if I drank coffee, this is the mug I'd like

http://www.uncommongoods.com/item/item.jsp?source=related&itemId=13857

In China, the web site would be censored or blocked, so nobody can order such a thing even if it were legal to sell.

In America, the web site is neither censored nor blocked, and anyone who wants one can order it with a credit card tied directly to their real-world identity, and have it delivered directly to their place of residence or employment, thereby greatly simplifying the task of identification of unreliable elements.

Silly commies, still going about it the hard way.

In China, the web site would be censored or blocked, so nobody can order such a thing even if it were legal to sell.

In America, the web site is neither censored nor blocked, and anyone who wants one can order it with a credit card tied directly to their real-world identity, and have it delivered directly to their place of residence or employment, thereby greatly simplifying the task of identification of unreliable elements.

Silly commies, still going about it the hard way.

Iffen I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times, the Right understands humor the way a potted plant understands calculus!
:P

Don't fret, we'll catch up to the Chinese during the Gingrich Administration!

(I think I'll order fifty of those mugs and call my xmas shopping over!)

Don't fret, we'll catch up to the Chinese during the Gingrich Administration!


Get a load of this guy!  He thinks we have to catch up to the Chinese!

Get a load of this guy!  He thinks we have to catch up to the Chinese!

Make that 101 times!
::)

if I drank coffee, this is the mug I'd like

http://www.uncommongoods.com/item/item.jsp?source=related&itemId=13857
i bet it would work with herbal tea, hot chocolate, or any other hot beverage, too.

i'ma get me one! i like it. ;)

Get a load of this guy!  He thinks we have to catch up to the Chinese!
in terms of vanishing civil liberties, i think he means. and we are, definitely, the horse coming up fast from behind in that particular race...

in terms of vanishing civil liberties, i think he means. and we are, definitely, the horse coming up fast from behind in that particular race...

It got started with the whole misty-eyed "magic of the marketplace" delusion Reagan and all that bloody crew sold us.  Unfettered capitalism was to be the liberation of all humanity.  Milton Friedman, Milton Freed Man.  If we only tore down the barriers to free trade, the oppressed peoples of the world will all prosper like us!

It's working out beautifully.  Oh, just one slight change of plan on the "prosper like us" front.  Instead, we will be flattened by tanks and interred for political dissent like them, other than that, the grand plan is coming off without a hitch!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/13/icon_thumright.gif

in terms of vanishing civil liberties, i think he means. and we are, definitely, the horse coming up fast from behind in that particular race...


Since the satire's not sinking in to either of ya...  ponder for a few moments which companies built the technology upon which the Great Firewall of China is based.

We're not the horse coming up from behind in the race.  When it comes to surveillance, the Chinese government is quite literally buying our hand-me-downs.

A tale of two rulers:

Ruler A knows only that 1% of his citizens were blocked from reading Naughty News Source XYZ (and probably some of them figured out how to read it anyways, using means his network was couldn't detect or trace).

Ruler B knows that of the 1% of his citizens who successfully read Naughty News Source XYZ, only 10% of them are regular readers who likely get most of their news from NNS XYZ, and of those, 0.1% went on to read articles about Political Issue A, 0.15% of them got to NNS XYZ from Blog ABC, 0.05% of them were researching from within the government, 0.25% of them went on to post about Political Issue B on their own blogs, and 0.45% of them emailed their friends - and of those friends, about half of those friends read the emails and visited Naughty News Source XYZ.

Your homework is to ponder which of those two rulers has a better grasp on what's going on, and is therefore more likely to be able to maintain his grip on power?

The goal is to rule, not to put tanks in the street.  Sure, the ruler who puts tanks in the street and rounds up his dissenters en masse may be able to maintain power, but that's sort of like saying that liposuction is the solution to obesity.  What's wrong with just, shall we say, carefully watching what you eat?

In China, the web site would be censored or blocked, so nobody can order such a thing even if it were legal to sell.


And the most ironic thing, is that this mug is probably made in China.  8)

comparing our civil liberties favorably to china's does little for me. sorta like a bank robber going, well, sure, but look at ted bundy!

we should love our country enough to get concerned about our civil liberties at some point BEFORE we get to be like red china? i mean, disappearing people without due process, practicing mock execution on prisoners, people who say things like, "well, i'd be okay with the government tapping my phones if it's going to protect me from osama bin laden" -- these are not good developments, not by a long shot.

