15 ms·

If only that gumption extended to the US tax payer footing the bill to be spied upon.

kenbellows 11y ago
... are you suggesting that the entire US population refuse to pay any taxes until surveillance issues are fixed? Because that's a terrible idea.
- tertius 11y ago
  Stopping tax payments isn't the only way to protest.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    I'd love to hear ideas on this. I am dismayed, nay, infuriated that we waste taxpayer dollars in such a manner when the returns have been found to be non-existent. Yet, I read about atrocities committed every day by ISIS and the US government sits back and does little. This is not the world I want to live in, and I have no idea how to solve these non-technical problems. EDIT: Regarding downvotes and the replies as of 1433272217: If ISIS wants us to engage them, we just sit back and allow them to rape whole villages and sell women into the sex trade? You don't go to war for oil. You go to war for human rights and to prevent the slaughter and abuse of innocent people.
    - jessaustin 11y ago
      Yet, I read about atrocities committed every day by ISIS and the US government sits back and does little. Perhaps this is venturing into political territory, but what "returns" would you expect from an expedition into Syria to engage ISIS?
      - dragonwriter 11y ago
        Yeah, consider that ISIS is a product of the last time the US decided it needed to do more to rearrange the political situation in the region.
        toomuchtodo 11y ago
        If ISIS is a product of US foreign policy, than the responsibility falls square on the US government to clean up its mess.
        Karunamon 11y ago
        Only if that's a thing they're capable of doing in the first place. Which, to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure they are. It seems like any time the US military gets involved in something nowadays, the surrounding people end up worse off than when they started.
        jessaustin 11y ago
        If "nowadays" means "over the last fifty years" then I agree. Amazingly enough, this seems to correspond with the time period over which the military-industrial complex has held a monopoly over the civic and political discourse in USA. I wonder, could we be killing people primarily to support the armaments industry?
        godgod 11y ago
        its impossible to clean up the mess when the US government continues to fund and arm ISIS which is Obama's private little army keeping Iran in check. Ever notice how ISIS is only bombed when they get outside the lines? Ever notice how ISIS keeps getting air drops of weapons on "accident?"
    - rosser 11y ago
      "Doing something" about IS is exactly what they (the leadership of IS) want. They want the West — and particularly the US — to engage militarily with them, to give credence to their particular, perverse brand of apocalyptic Islam. Letting them continue to alienate themselves amongst all the other Muslims on the planet by the way they treat their fellows (if you're Muslim, but don't believe in IS's specific notions of the caliphate, you're an apostate, and must be killed) will, in the long run, do more to destroy them than even nuking all of Syria ever could. EDIT: re your edit: if the West engages militarily with IS, that becomes an even bigger recruiting tool for them than did the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Imagine how many villages will be raped and killed and sold into sex slavery when IS has three times as many crazy fucknuts who all believe their heinous idiocy? So, yes, by all means. Let's just go ahead and print their recruiting posters too, while we're at it. This is long, but it's well worth the read. The Atlantic's article, titled "What ISIS Really Wants": http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/ http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isi... Don't mistake me. I think IS and what they're doing are heinous and disgusting. But to react to what they're doing and try to stop them with force of arms will be massively counter-productive. Sometimes, blowing shit up just makes it worse. I mean, IS wouldn't even be a thing if the US hadn't blown up Iraq. How, exactly, is doubling down a good idea, again? In the days immediately after 9/11, I said in an online forum to some friends that I really didn't want the US to spend the next several decades playing Whack-a-Mole with the jihad-inclined parts of Islam. Guess what we've done, and what you seem to be calling for doing...
