Erosion of civil liberties shifts into high gear

Sorry if this is old but I wasn't aware of the lovely li'l doodad Hentoff just wrote about:

Last year, buried in the 591-page Defense Appropriations Act—as civil- liberties watchdog John Whitehead and others have reported—the Republican-controlled 109th Congress, doubtless at the Bush/Cheney administration's behest, inserted a provision that (in Whitehead's words) allows the president "to declare martial law and use the military as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, disease outbreak, terrorist attack or any 'other condition' " that undermines public order. (Emphasis added.)

How much due process would these military-police roundups of suspected internal enemies give those prisoners? And how long will that military power be in effect domestically?

As our civil liberties disappear, where are the Democrats?

I just came across that too. Can anyone provide a source on it other than Hentoff quoting a civil liberties watchdog's version of the provision? I'd kind of like to see how it's actually worded in the bill.

Wouldn't it be a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act? (just askin')

More like Posse Cominatus, amirite!

What's the point of being the Commander in Chief if you can't violate the law whenever you feel like it? Every president needs a hobby, you know. (I liked it better when Bush's hobby was choking on pretzels.)

No Child Left Behind specifies military can enter schools at any time. I secretly think that's a large reason Bush wanted it passed.

http://www.subcin.com/if.jpg

what military, they're all either out in the shit or recuperating in a hospital from being out in the shit. They gonna send in the judge advocates and the procurement officers?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

okay That is an A+++ point.

"standing army" (i.e. tombot otm)

It would be fun to have judge advocates chilling in high schools.

JAG: The Teener Years

Hentoff is back (at least this week), and there are going to be a lotta angry latte-drinkin' Hope-a-nauts:

http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-01-12/columns/george-w-obama

It is one thing, as the Bush regime did, to spy on us without going to court for a warrant, but to maintain that the executive branch can never even be charged with wholly disregarding our rule of law is, as a number of lawyers said, "breathtaking."

On the other hand, to his credit, Obama's very first executive orders in January included the ending of the CIA "renditions"—kidnapping terrorism suspects off the streets in Europe and elsewhere and sending them for interrogation to countries known to torture prisoners. However, in August, the administration admitted that the CIA would continue to send such manacled suspects to third countries for detention and interrogation.

Why send them to a foreign prison if they're not going to be tortured to extract information for the CIA? Oh, the U.S. would get "guarantees" from these nations that the prisoners would not be tortured. That's the same old cozening song that Condoleezza Rice and George W. Bush used to sing robotically....

So what do you drink, then?

Latte drinking? They give me gas, dear boy.

Perhaps Dennis Perrin gargles creosote and hot wax.

someone already posted this: what are barack obama's flaws?

it was submitted without comment there though

coffee drinking survey was not complete at time of submission

the last several posts were brought to you by the ILX Bam 2012 Taskforce

all a big distraction from leno-conan.

what do you want "ilx" to say? it's horrible.

i'm known as a huge supporter of "bam" and consumer of latte it's true

i think morbius wants all of us hope-a-nauts to gather our pitchforks and march on washington

the last several posts were brought to you by the ILX Bam 2012 Taskforce

for the bazillionth time: not down with it, also not surprised

executive clingin to executive power shockah

if only i had voted for john mccain

if only we had listened to dr morbius

now, alas, he no longer offers comment

*towel thrown*

*gasps*

maybe hentoff is mad because obama is strongly pro-choice

*sips latte*

haha was waiting for that to come up

xp

*extends pinkie*

probably the only atheist pro-lifer i've ever heard of...

wait, is he anti-electric miles like stanley crouch, too?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8lJUX_TcFg

probably the only atheist pro-lifer i've ever heard of...

― chartres (goole), Wednesday, January 13, 2010 5:09 PM (49 seconds ago) Bookmark

iirc christopher hitchens is pro-life on the low.

there are loads of those around

John W. Whitehead: When Barack Obama was a U.S. Senator in 2005, he introduced a bill to limit the Patriot Act. Now that he is president, he has endorsed the Patriot Act as is. What do you think happened with Obama?