Since the satire's not sinking in to either of ya...  ponder for a few moments which companies built the technology upon which the Great Firewall of China is based.

We're not the horse coming up from behind in the race.  When it comes to surveillance, the Chinese government is quite literally buying our hand-me-downs.

A tale of two rulers:

Ruler A knows only that 1% of his citizens were blocked from reading Naughty News Source XYZ (and probably some of them figured out how to read it anyways, using means his network was couldn't detect or trace).

Ruler B knows that of the 1% of his citizens who successfully read Naughty News Source XYZ, only 10% of them are regular readers who likely get most of their news from NNS XYZ, and of those, 0.1% went on to read articles about Political Issue A, 0.15% of them got to NNS XYZ from Blog ABC, 0.05% of them were researching from within the government, 0.25% of them went on to post about Political Issue B on their own blogs, and 0.45% of them emailed their friends - and of those friends, about half of those friends read the emails and visited Naughty News Source XYZ.

Your homework is to ponder which of those two rulers has a better grasp on what's going on, and is therefore more likely to be able to maintain his grip on power?

The goal is to rule, not to put tanks in the street.  Sure, the ruler who puts tanks in the street and rounds up his dissenters en masse may be able to maintain power, but that's sort of like saying that liposuction is the solution to obesity.  What's wrong with just, shall we say, carefully watching what you eat?
actually, having reread this, it's an interesting point. people who are sanguine about political power are always going, yes, but look, we're allowed to read and say ANYTHING! and then people who are suspicious of political power often respond, yes, but what do you actually know? ???

And the most ironic thing, is that this mug is probably made in China.  8)


I did notice it said it was imported when I posted the link.  Just didn't say which country.  China is a logical guess, which would truly be ironic.

I did notice it said it was imported when I posted the link.  Just didn't say which country.  China is a logical guess, which would truly be ironic.




Don't you think?  ;)

I don't feel like my civil liberties are dying quite yet, but it's nice to know that there are still people looking out for them in a worst-case scenario type of way.

I did notice it said it was imported when I posted the link.  Just didn't say which country.  China is a logical guess, which would truly be ironic.




Yes very ironic but oh so plausible. I want one! lol

Don't you think?  ;)

I don't feel like my civil liberties are dying quite yet, but it's nice to know that there are still people looking out for them in a worst-case scenario type of way.


That's because on a day to day basis, most people don't encounter the kind of situations where something they do would be infringed by the current changes.  Falls into the category of you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone.

That's because on a day to day basis, most people don't encounter the kind of situations where something they do would be infringed by the current changes.  Falls into the category of you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone.


pretty much. it's all good until you're standing on the wrong streetcorner surrounded by people who "look like terrorists" and get rounded up and detained without habeus corpus. at that point you're SOL, pretty much for good.

I guess I have to admit I haven't really been paying attention.  Could you educate me and tell me what liberties are being lost, some examples would be cool too.  Not being difficult, just haven't had time to care with school and stuff.

Tenk yu!

I guess I have to admit I haven't really been paying attention.  Could you educate me and tell me what liberties are being lost, some examples would be cool too.  Not being difficult, just haven't had time to care with school and stuff.

Tenk yu!
depends what you're being accused of. if you're accused of terrorism you no longer have the right to habeas corpus -- the right to demand to know why you're being held. you can be detained indefinitely without trial. you can be subjected to treatment like sleep deprivation, mock execution, and stress positions, that most countries deem to be torture. you can be sent to other countries where you can be subjected to more extreme forms of torture.

Are you only concerned with the way terrorists are being treated, or are you concerned that this sort of treatment can eventually be translated to ordinary citizens?  Because I have to say that I am somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of torture during the interrogation of so-called terror suspects, but at the same time, you have to wonder whether they would extend you the same courtesy...a complex question, indeed  :-\\

The fourth ammendment is another one thats been lost when it comes to "suspected terrorists"...