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        > Letting them continue to alienate themselves amongst all the other Muslims on the planet by the way they treat their fellows (if you're Muslim, but don't believe in IS's specific notions of the caliphate, you're an apostate, and must be killed) will, in the long run, do more to destroy them than even nuking all of Syria ever could. Waiting it out is not an option. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-burns-woman-alive-for-refusing-to-engage-in-extreme-sex-act-un-says-10272832.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-bur... "Amid all the atrocities carried out by Isis — its massacres of civilians, its beheading of hostages, its pillaging of antiquities — the systematic violence the jihadists have carried out against countless enslaved women and girls never fails to shock. For months now, we've heard appalling testimony from women who escaped Isis's clutches, many of whom endured rape and other hideous acts of violence." "Here's a chilling excerpt: "After attacking a village, [the Islamic State] splits women from men and executes boys and men aged 14 and over. The women and mothers are separated; girls are stripped naked, tested for virginity and examined for breast size and prettiness. The youngest, and those considered the prettiest virgins fetch higher prices and are sent to Raqqa, the IS stronghold." "We heard about one girl who was traded 22 times, and another, who had escaped, told us that the sheikh who had captured her wrote his name on the back of her hand to show that she was his 'property'." "Estimates vary, but there are believed to be somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 women enslaved by the Islamic State. Many are Yazidis, a persecuted minority sect that the extremist Islamic State considers to be apostate "devil-worshippers," in part because of the Yazidis' ancient connection to the region's pre-Islamic past. The jihadists' treatment of Yazidi women, in particular, has been marked out by its contempt and savagery." Here's Bangura again: "They commit rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution and other acts of extreme brutality. We heard one case of a 20-year-old girl who was burned alive because she refused to perform an extreme sex act. We learned of many other sadistic sexual acts. We struggled to understand the mentality of people who commit such crimes."
    - tn13 11y ago
      Going by the USA's history of waging wars against Islamic terrorism I think the track record is very poor. USA has lost a lot of money and has made situations only worse. There is no point saving some child in Iraq by taxing an American
      - tertius 11y ago
        A closer look at history should show that war is very profitable for this country. WMDs? No, profit.
        tn13 11y ago
        It is not profitable for the country. It is profitable for third rate defense manufacturers who produce the hardware.
    - woah 11y ago
      Isis was originally armed by the U.S. "doing something" about Assad.
      - CWuestefeld 11y ago
        ...and doing something about Libya, too.
        alexqgb 11y ago
        After "doing something" about Saddam Hussain.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      >If ISIS wants us to engage them, we just sit back and allow them to rape whole villages and sell women into the sex trade? ISIS are an insignificant mock army of goat herders with guns. They could be eradicated in an afternoon. It's presense though helps with strategic goals of instability for the region. >You don't go to war for oil. You go to war for human rights and to prevent the slaughter and abuse of innocent people. That has never happened in the history of modern war. It was all about strategic interests, political influence and resource grabbing. Heck, if anything lots of dictators have been put to place and pampered, allowed to "rape whole villages" and kill innocent people, by the same people pretending to care for "human rights" in other instances. From Mossadeq to being in bed with Shaddam, the Taliban, Pinochet, Saudi Arabia, El Salvador "death squads", etc. And then bringing even more death and chaos when those deals went out of favor or allies changed. Besides that's the role of cops. Who appointed any country world cop? Should third countries had invaded the US to end "slavery", seggregation, the "police state" killing blacks etc?
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        > Besides that's the role of cops. Who appointed any country world cop? Should third countries had invaded the US to end "slavery", seggregation, the "police state" killing blacks etc? You don't appoint someone to do the right thing. The US civil war was large enough that it was tantamount to another country (the North) overthrowing the South to end slavery.
        coldtea 11y ago
        >The US civil war was large enough that it was tantamount to another country (the North) overthrowing the South to end slavery. Only slavery was just a pretext for that war.
        dragonwriter 11y ago
        The South claimed that secession was about the imminent threat to slavery from the Northern states, but that the war was just Northern aggression. The North claimed that the war was about preserving the Union, not about slavery. So how was slavery a "pretext" for the war?
    - tertius 11y ago
      "and sell women into the sex trade" Because that is a problem we don't have in the U.S...