Nat Hentoff: I try to avoid hyperbole, but I think Obama is possibly the most dangerous and destructive president we have ever had. An example is ObamaCare, which is now embattled in the Senate. If that goes through the way Obama wants, we will have something very much like the British system. If the American people have their health care paid for by the government, depending on their age and their condition, they will be subject to a health commission just like in England which will decide if their lives are worth living much longer.

yikes, that would be horrible!

iirc christopher hitchens is pro-life on the low.

― free the charmless but occasionally brilliant Dom Passantino (history mayne), Wednesday, January 13, 2010 11:11 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

haha i read him somewhere saying "well, it is killing something, and that something is a human life of some kind" but i don't think he concluded, explicitly, that it was a bad thing to do...

first on death panel hitlist = nat hentoff

i wanna be on the health commission

hahaha omg that quote about the nhs.

ya rly it's all true though. don't do it america!

yes, anyone who crosses the Abortion Party on their signature issue must assumed to be some shitkickin' Bible thumper. (unless you need to get Big Insurance subsidies thru, then it's a big tent)

I will work hard for whatever third-party candidate will "cost" Obama reelection, just to make you all love me. President Dobbs will carry on Magic Man's civil liberties legacy, I assure you.

xp that cold eye I get from my GP every time I visit, deciding if my life is worth living much longer ;_;

they will be subject to a health commission just like in England which will decide if their lives are worth living much longer.

just amazing. i would take anything this guy writes with a really big bag o' salt.

morbius are your politics entirely about getting a rise out of posters to ilxor.com? serious question

for the record i think he's probably right about "bam" w/r/t the surveillance state, but, yeah, abortion... read someone else about that probably.

i wish we did have an abortion party in this country

and stuff it, limey

good point

yikes, that would be horrible!

Yeah, that decision should ONLY be made by your insurance company, not by some ((shudder)) GOVERNMENT LACKEY.

fwiw, this limey's american aunt (naturalized) is all like "they just want the insurance money", whenever her doctors recommend treatment. even serious treatment. she may be a nut, but well, she's one dem voters who prefers the death squads of albion.

"she's one dem voters"

lives in chicago

morbz is a loner, dottie, a rebel

with a big but

yes, anyone who crosses the Abortion Party on their signature issue must assumed to be some shitkickin' Bible thumper

― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, January 13, 2010 12:15 PM

yes, anyone who doesn't give a flying kicked bible turd about some hyperlinked interweb article you've posted "without comment" must be a member of hussein's "task force"

but i don't think he concluded, explicitly, that it was a bad thing to do...

But Hitchens LOVES killing things, I thought.

just his liver

I'm too busy to look, but Hitchens hasn't been exactly quiet about his anti-abortion leanings, even in his lefty days.

perhaps drunks use condoms more often than stoners. xp

no am0n, it's the predictable Rove/Emanuel-like smearing of the source rather than choosing address the substance of criticism that most decisively marks true believers in the Slick Hustler. also that article is in print too, wipe yer ass with it.

good looking out, i just sharted

*throws in ass wipe towel*

*shifts erosion of bowels into high gear*

rove/emanuel/heigl/lohan

I will work hard for whatever third-party candidate will "cost" Obama reelection, just to make you all love me. President Dobbs will carry on Magic Man's civil liberties legacy, I assure you.

Best options: The Prohibition Party and the Objectivist Party. They rock.

Off-the-table, I imagine: The Moderate Party.

the predictable Rove/Emanuel-like smearing of the source rather than choosing address the substance of criticism

in fairness this is pretty much an accepted mode of political discourse now even with most of the smartest people one talks to - "he also believes [insert thing intended to permanently discredit the speaker]" passes as a trump card in most games

for the record i think he's probably right about "bam" w/r/t the surveillance state, but, yeah, abortion... read someone else about that probably.

