's career within the Democratic party would come to a swift end. Not if they win. And I don't see why you need a party insider in any event. What you need is someone who can fund their own primary campaign, or who can get enough donations from real people to do it, i.e. someone who is famous or rich or both. >Schwarznegger could possibly have beaten her, but a) he had a sleazy sex scandal and b) CA Republicans seem to dislike him even more than democrats because he has the temerity to take things like global warming seriously. Schwarzenneger could possibly have beaten her because he's rich and famous, but he's not the only one with those characteristics.
  - abecedarius 13y ago
    I've heard she won't seek reelection; I think that predated any of this. (I'm from California and couldn't bring myself to vote for her ever.)
    - khuey 13y ago
      She just got reelected in 2012 and will be 85 in 2018.
  - btilly 13y ago
    I always plan to vote against Dianne Feinstein. I just need someone to vote for that I hate less. Ditto Barbara Boxer.
  - a3n 13y ago
    People in California, as everywhere, don't feel anything in particular about their representative. The power of incumbency does not come from citizens believing their rep does a great job, it comes from money putting that rep in the public eye. People in general will vote for who is put in front of their face the most. "I've heard of this guy, never heard of that other guy so much, so this guy it is. Now home to the TV."
    - jjjeffrey 13y ago
      Idea: Perhaps election voting should be separated into different dates for different groups. I've certainly been guilty of knowing more about the president I was voting for than for congress persons (and even worse, state and local elections and bills). I've voted for people based on nothing more than the information on the ballot sheet. (Thankfully, I know better than to do that now.) If people couldn't vote for lower offices simply because they showed up for presidential votes, but rather had to show up to vote on another date for other elections, then only people who actually cared about lower offices would vote for those. I think that might make it a lot harder to keep incumbents in power.
      - hga 13y ago
        Actually I take that sort of thing as a sign of machine politics. When elections don't coincide with the ones that bring a lot of people into the booths, then the machine that's most effective at getting voters to the booths wins, unless the election becomes non-normal (e.g. a lot of people have a reason to get rid of someone, see below for two local examples). Local elections, whenever they're held, are a real problem; unless I have real knowledge about a candidate I don't vote. My parents and I all pool our information together (e.g. my father knows which county commissioner is an idiot, and I, oh, research judges) and even then there are a lot of offices we don't vote on. And some run unopposed, e.g. our county clerk is very competent. But that doesn't mean this is all a generally useless exercise, if an abusive public administrator, or a sheriff who doesn't play well with others is up for reelection, at least where I live they will be sent back home to spend more time with their families, or eventually to Federal prison in the case of the administrator.
hga 13y ago
"What happens when the sea of democracy recedes...." We become very glad that, outside of the fortunately rare hellholes of NYC and D.C., and to a lessor extent Massachusetts and New Jersey, we've retained the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Puts a ceiling on the tyranny the state can exercise, and any attempt to confiscate the people's arms is a clear signal to turn our cold civil war into a hot one. ADDED: various formulations list the following "boxes", soap box, ballot box, jury box, and bullet box. We still retain the other 3 even if the ballot box becomes an effective nullity, and in our Federal system it won't likely be so at the state level. Much can be done in our system there, including calling a constitutional convention and ratifying new amendments to the Constitution. Which is essentially what happened the last time we had a impossible central government.
- omgsean 13y ago
  Good luck with that. There are basically two scenarios here to consider in a popular violent revolution: 1) The army sides with the people. In this case, the right to keep and bear arms is basically irrelevant as you have the backing of the world's most powerful army. 2) The army sides with the government. In this case, even the militia types with huge munitions caches don't stand a chance against the world's most powerful army. This is not 1776, it wouldn't be musket vs. musket.
  - hga 13y ago
    "Amateurs discuss tactics, professionals discuss logistics."
  - jivatmanx 13y ago
    False dichotomy, it's not likely that every single regiment of every single branch of the armed forces and police are all going to choose a single side.
    - hga 13y ago
      One thing that's quite unusual about our system is that policing power is smeared across the local, state and Federal levels, with the vast majority of it at the first. This imposes massive constraints on a would be Federal level tyranny.