Are you only concerned with the way terrorists are being treated, or are you concerned that this sort of treatment can eventually be translated to ordinary citizens?  Because I have to say that I am somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of torture during the interrogation of so-called terror suspects, but at the same time, you have to wonder whether they would extend you the same courtesy...a complex question, indeed  :-\\
well, they don't become terrorists simply because the term is applied to them. and that's the point -- if someone decides you're a terrorist, you lose all your rights. and without due process there's never an opportunity to confirm whether the people you're treating this way really ARE terrorists. notice a lot of these folks who are getting rounded up are getting set free months later without charges, basically the government admitting it screwed up. this being the case it's not really a matter of, someday this could be translated to ordinary citizens. absent due process it could actually happen to you or me at any time, today, in fact.

i don't care how "they" would treat "me." i already know al-qaeda doesn't give a rat's asp about civil liberties. this is similar to comparing ourselves favorably to the chinese.

well, they don't become terrorists simply because the term is applied to them. and that's the point -- if someone decides you're a terrorist, you lose all your rights. and without due process there's never an opportunity to confirm whether the people you're treating this way really ARE terrorists. notice a lot of these folks who are getting rounded up are getting set free months later without charges, basically the government admitting it screwed up. this being the case it's not really a matter of, someday this could be translated to ordinary citizens. absent due process it could actually happen to you or me at any time, today, in fact.

i don't care how "they" would treat "me." i already know al-qaeda doesn't give a rat's asp about civil liberties. this is similar to comparing ourselves favorably to the chinese.


Has this happened to any American citizens or resident aliens?  I thought it was just a bunch of random "terror suspects" that they picked up, mostly of Arab origin (profiling, heh).

Has this happened to any American citizens or resident aliens?  I thought it was just a bunch of random "terror suspects" that they picked up, mostly of Arab origin (profiling, heh).
who knows? we don't know who they're holding.

i guess the point i'm trying to make is, if the government is asking you to take its word for it that it's respecting people's rights rather than enforcing a system of checks and balances designed to confirm that it is, you're in trouble.

who knows? we don't know who they're holding.

i guess the point i'm trying to make is, if the government is asking you to take its word for it that it's respecting people's rights rather than enforcing a system of checks and balances designed to confirm that it is, you're in trouble.


karma+1, I couldn't have put it quite so well.

who knows? we don't know who they're holding.

i guess the point i'm trying to make is, if the government is asking you to take its word for it that it's respecting people's rights rather than enforcing a system of checks and balances designed to confirm that it is, you're in trouble.


Interesting point.  I'm hoping all the internal "investigations" going on and the fact that the Democrats are going to take over and try to figure out how to use their newfound powers will reveal what is really going on.  The reason, I think, that I personally am not too concerned is that the major media outlets can continue to be critical of the administration (except I guess for FOX, ha!) without getting shot at.  However, like some have stated in previous discussions, this doesn't necessarily mean that we're not under some kind of Big Brother watch.  I guess I'm just more laid back (even though I still get searched at airports all the time, dunno if it's my scent).

Has this happened to any American citizens or resident aliens?  I thought it was just a bunch of random "terror suspects" that they picked up, mostly of Arab origin (profiling, heh).


US citizens that the Bush administration has decided are enemy combatants.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/18/AR2006111800484.html?nav=rss_email/components%E2%80%9D

Basically a US citizen, born and raised here.  Held without charges in Gitmo for 3 and a half years.  You read his bio, yes, he sounds like a dirt bag.  It's still not right to not be charged.  Even a scum bag deserves a certain amount of rights, the very least of which is to be charged in order to be held in prison.

US citizens that the Bush administration has decided are enemy combatants.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/18/AR2006111800484.html?nav=rss_email/components%E2%80%9D

Basically a US citizen, born and raised here.  Held without charges in Gitmo for 3 and a half years.  You read his bio, yes, he sounds like a dirt bag.  It's still not right to not be charged.  Even a scum bag deserves a certain amount of rights, the very least of which is to be charged in order to be held in prison.


Here here!

I see.  I wonder if they even had a warrant or if they just kind of plucked him up.

well, they don't become terrorists simply because the term is applied to them. and that's the point -- if someone decides you're a terrorist, you lose all your rights. and without due process there's never an opportunity to confirm whether the people you're treating this way really ARE terrorists. notice a lot of these folks who are getting rounded up are getting set free months later without charges, basically the government admitting it screwed up. this being the case it's not really a matter of, someday this could be translated to ordinary citizens. absent due process it could actually happen to you or me at any time, today, in fact.

i don't care how "they" would treat "me." i already know al-qaeda doesn't give a rat's asp about civil liberties. this is similar to comparing ourselves favorably to the chinese.



Applause, applause.




Cat

thx cat.

hey, who was the guy who said the thing about how democracies only last until people realize they can use the system to vote themselves tax breaks and little perks and stuff? i think he was a founding father of some kind. max? mushroom? yall know all that political stuff.