      - tertius 11y ago
        Downvotes for suggesting we have human sexual trafficing in the U.S. and it's a massive problem? Thumbs up to you guys.
- jessaustin 11y ago
  Best idea I've read on HN in days. b^)
- tn13 11y ago
  Demand an upper limit on total government spending as a % of GDP + upper limit for marginal tax rates for all individuals. Given the popularity of welfare very likely government will be forced to bring sense into its spending. That is the only way. Other way is to use your second amendment rights.
  - lazaroclapp 11y ago
    What happens if you want government to spend money on things in general (infrastructure, healthcare, national and international aid in case of disasters, reasonable defense projects), just not on spying on civilians?
    - tn13 11y ago
      As I said put an upper limit, I did not say do away with government spending. Let the government manage in that much money by spending more judiciously then sucking our hard earned wealth. They can start for example by selling off the luxurious homes that our Congressman end up having for free. For any other cause let people contribute out of their own volition.Which works much better.
  - walshemj 11y ago
    No they will cut benefits starting with single people just like the UK where you don't get any of this feather bedding of 99 week social security. 180 days is your lot - oh and you had better be spending 40 hours a week applying for jobs and be abele to prove it or that gets stopped
    - tn13 11y ago
      That is even better.
- baddox 11y ago
  I wouldn't suggest that such a plan is remotely likely, but a massive organized tax protest would be interesting and probably even beneficial.
  - istvan__ 11y ago
    Totally agree. The first country where people do this will write history about who is really in charge in a country.
    - happyscrappy 11y ago
      Aren't they already doing this in Greece?
      - tormeh 11y ago
        No, that's just tax evasion for financial gain.
        bsbechtel 11y ago
        Depending on your perspective, you could accuse anyone refusing to pay taxes as evading taxes for financial gain.
        istvan__ 11y ago
        Wondering why the top 1% can get away with it in the US...
    - ianstallings 11y ago
      That's already happened - December 16, 1773.
      - istvan__ 11y ago
        That is slightly different but similar. I am expecting a sovereign country's citizens to do something like that, as far as I know that did not happen yet.

... are you suggesting that the entire US population refuse to pay any taxes until surveillance issues are fixed? Because that's a terrible idea.

tertius 11y ago
Stopping tax payments isn't the only way to protest.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  I'd love to hear ideas on this. I am dismayed, nay, infuriated that we waste taxpayer dollars in such a manner when the returns have been found to be non-existent. Yet, I read about atrocities committed every day by ISIS and the US government sits back and does little. This is not the world I want to live in, and I have no idea how to solve these non-technical problems. EDIT: Regarding downvotes and the replies as of 1433272217: If ISIS wants us to engage them, we just sit back and allow them to rape whole villages and sell women into the sex trade? You don't go to war for oil. You go to war for human rights and to prevent the slaughter and abuse of innocent people.
  - jessaustin 11y ago
    Yet, I read about atrocities committed every day by ISIS and the US government sits back and does little. Perhaps this is venturing into political territory, but what "returns" would you expect from an expedition into Syria to engage ISIS?
    - dragonwriter 11y ago
      Yeah, consider that ISIS is a product of the last time the US decided it needed to do more to rearrange the political situation in the region.
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        If ISIS is a product of US foreign policy, than the responsibility falls square on the US government to clean up its mess.
        Karunamon 11y ago
        Only if that's a thing they're capable of doing in the first place. Which, to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure they are. It seems like any time the US military gets involved in something nowadays, the surrounding people end up worse off than when they started.
        jessaustin 11y ago
        If "nowadays" means "over the last fifty years" then I agree. Amazingly enough, this seems to correspond with the time period over which the military-industrial complex has held a monopoly over the civic and political discourse in USA. I wonder, could we be killing people primarily to support the armaments industry?
        godgod 11y ago
        its impossible to clean up the mess when the US government continues to fund and arm ISIS which is Obama's private little army keeping Iran in check. Ever notice how ISIS is only bombed when they get outside the lines? Ever notice how ISIS keeps getting air drops of weapons on "accident?"