― chartres (goole), Wednesday, January 13, 2010 11:18 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

I am more than certain that the dealbreaker gambit has been an integral part of political discourse since the beginnings of politics.

in fairness this is pretty much an accepted mode of political discourse now

when was character assassination not a part of political discourse?

lol x-post to Dan

not saying its super-legitimate as a tactic or anything but let's be real here

1) everyone on this damn board is on record disagreeing with the obama administrations fucked policies on executive privilege and transparency (or lack thereof). there are no apologists over the policies here. so... i dont know what morbius is looking for when he tries to bait "hope-a-nauts"

2) saying that someone is anti-choice is not "character assassination" its pointing out that they hold an unsavory political position (one, by the way, that is protected under our right to privacy)

ps if you guys are looking for substantive political debates that lack character assassination you might want to check other places besides ILX and maybe also threads that havent been bumped by dr morbs spoiling for a fight

I suggest starting on Mars

I heard the Mars Rover supports extraordinary renditions

mars rover/emanuel

afaik Hentoff has never campaigned vs the right to abortions, just stated that he personally thinks it's immoral.

(kind of like Mario Cuomo and many Catholic Democrat pols of the last 37 years)

but back to the actual topic, I would ask you Obama voters how you are going to pressure him to change these policies you hate, max.

how are you?

I'm gonna text him about it

seriously wtf do you expect? this is legal stuff that gets hashed out in the courts, private citizens essentially have no say/leverage in the process.

i'm gonna write him a dear bam letter

plus only people who voted for him have any responsibility to do anything

I am composing a sternly-worded email.

as soon as facebook gets around to adding a "dislike" button I plan to vigorously apply it to all the b-hizzle updates that show up in my newsfeed

get off your ass and join some facebook groups guys

since he's a political columnist, i dunno what the diff is between "campaigning" and "stating personally"

xps, real answer? probably nothing. write a letter, write similar letters to my senators and congresswoman. if i wanted to go really hogwild i'd go to some local dem meetings and make noise about a party plank.

other than that? give a bunch of money to the ACLU. that's probably the best bet. one of their largest donor's got wiped out in the crash, and now they're short to the tune of 20mil a year or something. seriously, give them money. they are the most important arm of our gov't on this.

no apostrophe in "donors". but seriously, give money to the aclu.

also give money to planned parenthood for abortions

I'm not doing anything, s1ocki, bcz I know he is BALLS. I feel like an idiot for voting for him in the Feb '08 primary.

Shakey: maybe elect a non-liar?

So bye politics threads, again. I need a support group.

I'm gonna come up w/ some mean nicknames for him.

yes, do that. and mail a card to nat hentoff with the "lol sorry" dog jpg printed out

what do obama voters who know he is balls do then? what do you want out of us?

WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM US?

http://www.kerrydean.com/pictures/minorthreat.jpg
'What the fuck have you done??'

lollin

I'm not doing anything, s1ocki, bcz I know he is BALLS. I feel like an idiot for voting for him in the Feb '08 primary.

Shakey: maybe elect a non-liar?

So bye politics threads, again. I need a support group.

― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, January 13, 2010 3:44 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

you're badgering people to do something about the policies you don't like but you're not going to do anything yourself because you know he's... bad? where is the logic in this?

I wish this thread was not making me laugh hysterically, and yet...

you're not going to do anything yourself because you know he's... bad?

Bad Bam.

def. gonna look to jazz & country music critics, maybe pore over their liner notes for ideas

to answer you s1ocki, cuz i gave up in 1984.

Alienation strikes deep.

Into your life it will creep.

As you sow so shall you reap.

to answer you s1ocki, cuz i gave up in 1984.

― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, January 13, 2010 4:26 PM (27 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

u clearly put time and effort into keeping up with this stuff and arguing with people about it... you sound passionate enough that you obviously haven't really given up

huh didn't know that about the ACLU goole, good to know.

wouldn't exactly call them an "arm of the gov't" tho haha

also lol will elect non-liars as soon as one runs for higher office

wouldn't exactly call them an "arm of the gov't" tho haha

well it's a glenngreenwaldian thing to say, but given the failures of the "fourth branch" forcing the congress and executive to shape up, the pressure that the ACLU has exerted through the courts has been basically singly important on torture/surveillance/exec power issues

here he is on the donor issue:

http://salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/12/10/aclu/index.html

I'll see what I can come up with come tax time

it's really annoying how cranks like Morbs just assume that all Obama supporters are brainwashed idiots that support everything he does. I'm sure there's some of those people out there, but I haven't really encountered one.

