patrick.net

Is this really any shock? We are so complascent.

And, really, they were doing this with our driver licenses and passports already. I hope you all like your surveillance state: "if you didn't do anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about".

America has become a caricature of itself. A nation found on the ideals of freedom, now throws more people in jail than any nation on earth. The gubmnt is in the business of every family in the nation and if you don't provide the money the state deems fit and raise the kids according to the state's mandates-you are thrown in jail or your assets seized. The list goes on-what a joke.

We never should have fought the revolution. Countries that didn't have more freedom and even got rid of slavery sooner and without a civil war. The American Revolution was a failure.

Philistine says

We are so complascent.

This is the NSA's take-away from the Snowden leaks.
They can do anything they want, we won't do shit.

Dan8267 says

We never should have fought the revolution. Countries that didn't have more freedom and even got rid of slavery sooner and without a civil war. The American Revolution was a failure.

Just look at taxes. Up until the early 1920s there were no income taxes-except for a short period after the civil war and once that debt was repaid, taxes were abolished. Now we have FATCA, with a giant bureaucracy scouring the world and threatening foreign banks for American held assets held there. meanwhile corporations don't have to pay taxes on money earned and held abroad-just individuals.

A giant bureaucracy controls our every move and freedom is just a punchline -like a song they sing while leading goats to slaughter. With the way things are going, I really wonder if we may become a formal dictatorship within my lifetime. We are tettering on the edge. President can already take anyone in this country and jail him for an indefinite period-no reason need be given.

Honestly I was hoping Obozo the clown would be a bit more people oriented, but I am beginning to feel Bush was better. At least with the Shrub, there was hope that it would be better and this was an aberration. With the conduct of this clown on NSA, free trade agreements etc, I fear we have to reach bottom and may follow the path of other great empires.

well this is what you get when people vote for someone to be a part of history, versus on someone's record....oh, that's right, there is so many "abstains" that a record had not been established.

lostand confused says

Honestly I was hoping Obozo the clown would be a bit more people oriented, but I am beginning to feel Bush was better

That's exactly whats to be expected in a free society.
The more free you are, the more opportunities you have to break the laws.
Nothing new here....

lostand confused says

A nation found on the ideals of freedom, now throws more people in jail than any nation on earth.

SoftShell says

That's exactly whats to be expected in a free society.

The more free you are, the more opportunities you have to break the laws.

Nothing new here....

Robert Sproul says

Philistine says

We are so complascent.

This is the NSA's take-away from the Snowden leaks.

They can do anything they want, we won't do shit.

They are very arrogant. They won't stop until there are severe consequences to not doing so.

lostand confused says

At least with the Shrub, there was hope that it would be better and this was an aberration. With the conduct of this clown on NSA, free trade agreements etc, I fear we have to reach bottom and may follow the path of other great empires.

You are behind the curve. We have been following the path of other great empires since 1980.

The only people who have reason to detest the prison system are...JAILBIRDS!

Relax: The data can be used as a picture menu for cannibal anarchy.

FACE! YUMMY FAAACE!

SoftShell says

The only people who have reason to detest the prison system are...JAILBIRDS!

The only people who like the current prison industrial complex are the evil people who make a living out of ruining the lives of millions. power hungry imbeciles who only need to graduate high school and have no qualifications except be a mindless drone. if they ever grow a conscience, it is too late, their pensions are tied to this industry succeeding-no matter what.

I see. So what do you propose doing with lawbreakers?
shoot em china style?

lostand confused says

SoftShell says

The only people who have reason to detest the prison system are...JAILBIRDS!

The only people who like the current prison industrial complex are the evil people who make a living out of ruining the lives of millions. power hungry imbeciles who only need to graduate high school and have no qualifications except be a mindless drone. if they ever grow a conscience, it is too late, their pensions are tied to this industry succeeding-no matter what.

SoftShell says

I see. So what do you propose doing with lawbreakers?

shoot em china style?

What other countries do would be nice. Community service and restitution for non violent offenders, education and rehabilitation with home detention or supervised living for more serious offences, even more serious gets low to medium security with more intensive education and rehabilitation with graduated reentry into the community, finally lock up and throw away the key for the hard core.

The US incarcerates 15 times as many convicted people as the rest of the OECD. But hey, they have a lot less crime, what do they know?