  - rosser 11y ago
    "Doing something" about IS is exactly what they (the leadership of IS) want. They want the West — and particularly the US — to engage militarily with them, to give credence to their particular, perverse brand of apocalyptic Islam. Letting them continue to alienate themselves amongst all the other Muslims on the planet by the way they treat their fellows (if you're Muslim, but don't believe in IS's specific notions of the caliphate, you're an apostate, and must be killed) will, in the long run, do more to destroy them than even nuking all of Syria ever could. EDIT: re your edit: if the West engages militarily with IS, that becomes an even bigger recruiting tool for them than did the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. Imagine how many villages will be raped and killed and sold into sex slavery when IS has three times as many crazy fucknuts who all believe their heinous idiocy? So, yes, by all means. Let's just go ahead and print their recruiting posters too, while we're at it. This is long, but it's well worth the read. The Atlantic's article, titled "What ISIS Really Wants": http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/ http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isi... Don't mistake me. I think IS and what they're doing are heinous and disgusting. But to react to what they're doing and try to stop them with force of arms will be massively counter-productive. Sometimes, blowing shit up just makes it worse. I mean, IS wouldn't even be a thing if the US hadn't blown up Iraq. How, exactly, is doubling down a good idea, again? In the days immediately after 9/11, I said in an online forum to some friends that I really didn't want the US to spend the next several decades playing Whack-a-Mole with the jihad-inclined parts of Islam. Guess what we've done, and what you seem to be calling for doing...
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      > Letting them continue to alienate themselves amongst all the other Muslims on the planet by the way they treat their fellows (if you're Muslim, but don't believe in IS's specific notions of the caliphate, you're an apostate, and must be killed) will, in the long run, do more to destroy them than even nuking all of Syria ever could. Waiting it out is not an option. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-burns-woman-alive-for-refusing-to-engage-in-extreme-sex-act-un-says-10272832.html http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-bur... "Amid all the atrocities carried out by Isis — its massacres of civilians, its beheading of hostages, its pillaging of antiquities — the systematic violence the jihadists have carried out against countless enslaved women and girls never fails to shock. For months now, we've heard appalling testimony from women who escaped Isis's clutches, many of whom endured rape and other hideous acts of violence." "Here's a chilling excerpt: "After attacking a village, [the Islamic State] splits women from men and executes boys and men aged 14 and over. The women and mothers are separated; girls are stripped naked, tested for virginity and examined for breast size and prettiness. The youngest, and those considered the prettiest virgins fetch higher prices and are sent to Raqqa, the IS stronghold." "We heard about one girl who was traded 22 times, and another, who had escaped, told us that the sheikh who had captured her wrote his name on the back of her hand to show that she was his 'property'." "Estimates vary, but there are believed to be somewhere between 3,000 and 5,000 women enslaved by the Islamic State. Many are Yazidis, a persecuted minority sect that the extremist Islamic State considers to be apostate "devil-worshippers," in part because of the Yazidis' ancient connection to the region's pre-Islamic past. The jihadists' treatment of Yazidi women, in particular, has been marked out by its contempt and savagery." Here's Bangura again: "They commit rape, sexual slavery, forced prostitution and other acts of extreme brutality. We heard one case of a 20-year-old girl who was burned alive because she refused to perform an extreme sex act. We learned of many other sadistic sexual acts. We struggled to understand the mentality of people who commit such crimes."
  - tn13 11y ago
    Going by the USA's history of waging wars against Islamic terrorism I think the track record is very poor. USA has lost a lot of money and has made situations only worse. There is no point saving some child in Iraq by taxing an American
    - tertius 11y ago
      A closer look at history should show that war is very profitable for this country. WMDs? No, profit.
      - tn13 11y ago
        It is not profitable for the country. It is profitable for third rate defense manufacturers who produce the hardware.
  - woah 11y ago
    Isis was originally armed by the U.S. "doing something" about Assad.