Maybe Morbs is watching Glenn Beck?

i don't even understand what it means to be "an obama supporter". you mean you vote for him and don't talk too much shit about him, basically?

Nat Hentoff: I try to avoid hyperbole

lol

when was character assassination not a part of political discourse?

no no of course - just that this tack is extremely popular at present: "This dude makes some pretty fuckin interesting points" "yeah, well, he supported Anderson in '80, lol u r pwnt"

extremely popular where, youtube comments?

did you read the hentoff stuff upthread or are you just spoiling for some zings

everyone on this damn board is on record disagreeing with the obama administrations fucked policies on executive privilege and transparency (or lack thereof). there are no apologists over the policies here. so... i dont know what morbius is looking for when he tries to bait "hope-a-nauts"

and for real there's this bizarre weighting to the outrage here that I'm guessing for idealist/unrealistic types like myself, and like morbs, is sort of the ok-now-I-feel-crazy point. nobody denies that you, max, to take an example, think it sucks that Obama doesn't rescind policies that we all know sucks and that we all thought he also thought sucked. but you seem to think morbs's grousing sucks way worse - you expend more verbiage telling him that he's being a dick than you do decrying far greater evils (fuckin', torture). am I wrong about that? I am not trying to be uncool here, seriously reporting how what I think of as the Camp of Realists (i.e., people who think editorials lambasting Obama stridently are A Bad Thing, Generally Speaking, Or At Least Not Helping Any) react - shitty Obama policies, shitty no doubt, and they say so, but they seem to find people who're so pissed off about shitty Obama policies that they see red worth more ire than the policies in question. and you can say, hey, what can I do about torture, nothing, no point in repeating myself about it, but -- well, I would disagree. people repeatedly making their voices heard about what they think is wrong contributes, if nothing else, to moving the dialogue in a certain direction. it increases the mass of the complaint, even if you feel like you're repeating yourself. that is the point of protest, and protest takes place at all kinds of levels, right down to, yes, barstools & message boards.

I would expect the next q asked to be "examples?" but I do not have them to hand, though this thread's recent revive seems one to hand - indefinite detention, which is inhuman, is on the agenda, and Perrin, whatever you want to say about him, is right that what was bullshit under Bush is bullshit under Obama, and if there's shit on the floor and you yourself are powerless to clean it up, then I'd say repeatedly saying "there is some shit on the floor" is a sane act

(wrote all that and was then xposted by a really constructive amon zing)

2) saying that someone is anti-choice is not "character assassination" its pointing out that they hold an unsavory political position (one, by the way, that is protected under our right to privacy)

― max, Wednesday, January 13, 2010 3:26 PM

oh ya sorry lets get back to being constructive on the internet everybody

no am0n, it's the predictable Rove/Emanuel-like smearing of the source rather than choosing address the substance of criticism

lol

dude I'm on a thread w/max & goole - don't front like there aren't people here engaging in their best efforts at constructive dialogue 'k, if you're not into it cool fine I dig that you are over it 4ver & ever but that doesn't necessarily apply to everybody ok?

i gave up in 1984.

― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, January 13, 2010 4:26 PM

very good amon, you've mastered the copy and paste function & think attempts at constructive dialogue or even wanting same is vain & pointless, gotcha, point taken, v. interesting subscribe 2 yr newsletter etc

but you seem to think morbs's grousing sucks way worse - you expend more verbiage telling him that he's being a dick than you do decrying far greater evils (fuckin', torture).