So what?
We can afford to lock them up, other countries can't.

bob2356 says

The US incarcerates 15 times as many convicted people as the rest of the OECD. But hey, they have a lot less crime, what do they know?

They know that you don't know how to read simple 3rd grade charts.

bob2356 says

The US incarcerates 15 times as many convicted people as the rest of the OECD. But hey, they have a lot less crime, what do they know?

SoftShell says

I see. So what do you propose doing with lawbreakers?

shoot em china style?

We have way too many punitive laws to beat down poor and working class, and not enough for the wealthy.

I tell you, if wealthy will be forced to use the same public defender and are subject to same rules when it comes to prisons and arrests.... number of laws in America would dwindle dramatically.

The day Bush or Clinton offspring gets sent to maximum security prison for 5 years to share cell with other inmates over smoking pot, that will be the day pot becomes legal.

SoftShell says

They know that you don't know how to read simple 3rd grade charts

Yes, now would you like to drag out the rest of the charts on the civitas report. You know, the ones where the US near the top. Also how about the charts on drug offences which civitas doesn't publish. Missed white collar crimes also. How about the cost per conviction charts? Want to throw in the recidivism charts while you are at it? Where are all of the rest of the 3rd grade charts you skipped?

SoftShell says

I see. So what do you propose doing with lawbreakers?
shoot em china style

Oh please, I take it you are from the prison industrial complex.

No, that's your job.

bob2356 says

now would you like to drag out the rest of the charts on the civitas report.

No.
I just don't see why lawbreakers should walk freely amoungst law abiders.
For the most part, lawbreakers are hurting someone, directly or indirectly. Or are putting people in harms way unnecessarily.
They know the law. They willfully broke it. Fuckem.

lostand confused says

SoftShell says

I see. So what do you propose doing with lawbreakers?
shoot em china style

Oh please, I take it you are from the prison industrial complex.

SoftShell says

No.
I just don't see why lawbreakers should walk freely amoungst law
abiders.
For the most part, lawbreakers are hurting someone, directly or
indirectly. Or are putting people in harms way unnecessarily

Wrong.

SoftShell says

We can afford to lock them up, other countries can't.

We spend alot more tax dollars on it, you mean. Prisons, including private ones, don't work on wishes for law and order, but on hard cash.

The "Justice" System in the US is bifurcated into a brutal, punitive, oppressive system for poor people and a system where the elites are not prosecuted AT ALL for financial crimes that impact millions of fellow citizens.
And a rich Texas teen can walk away from killing 4 people in a drunken "accident'. Or the rich guy in Olympia crashes his Ferrari at 100mph and gets his 7th DUI…..no jail for him.
All the "justice" you can afford.

And now NSA is destroying evidence of their law breaking...

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-30/u-s-accused-of-destroying-spy-records-sought-as-evidence.html

This is like East Germany of the cold war, except that's in the "free" nation and it's today. So much for the land of the free.

Robert Sproul says

The "Justice" System in the US is bifurcated into a brutal, punitive, oppressive system for poor people and a system where the elites are not prosecuted AT ALL for financial crimes that impact millions of fellow citizens.

And a rich Texas teen can walk away from killing 4 people in a drunken "accident'. Or the rich guy in Olympia crashes his Ferrari at 100mph and gets his 7th DUI…..no jail for him.

All the "justice" you can afford.

I think our nation is ran by an old boys club of very wealthy people. And the rest of us are only allowed to exist with a precondition that our purpose is to serve them, be their labor, their military, their everything service. And the only once who are prosecuted are the slaves, not the owners.

This is well hidden under the guise of "Democracy" or "Republic". But it's just another form of Feudalism.

If somebody has zits, does that make the NSA database a pizza menu?

FortWayne says

This is like East Germany of the cold war

I would argue that the Stasi had more restrictions on whom it could spy - surveillance had to be cleared first.

Iosef V HydroCabron says

FortWayne says

This is like East Germany of the cold war

I would argue that the Stasi had more restrictions on whom it could spy - surveillance had to be cleared first.

I just watched The Lives of Others, pretty interesting film.
In it's depiction the Stasi was abhorrent but I think we can easily outdo them with our soulless technology and our Exceptionalism.