    - CWuestefeld 11y ago
      ...and doing something about Libya, too.
      - alexqgb 11y ago
        After "doing something" about Saddam Hussain.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    >If ISIS wants us to engage them, we just sit back and allow them to rape whole villages and sell women into the sex trade? ISIS are an insignificant mock army of goat herders with guns. They could be eradicated in an afternoon. It's presense though helps with strategic goals of instability for the region. >You don't go to war for oil. You go to war for human rights and to prevent the slaughter and abuse of innocent people. That has never happened in the history of modern war. It was all about strategic interests, political influence and resource grabbing. Heck, if anything lots of dictators have been put to place and pampered, allowed to "rape whole villages" and kill innocent people, by the same people pretending to care for "human rights" in other instances. From Mossadeq to being in bed with Shaddam, the Taliban, Pinochet, Saudi Arabia, El Salvador "death squads", etc. And then bringing even more death and chaos when those deals went out of favor or allies changed. Besides that's the role of cops. Who appointed any country world cop? Should third countries had invaded the US to end "slavery", seggregation, the "police state" killing blacks etc?
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      > Besides that's the role of cops. Who appointed any country world cop? Should third countries had invaded the US to end "slavery", seggregation, the "police state" killing blacks etc? You don't appoint someone to do the right thing. The US civil war was large enough that it was tantamount to another country (the North) overthrowing the South to end slavery.
      - coldtea 11y ago
        >The US civil war was large enough that it was tantamount to another country (the North) overthrowing the South to end slavery. Only slavery was just a pretext for that war.
        dragonwriter 11y ago
        The South claimed that secession was about the imminent threat to slavery from the Northern states, but that the war was just Northern aggression. The North claimed that the war was about preserving the Union, not about slavery. So how was slavery a "pretext" for the war?
  - tertius 11y ago
    "and sell women into the sex trade" Because that is a problem we don't have in the U.S...
    - tertius 11y ago
      Downvotes for suggesting we have human sexual trafficing in the U.S. and it's a massive problem? Thumbs up to you guys.
jessaustin 11y ago
Best idea I've read on HN in days. b^)
tn13 11y ago
Demand an upper limit on total government spending as a % of GDP + upper limit for marginal tax rates for all individuals. Given the popularity of welfare very likely government will be forced to bring sense into its spending. That is the only way. Other way is to use your second amendment rights.
- lazaroclapp 11y ago
  What happens if you want government to spend money on things in general (infrastructure, healthcare, national and international aid in case of disasters, reasonable defense projects), just not on spying on civilians?
  - tn13 11y ago
    As I said put an upper limit, I did not say do away with government spending. Let the government manage in that much money by spending more judiciously then sucking our hard earned wealth. They can start for example by selling off the luxurious homes that our Congressman end up having for free. For any other cause let people contribute out of their own volition.Which works much better.
- walshemj 11y ago
  No they will cut benefits starting with single people just like the UK where you don't get any of this feather bedding of 99 week social security. 180 days is your lot - oh and you had better be spending 40 hours a week applying for jobs and be abele to prove it or that gets stopped
  - tn13 11y ago
    That is even better.
baddox 11y ago
I wouldn't suggest that such a plan is remotely likely, but a massive organized tax protest would be interesting and probably even beneficial.
- istvan__ 11y ago
  Totally agree. The first country where people do this will write history about who is really in charge in a country.
  - happyscrappy 11y ago
    Aren't they already doing this in Greece?
    - tormeh 11y ago
      No, that's just tax evasion for financial gain.
      - bsbechtel 11y ago
        Depending on your perspective, you could accuse anyone refusing to pay taxes as evading taxes for financial gain.
        istvan__ 11y ago
        Wondering why the top 1% can get away with it in the US...
  - ianstallings 11y ago
    That's already happened - December 16, 1773.
    - istvan__ 11y ago
      That is slightly different but similar. I am expecting a sovereign country's citizens to do something like that, as far as I know that did not happen yet.