I was thinking the same thing.  Tia beat me to it.  Punk :P

It would be interesting to see what a truly free market can do.  Tariffs are the suxxorz.

depends what you're being accused of. if you're accused of terrorism you no longer have the right to habeas corpus -- the right to demand to know why you're being held.


That only applies if you are caught outside of the United States.  And over 99% of those caught are not even US citizens in the first place (I have only heard of 3 or 4 US citizens that fit in this category).

And guess what rights a non-citizen has when captured outside of the US?  That's right, none.  Go ahead and go to most countries in the world and ask for habeas corpus.  In fact, ask for most of the things that we are entitled to under our Constitution.  They will simply laugh in your face.  In some cases, you will even get treated to a bullet in the back of your head (with the charge for said bullet sent to your family).

If somebody (even a non-citizen) is captured inside the US, they are entitled to Constitutional protections.  If a Saudi citizen is captured in Afganistan, then there is no reason to give them Constitutional protection.

Of course, we can always make the choice to send these people back to either their home countries, or to the country they were first picked up in.  Wanna bet that if that happened, at least 80% would be executed within weeks, after 1 hour mock trials?  Neither the terrorists home countries, nor the countries they were arrested in want them either, and their legal system makes ours look like a cake walk.

As far as Jose Padilla, he was not arrested inside the United States.  As far as I know, Constitutional Protection ends once you leave the country.  It is only re-enstated once you legally re-enter the country.

Even as a citizen?  That's interesting.  So an American citizen absolutely has to be on American soil (territory, embassy or otherwise) in order to be protected under the Constitution, eh?

Even as a citizen?  That's interesting.  So an American citizen absolutely has to be on American soil (territory, embassy or otherwise) in order to be protected under the Constitution, eh?


That sounds kind of funny, but I can't contest it.

As far as Jose Padilla, he was not arrested inside the United States.  As far as I know, Constitutional Protection ends once you leave the country.  It is only re-enstated once you legally re-enter the country.


as far as *I* know, as an American citizen, I can walk into any American embassy, and I still have my rights as a US citizen.  He hasn't renounced his citizenship, he is held by American authorties, etc.  That's why Gonzales and his goons have been pushing this guy around to different locations and avoiding charges, etc.  Anything they can do, to keep from pressing charges they can't verify.

So, if you're someone the current administration dislikes, even if you're a US citizen, best not to leave the county.  Without due process, they can declare you an enemy combatant, and hold you without pressing charges indefinitely.

The whole thing smells of McCarthyism.  Who is an enemy combatant?  Someone the US caught in action?  In the case of Padila, here's a guy who "associated" with known Al Qeadia members.  He even admits it!  Just reminds me of the red scare trials.  Your friend is a communist, you attended a meeting with your "friend" on such and such a date.  Name names, and we'll let you go, etc.  Remember how usefull all of that proved to be?

You can check the wikipedia page, which seems to be fairly accurate (has valid links to news articles at least) for the most recent bill, and why this is now possible:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Commissions_Act_of_2006

The whole thing smells of McCarthyism. 

Yes, but it is Stalinism they're driving at.  Watching the chattering TV pundits (who run the gamut from conservative to fascist) debated the results of the Baked Ham Report and the conclusion there will be no "victory," it struck me how completely and utterly worthless the Bush Administration is.  They are bereft of intellect and morals. 

We did not lose the "war" in Iraq.  We lost the peace.  The Bushies went ahead and did what military experts have warned against for decades.  They tried to bomb a nation into democracy.  They sent our military into Iraq with a 19th century level of American chauvinism.  Who cares how many Iraqis hated Saddam anymore?  After what we have done to their country, they sure as heck don't want to be like us! 

Daddy Bush wept on national TV this week as a doddering old war criminal on a tangent about his crooked son Jeb.  Some kind of psychological transferrance.  It's not that Jeb lost the Florida governorship in 1994, it's that he will die knowing neither Jeb nor any other of his creepy progeny will ever again be installed as dictator-in-chief.  He cried.  A father loves his son.  Big deal.  Hitler loved his mother. 

The media is trying to play it like Daddy Bush and his cronies are frustrated with what Dubya has done in Iraq.  Even in the face of irrefutable incompetence, the partisan Republican press must save face.  They still give the erroneous impression that somehow Dubya really was "the decider."  All this murder and mayhem was fore-ordained twenty years ago by the PNAC neocons. 

