If someone “lost” it certainly wasn’t the general “you”, it was American aristocracy. If you have read actual US history then I’m sure you know the rev. war was about securing the right of our power-elite to exercise authority rather than British power elite. Nothing changed for the ordinary individual, which is who I’m concerned with. To quote soldiers who were denied through force the land promised to them in exchange for fighting the war: tyranny is tyranny. To quote the early 19th century american individual…oh wait he’s illiterate and dead. To quote the pre-Fed great American strikes “I don’t want script, and I don’t want to die in a mine”…I could go on, but I’m sure you get the general current. Anyway,here comes the point, I find it curious that you think people ought to give a damn about changing one repressive aristocracy for another? Is there some principle I’m missing here? Some ideological point to be made? Rich white men for rich white men?
Anyway, nevermind my specific problems, I don’t do history like you do.
I don’t think this is meaningful approach to the topic, in the same way that it’s not meaningful to ask specifically who it hurts for the government to infiltrate organizations. The people who’s privacy is being invaded are hurt, as they are being monitored by the government. I consider that a real and profound harm, but maybe you don’t, in which case we’ll have to agree to disagree. We may be fundamentally different in our sentiments regarding freedom, and I am totally unwilling to undertake the type of parsing it would required to flesh out our differences. Anyway, I also consider it a real and profound harm that the government can monitor anyone without reasonable cause and doesn’t have to reveal who it is monitoring. The real effect of this is that literally anyone could be actively monitored, which creates a panopticon affect. Various parts of the PATRIOT ACT have been ruled unconstitutional recently, which is nice, but not enough.
Right. I think Gobbo is on board with me on the somewhat recent exacerbation, which allows me to proceed in this manor.
I think that’s where all the meaning is. We may say that the government is killing people, but it would matter to many if those people were murderers or were selected for execution at random, or for their political views - or were enemy combatants. We may still disagree, but to say “the government kills people” is a little vague.
Before the RICO act, the assets of a member of a crime organisation could not be automatically seized. What was deemed “unreasonable” before RICO was made reasonable by RICO.
Look - we may actually agree on some points - the problem I have is when people give a sensationalised and general account of something like the Patriot Act and suddenly claim it is a bad thing. Maybe it is, but just claiming that “people are harmed” doesn’t say much. people are harmed by capital punishment - people are harmed when they are arrested. People are harmed when they are arrested on a search warrant.
What is reasonable cause? Don’t you have to make a case about that before you make the blanket claim that people are being “monitored” without it?
I probably agree. But what more is needed and why? More to the point, the conspiracy theorists will tell you that the recent court rulings are somehow still part of the nefarious plan against us. Everything is, of course. So the evil Congress which passed the act - not the first time Congress has panicked and overreacted - is aided and abetted by the Supreme Court - even as that latter body puts limits on what the Congress did? And everything gets worse for us, no matter what direction the law goes in.
It’s practically the very definition of nonsense.
You see, I’m not necessarily in disagreement with you about specifics. I disagree that this argument should be had without specifics.
British bankers own the supply of money for most countries, and as they openly write in their memoirs: so long as we supply the money, we don’t care who makes the laws.
Turtle, seriously, do you ALWAYS have to put your two cents in? Just pay attention to your own conversation if it bothers you that much. Obviously when you saw that I was the last person who had posted in the thread, you must’ve known it wasn’t directed at you. I’ve been going back and forth with Gobbo for three f’ing pages, why would anything I had to say here be directed at you?
Also, I am not the person who took this conversation off-topic. I am simply responding. Gobbo has repeatedly ignored the bulk of my responses in favor of picking out the the little things to bitch about. Reminds me of HtH.
I agree with Gobbo that there is something like a world banking oligarchy. But there always, and I mean always, has been. Overall, there are more small banks than ever - maybe not than 20 years ago, but that’s cyclical.
More “news” - the manufacture of automobiles is in the hands a just a few entities - except that about eleventy-seven gazillion people own stock in most of them. Same with heavy machinery, major appliances, fast food, soft drinks, most commodities and a lot of other stuff. This has always been true.
Now, in a new country, there are many small operators in, say, gold mining. But that’s temporary.
This is just not news.
The US still has a decent economy. It’s in a downturn. I have been through several. Those downturns have been mitigated by some of the very forces that Gobbo sees as evil. Like the Federal Reserve Bank. And the Fed has screwed up some, as well.
I also agree that apathy among the populace is perhaps the biggest problem we face. But it’s just not an epic battle between good and evil. It’s a slow burn - the fact is that people revolt only when things are really bad. Egypt has a problem. The problems in the US pale in comparison.
The american empire is alive and well. Too alive and too well. It’s quite true that we overextended in Iraq. That could have been a fatal error, but it wasn’t. It’s the kind of error that can lead to collapse, it’s just not enough of an error. We may make that error some day. Sure. But we haven’t, yet.