by ihsw 13y ago

ohyes 13y ago

Vote the bums out and defund the NSA. It's clear no one on the intelligence committee has been doing their job, so let's start there. http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/memberscurrent.html http://www.intelligence.senate.gov/memberscurrent.html http://intelligence.house.gov/about/hpsci-majority-members http://intelligence.house.gov/about/hpsci-majority-members

arh68 13y ago
Even Udall & Wyden? I understand the clean-house sentiment, but do you deny them credit?
ganeumann 13y ago
I'm curious how Californians feel about Dianne Feinstein (Chair of the intelligence committee.) I'm not in CA; do people there plan to vote her back in when she's up for reelection or has the NSA scandal hurt her?
- fsckin 13y ago
  She effectively has a lifelong term.
  - AnthonyMouse 13y ago
    I don't buy it. Obviously a Republican is not going to beat her in California, but someone with enough money and popular support could primary her. And you don't even have to win -- just force her to stop being complacent and change her outrageous positions in order to mitigate the risk of losing.
    - anigbrowl 13y ago
      A primary challenge is unlikely, since the person's career within the Democratic party would come to a swift end. Schwarznegger could possibly have beaten her, but a) he had a sleazy sex scandal and b) CA Republicans seem to dislike him even more than democrats because he has the temerity to take things like global warming seriously.
      - AnthonyMouse 13y ago
        >A primary challenge is unlikely, since the person's career within the Democratic party would come to a swift end. Not if they win. And I don't see why you need a party insider in any event. What you need is someone who can fund their own primary campaign, or who can get enough donations from real people to do it, i.e. someone who is famous or rich or both. >Schwarznegger could possibly have beaten her, but a) he had a sleazy sex scandal and b) CA Republicans seem to dislike him even more than democrats because he has the temerity to take things like global warming seriously. Schwarzenneger could possibly have beaten her because he's rich and famous, but he's not the only one with those characteristics.
- abecedarius 13y ago
  I've heard she won't seek reelection; I think that predated any of this. (I'm from California and couldn't bring myself to vote for her ever.)
  - khuey 13y ago
    She just got reelected in 2012 and will be 85 in 2018.
- btilly 13y ago
  I always plan to vote against Dianne Feinstein. I just need someone to vote for that I hate less. Ditto Barbara Boxer.
- a3n 13y ago
  People in California, as everywhere, don't feel anything in particular about their representative. The power of incumbency does not come from citizens believing their rep does a great job, it comes from money putting that rep in the public eye. People in general will vote for who is put in front of their face the most. "I've heard of this guy, never heard of that other guy so much, so this guy it is. Now home to the TV."
  - jjjeffrey 13y ago
    Idea: Perhaps election voting should be separated into different dates for different groups. I've certainly been guilty of knowing more about the president I was voting for than for congress persons (and even worse, state and local elections and bills). I've voted for people based on nothing more than the information on the ballot sheet. (Thankfully, I know better than to do that now.) If people couldn't vote for lower offices simply because they showed up for presidential votes, but rather had to show up to vote on another date for other elections, then only people who actually cared about lower offices would vote for those. I think that might make it a lot harder to keep incumbents in power.
    - hga 13y ago
      Actually I take that sort of thing as a sign of machine politics. When elections don't coincide with the ones that bring a lot of people into the booths, then the machine that's most effective at getting voters to the booths wins, unless the election becomes non-normal (e.g. a lot of people have a reason to get rid of someone, see below for two local examples). Local elections, whenever they're held, are a real problem; unless I have real knowledge about a candidate I don't vote. My parents and I all pool our information together (e.g. my father knows which county commissioner is an idiot, and I, oh, research judges) and even then there are a lot of offices we don't vote on. And some run unopposed, e.g. our county clerk is very competent. But that doesn't mean this is all a generally useless exercise, if an abusive public administrator, or a sheriff who doesn't play well with others is up for reelection, at least where I live they will be sent back home to spend more time with their families, or eventually to Federal prison in the case of the administrator.

hga 13y ago

"What happens when the sea of democracy recedes...." We become very glad that, outside of the fortunately rare hellholes of NYC and D.C., and to a lessor extent Massachusetts and New Jersey, we've retained the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. Puts a ceiling on the tyranny the state can exercise, and any attempt to confiscate the people's arms is a clear signal to turn our cold civil war into a hot one. ADDED: various formulations list the following "boxes", soap box, ballot box, jury box, and bullet box. We still retain the other 3 even if the ballot box becomes an effective nullity, and in our Federal system it won't likely be so at the state level. Much can be done in our system there, including calling a constitutional convention and ratifying new amendments to the Constitution. Which is essentially what happened the last time we had a impossible central government.

omgsean 13y ago
Good luck with that. There are basically two scenarios here to consider in a popular violent revolution: 1) The army sides with the people. In this case, the right to keep and bear arms is basically irrelevant as you have the backing of the world's most powerful army. 2) The army sides with the government. In this case, even the militia types with huge munitions caches don't stand a chance against the world's most powerful army. This is not 1776, it wouldn't be musket vs. musket.
- hga 13y ago
  "Amateurs discuss tactics, professionals discuss logistics."
- jivatmanx 13y ago
  False dichotomy, it's not likely that every single regiment of every single branch of the armed forces and police are all going to choose a single side.
  - hga 13y ago
    One thing that's quite unusual about our system is that policing power is smeared across the local, state and Federal levels, with the vast majority of it at the first. This imposes massive constraints on a would be Federal level tyranny.