If only the American people had known the PNAC boys were as delusional as the nazi elite.  If only we had been able to stop them.

We'll be paying for Iraq for generations.  Economically, it's much worse than Vietnam.  Emotionally, however, it is going to be much the same.  The PNAC maniacs will insinuate themselves into power and policy as much as possible no matter what happens.  Thus, America will continue to incur even more damage. 

We must purge all neocons and never again let them near the levers of power.

it's "transference."

as far as *I* know, as an American citizen, I can walk into any American embassy, and I still have my rights as a US citizen.  He hasn't renounced his citizenship, he is held by American authorties, etc.  That's why Gonzales and his goons have been pushing this guy around to different locations and avoiding charges, etc.  Anything they can do, to keep from pressing charges they can't verify.

So, if you're someone the current administration dislikes, even if you're a US citizen, best not to leave the county.  Without due process, they can declare you an enemy combatant, and hold you without pressing charges indefinitely.

The whole thing smells of McCarthyism.  Who is an enemy combatant?  Someone the US caught in action?  In the case of Padila, here's a guy who "associated" with known Al Qeadia members.  He even admits it!  Just reminds me of the red scare trials.  Your friend is a communist, you attended a meeting with your "friend" on such and such a date.  Name names, and we'll let you go, etc.  Remember how usefull all of that proved to be?

You can check the wikipedia page, which seems to be fairly accurate (has valid links to news articles at least) for the most recent bill, and why this is now possible:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Commissions_Act_of_2006




I said the exact same thing to Carlos last night. (Great minds think alike?  :D ;D ;D )

Jose Padilla isn't the only one. Yaser Esam Hamdi was American born Saudi and was held for 3 years without being charged. He was set free and went back to Saudi Arabia.  I also heard of others being held after 9/11.


The fact is, if these people are a threat, then put them on trial-and not in a kangeroo court but a REAL court. Let a judge and jury decide-not the Bush Administration.




Cat

it's "transference."

That too!
;)

hey, who was the guy who said the thing about how democracies only last until people realize they can use the system to vote themselves tax breaks and little perks and stuff? i think he was a founding father of some kind. max? mushroom? yall know all that political stuff.


"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world s greatest civilizations has been 200 years."

"Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage."

Two separate quotations, not necessarily from the same author, and it wouldn't have been out of character for any of the authors typically cited (Tytler, Toynbee, de Tocqueville) to have written it, but the fascinating part of the story is that nobody really knows.  Whole thing might have been made up out of thin air.

Ah...that's the one.

Now, how does one buck the trend?  ;)

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world s greatest civilizations has been 200 years."



The words belong to Alexander Tytler.  The spirit in which Tytler's quote is abused belongs to Rush Limbaugh.  The fascists uses such quotations to call the American people bums because they want healthcare and maternity leave like the civilized world has.

The crime syndicate known as the Bush Administration is the entity that voted itself the largesse of the public treasury.  Actually, there was no vote, they just took it.  When all is said an done in Iraq, you will see the fascists have stolen over a trillion dollars from the American people to fund a permanent robber baron class with new "divine rights."  The pee-wee investments some of you may hold in one corporation or another will not protect you.  The neo-monarchists will lock you on the other side of the palace gates along with the lumpenproletariat. 

The Baked Ham report is the anacrusis to an epic poem of called "The Fall of American Democracy."

Maxwell?  First, you got it wrong -- No ruler needs to  "vote itself the largesse of the public treasury".  The whole point of the original quote - whoever said it - wasn't that it's the rulers' fault, it's the voters' fault.  A ruler can be evil or just, but a mob of people is always panicky, stupid, and easily manipulated, hence, democracies fail when 51% of the population figures out that it can rob the other 49% blind.  (At present, half our income taxes are paid by 5% of the population.  If theft isn't immoral, why shouldn't the other 95% tax 'em into the ground!)

But more importantly, if you view the administration as a "crime syndicate", what can be said about its "opposition"?

"Many of you are well enough off that ... the tax cuts may have helped you. We're saying that for America to get back on track, we're probably going to cut that short and not give it to you. We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good."
-Hillary Clinton, June 28, 2004.


Now, how does one buck the trend?  ;)


One does not.  One watches the slide from dependency into bondage with bemusement. 

Personally, if I saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders ... arms trembling ... still trying to hold the world aloft ... and the greater his effort, the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders... I would tell him... to shrug."

The avalanche has started, and it's too late for the pebbles to vote.