I think this comes down more to Morbz being an annoying broken record and has little to do with the actual criticisms espoused

fwiw I am all for strident criticism of Obama (and especially Holder as well) for this tack, its the left's JOB to assert pressure on these kinds of issues. god knows the right isn't going to do it.

but coming here to heckle me and max and goole and whoever else seems sorta pointless. Morbz seems to derive more joy from needling people sympathetic to his views than from doing anything constructive himself.

Maybe Morbs is watching Glenn Beck?

wow you've totally nailed me eh.

saying that someone is anti-choice is not "character assassination" its pointing out that they hold an unsavory political position (one, by the way, that is protected under our right to privacy)

oh, str8 guys.

Shakey, your sympathy to my views seems pretty useless so far.

yeah i was going to say that part of the problem is that when yer posts start with "latte-sippin obamalovers gettin put on notice!" pretty soon its like every political post morbs makes is killfiled in my brain and replaced with "WAKE UP SHEEPLE" xposts

Shakey, your sympathy to my views seems pretty useless so far.

insofar as my actions (voting for Obama in the primary, whining about shit on the internet) mirror yours exactly, hats off sir

yeah you guys I just kinda view morbs's outbursts here as expressions of real anger the state of politics especially on the nominal left & I mean I was brought up 3rd-party and think the two-party system really sucks and this stuff is sort of Exhibit A in the case against lesser-evilism

saying that someone is anti-choice is not "character assassination" its pointing out that they hold an unsavory political position (one, by the way, that is protected under our right to privacy)

oh, str8 guys.

― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, January 13, 2010 6:08 PM (7 minutes ago)

what does max's sexual orientation have to do with this

hey I'm all for breaking the two-party system.

unfortunately that would more or less require re-writing the Constitution

you know what else I would like? a DINOSAUR

this goes to something i've been thinking about, dunno if political science or philosophy types have terminology for this, probably they do.

there are basically two kinds of political complaint. i don't wanna say "principled" and "realistic", more like "from the idea" and "from the circumstance."

both kinds need to be made, all the time. obama (or any other pol) is a pretty grand failure "from the idea". on torture, on surveillance, on bringing finance to heel. for each of these failures, there's an argument "from the circumstance" why things were decided that way, even if the principled argument is right. and, as always, the overarching circumstance-based argument is that, beyond the shitty (read: constant) aspects of human nature, the alternative to democratic control, in the present, are republicans, who are all some degree worse.

i think every government will always fail any principled test. i think the point of the idea is that it is unreachable. and no circumstantial argument is ever good enough for not trying.

the thing that's so annoying about morbs (to talk about him rudely in the 3rd person) is that he wants kudos from ilx personally for pointing out what is already known. the democratic party has ratified the security state, it's half-filled with pro-lifers and gay-haters and wall street knobs, obama promised a lot to the country he had no visible intention of delivering, and on and on. there's nothing untrue about any of this, but it's the attitude that he's tearing the scales from our eyes that rankles. i'm sure there are democrats out there whose gaskets would be well and truly blown by an encounter with dennis perrin's prose, but i'll be fucked if any of them post here.

the real challenge is not pointing out that we live in a fallen world, but, knowing that it is, well, now what? when it comes to that one day in november, i have no trouble getting up in the morning to pull a lever. the democrats might be halfway x, y, and z, as above, but their enemies in the game are fully those things. 100%. it's pretty absurd, but that's the world into which i wake up every day, isn't it? always seems worth it to me to avoid that single, alternate circumstance. it really is a small effort to do something to assure the country is in half-disgusting rather than outright horrifying hands.

(i've got another post out there somewhere on why the 2 party deal doesn't have anything to do with anybody's opinions or cowardice or greed, but about the structure of 50%-wins voting, but i'm sure you all have that m-fer bookmarked amirite)

btw if u live in new york, can you do something to keep harold ford away from office? i mean, really.

There's plenty of people who would make better presidents than Obama. They're mostly unelectable, unfortunately.

Something I might agree with Morbs about is that in the 08 primaries there was this sense that Obama was just so fucking talented as a politician that we should all shut up and let him win because the alternative (McCain/Romney/Giuliani) was so terrible. Once we were in the general election though, this is really a legit position- the alternative WAS way worse.

