Exposing a crime
“When exposing a crime is treated as committing a crime, you are ruled by criminals.”
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“Socialism — Capitalism — Traditionalism”
NeoNote — Not defense
❝❝I just want to point out that American "defense" policy involves military action against nations when Congress hasn't declared war.NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.
Even Trump complained when Obama launched military actions without Congressional approval.
You tell me. Should we change the Constitution so the President can attack any other nation on his authority alone? Or should we insist Congress does it's job?
Is this about America, right or wrong?
Or is it about liberty?
How about multiple missile attacks?
And is it right to launch missiles into other nations? You've said that eight months is sufficient. Is four months? Is four weeks? Is four days?
Is it right for other nations to launch missiles into our country?
After all, we have a proven record of meddling in the governments of other nations.
So you are saying that the U.S. has the unique power to fire missiles into other countries.
So much for freedom.
Obviously there is.
And it's even covered by that top ten list of yours.
At the very least, I think using a missile against innocents qualifies as murder.rob
Too late.
I do have a solution for the opium fields. But it doesn't involve armies. It would be a lot more effective though.
Oh?
There are an awful lot of people who got shot at who would disagree with you.
ETA: Not to mention all those overseas military bases.
You're arguing over definitions and a matter of degree.
Might doesn't make right. I've told you that before.
Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do something. Or that you are justified in doing it.
Justified?
And if we're wrong, does that make us weak? Or just a bully that no one wants to face?
There is a century old story that I tell sometimes. Back during the Russian revolution, President Wilson sent American troops to intervene. The "mission" was murky at best, which led to failed promises and out-and-out lies. Wilson did this without Congressional authorization, we weren't at war with Russia.
Fast forward a couple of decades. Some of the Soviet General Staff had faced American soldiers in the trenches. They knew exactly what American words were worth.
And after WWII, that shaped the Cold War.
All because an American President took it on himself to intervene in a revolution without Congressional authority.
Don't get mad at me. It's right there in the Constitution. And if Congress hasn't declared war, then why are American troops fighting?
Considering who has been President, do you really want no checks and balances when it comes to war?
So why do we have troops fighting when war has not been declared?
Politicos have sacrificed the nation's honor and the lives of American troops for what?
Why do we have troops fighting when war has not been declared?❞❞
Income taxes
““Income taxes are the fine one pays for the crime of being useful and productive.””Read More...
This just in
““The same government that has repeatedly violated privacy laws and illegally collects data from all it's citizens, is lecturing the CEO of a company about violating privacy laws and collecting data from all their users.””Read More...
Any unarmed people
““Any unarmed people are slaves or subject to slavery at any given moment.””Read More...
— Huey P. Newton
That's dependency
““Freedom is not empowerment. Empowerment is what the Serbs have in Bosnia. Anybody can grab a gun and be empowered. It's not entitlement. An entitlement is what people on welfare get, and how free are they? It's not an endlessly expanding list of rights -- the "right" to education, the "right" to food and housing. That's not freedom, that's dependency. Those aren't rights, those are the rations of slavery -- hay and a barn for human cattle. There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences.””Read More...
When you go down that road
““What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don't like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don't expect freedom to survive very long.””Read More...
Sacrificed
““Men have sacrificed and crippled themselves physically and emotionally to feed, house, and protect women and children. None of their pain or achievement is registered in feminist rhetoric, which portrays men as oppressive and callous exploiters.””Read More...
— Camille Paglia
Heard of brave knights
““Since it is so likely that (children) will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.””Read More...
— C.S. Lewis
Dolly Parton is a class act
““I’m not addressing that. I do not get into that. Of course I have my opinion about everybody and everything. But I learned a long time ago, keep your damn mouth shut if you want to stay in show business. I’m not in politics. I am an entertainer.””Read More...
— Dolly Parton
Making more women equal
““The 2nd Amendment - Making more women equal than the entire feminist movement””Read More...
Raise your children
Super!
Five gun control facts
SJW Inclusivity
Power concedes nothing
““Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.””Read More...
— Frederick Douglass
Before you get excited about Russians messing with American elections
244th anniversary of the Boston Tea Party
Anything at all
And yes, it influenced me. It's probably my favorite Orwell quote.
Utopia
““If you want to find utopia, take a sharp right on money and a sharp left on sex and it's straight ahead.””
— Penn Jillette
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“I am an American and a Patriot”
““I am an American and a Patriot. I am my country's keeper. The President and Congress report to me. And so - I will stay informed and involved. Ignorance, apathy, and complacency are my enemy. I will make my voice heard and not just at election time. Silence is the same as consent in the face of oppression. I can make a difference. I matter.I am an American and a Patriot.””
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☆ Circus of hate
When I first read about Charlottesville, the first thing that flashed in my head was an image of an ex-military type grabbing an antifa and a neo-Nazi by the necks and shaking. There should be an adult right there disciplining the misbehaving children. Except we were told that the antifa were fighting the good fight. We kept hearing about how terrible the neo-Nazis were and how they should be forcibly removed. We didn't hear about how bad the antifa were. And when some of us pointed out that antifa also attacked people, well, that rated an attack right there. “False equivalence!” we heard. Nazi ideas were so very much worse than anything antifa said.
Apparently no one could possibly oppose the neo-Nazi violence and the antifa violence at the same time. If you did criticize the antifa, you were lumped in with the Nazis. Not because of what you said or did, but because you didn't support the struggle against the forces of racism and fascism and marginalization. The antifa were brave despite the institutionalized oppression they dared to fight in the name of victimized people everywhere.
Except the antifa have heavy political support. Some of their funding comes from Soros organizations. Some politicos look the other way when it comes to illegal antifa activities.
Charlottesville specifically looked like a setup. The antifa heavily outnumbered the neo-Nazis. The governor and the mayor didn't seem interested in keeping the peace. Police weren't acting like police. Some officers even said they were ordered to stand down.
It was a Roman circus, a spectacle to distract the crowds. The neo-Nazis looked scary, but the noble antifa would soon dispatch them. Once again the heroic forces of good would triumph over the unenlightened. Blood would flow into the sands.Yep, it was almost as if it were scripted. A myth for the ages.
Grand spectacle.
For your amusement.
With clearly defined winners and losers.
Morality would win, even if it meant breaking the law in the name of the greater good.
Nahh, I thought. You're imagining things. Even you couldn't be that paranoid and cynical. That would require a level of political manipulation unheard of since…
Since the last presidential election. Since the ongoing media campaign against Donald Trump. Since the astroturf effort to convince Congress that campaign finance was a grassroots demand for change. Since the climate change alarmists. Since the introduction of gender fluidity in public school curriculum.
Well, blistering blue blazes.
I had bought into it. While I had focused on saying that violent protest was unacceptable, the media had established the new Utterly Despicable Villains in American myth.
And if you dared hesitate too long before denouncing the Utterly Despicable Villains and all they stood for, well then, you lost your Moral Authority™ to speak at all.
And like a fool, I walked into it with my eyes wide open.
I had been had.
I'm sure there was no central office planning it. Just a bunch of like-minded opportunists who saw a chance to prove that the American Dream was fatally flawed. That the song of freedom draws on an Unpardonable Sin that persisted to this very day! That the American flag was eternally stained with the blood of the oppressed. There could be no hope in liberty. It was all a lie.
Something stinks.
We still have time to fix this. We can't let this deceit become the prevailing myth.
America still does have a Dream. We can make a better World for ourselves and our children. Sure, we'll make mistakes, but we'll fix them. Nothing is carved in stone except the promise of a better tomorrow if we try hard enough. Our sins and our mistakes are our own. Recognizing those mistakes, fixing those mistakes, learning from those mistakes, that's the foundation we need. We're not locked into the sins of our fathers. Blame does not lead to the future.
Hope and liberty do. Take yours, if you dare.
Dog whistle
Special rights
““Libertarians don't want special rights for certain groups based on their race, gender, age, orientation, or religion.Read More...
Libertarians want to protect natural rights for all people simply because they are human beings.””
Serious cuteness
Sharing is caring
Rescue Pup Melts Hearts by Sharing its Good Fortune With Homeless Dog
““Lana the rescue dog may have a loving home to call her own, but she hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to live on the streets.
So when she saw a nearby homeless pup outside of her family’s home in Brazil, she decided to share her wealth with the foreign hound.””
— McKinley Corbley
Still think libertarians are paranoid?
The question isn't if the NSA watches everything. We now know that they do.
Libertarians have been watching this for a very long time. Ever since the Inslaw affair we've known. Rumors have been flying since the days of minicomputers that certain machines were modified to report to the various spy agencies.
So let's talk about the story headlines from yesterday.
Donald Trump and his associates were under surveillance, but not directly. They were incidentally surveilled because of active surveillance on other parties. This may have been taking place for up to a year before the 2016 election. At least one source dates the surveillance to 2011.
This is where we start getting into legalisms. Because Trump and associates were not the direct targets of surveillance, intelligence officials say that Trump was not under surveillance. Technically true and absolutely false.
By American law, the names of American citizens are "masked" in surveillance reports unless they too are under investigation. Or unless an authorized government official orders the names unmasked.
So the NSA spies on everyone but Americans are supposedly shielded and protected by a legal process. Even there the names would have only have been unmasked for that one official. Except President Obama had recently changed the regulations, some intelligence would be shared among 16 different agencies.
Washington is a political town, gossip rivals actual intelligence as trade goods. While it was illegal to share those unmasked names with those who did not have clearence, that's also business as usual.
And so far no one is asking what Hillary Clinton and her associates were doing for the same time period.
So the NSA spies on everyone on the planet.
One government official can unmask the American names in intelligence reports, even if those Americans had done nothing wrong.
And it all could be denied because the denial is technically true while absolutely false.
Your government. Working to protect you.
I'm going to tell you some secrets now.
The NSA can't monitor everything on the internet. They may record it to batch examine later, but there's no computing power that can watch everything in real time.
Despite all the enhanced algorithms, despite the focus on encrypted data streams, and despite the probability matrices, the system is half blind.
I don't remember which one, but when I was a teenager I read a novel about WWII spies. There was a bookstore in the novel, and every couple of hours a certain book was moved. From the noon position to the two o'clock, from the two to the four o'clock, and so on. The first thing that the spy ring did was check the window, if the book wasn't in the right spot they knew their cover had been blown.
So imagine a Facebook page and the picture on the top is a border collie. One day the picture changes to a pinto mare. Two hours later something blows up.
Imagine a reddit about French cooking. One day a newbie signs in and asks about substitutes for heavy cream. The next day a newspaper gets a tip about the L.A. water supply being contaminated.
Do you see?
All this spying can't reliably predict what might happen except by blind chance. It's amazingly good about putting all the pieces together after.
All these intelligence agencies are subject to political corruption.
So, does all this spying really protect you?