We went through this song and dance with Nader and the legacy of that will haunt America for a long time. The erosion of civil liberties has stepped into high gear in large part because of the re-election of Bush and his horrifying Supreme Court appointments. Clinton, the guy everyone seems to remember as a proto-neocon, appointed two Justices who have been good to great on Civil Liberties issues.

you know what else I would like? a DINOSAUR

you seriously think multi-party systems are on the level of wanting magic ponies? that just seems way more cynical than like me & morbius & lex luthor all put together

But sorry Morbs, you're whole "OMG THE OBAMABOTS ARE BRAINWASHED" silliness is very Glenn Beck.

you know what else I would like? a DINOSAUR

you seriously think multi-party systems are on the level of wanting magic ponies? that just seems way more cynical than like me & morbius & lex luthor all put together

― Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.), Wednesday, January 13, 2010 11:27 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

HEY. That's a straw man. He said dinosaurs, not magic ponies.

multi-party systems have to have the kind of voting setups that parliamentary countries have. the structure of parties flows from the way elections are won, not the other way around.

frankly, yes. as goole points out, the 50%+/winner-take-all foundations of our electoral system ensure a two-party system. to break it we would have to re-write the Constitution. To re-write the Constitution the nation would have to basically completely breakdown on a functional, fundamental level. And at this point, were that to happen, the splintering of the country into multiple fiefdoms seems way more likely a prospect than re-unifying the country under a multi-party system. so yeah, wish for magic ponies or work with what ya got. sorry.

x-posts

blame the Founding Fathers. After all, this country is based on the premise that a bunch of rich, white, slave-owning aristocrats didn't want to pay their taxes, what do you fucking expect.

yeah, we can't even get a constitutional amendment giving equal rights to women, so I doubt we're gonna re-arrange the structure of the federal government enough to allow third parties to be viable.

i dunno, the constitution has been modified a lot in ways that didn't require a civil war, but the fundamental mechanics of voting haven't been touched ever. i hope it doesn't take thunderdome to make those kinds of structural changes, anyway.

xp there was also some nice religious freedom, freedom of speech stuff in the founding of the country though.

yeah but the religious freedom/freedom of speech stuff had to be ADDED, almost as an afterthought/concession to get it ratified.

(fwiw my favorite Colonial American is Roger Williams btw)

also I just wanted to quote Dazed and Confused for the lolz - there's good stuff in the Constitution too!

I will only ever support one party

nb these guys turned out to be the GOP so the lols are reduced but still if the Democrats resurrect the name I'd be back on board in a heartbeat

so yeah, wish for magic ponies or work with what ya got. sorry.

yeah this just makes dudes like me want to stay home. you can call us all big babies and be mad and shit, but "the system is how it is & it can't be changed" = "cool, let me just smoke this J and watch Deep Space Nine, then, you guys do whatever you do with that politics stuff"

nb these guys turned out to be the GOP so the lols are reduced

Different times, like the man said.

Multi-party results are not a panacea, guys. They may, in fact, turn out worse than in two-party results.

Multi-party politics tend to need coalition building after the elction. Two party politics generally build coalitions beforehand.

oh they can be changed J0hn, nothing's impossible. It's just that the circumstances required to make those changes are likely to be way fucking scarier than anything we're facing now.

DS9 is terrible btw

x-post

Multi-party politics tend to need coalition building after the elction.

but see this is when actual policy gets enacted, which is the crucial thing.

yeah the current foreign minster of israel isn't a great advertisement for the power of insurgent minor parties. but if i were a big israeli nationalist, maybe i'd think so.

I not only tend to disagree, Shakey, but it also leads to more instability and you need only look at the post-war politics of a country like Italy to see that's not ideal.

Oh God, yeah, building a majority in the Knesset can be hell.

I have never seen Deep Space Nine it just worked well rhythmically within the context of the sentence

I am a sentence geek :(

DS9 was great.

Anyway it was on TV, and I watched it.

god, italy.

at a certain point the contituencies matter more than what kind of party system they're in. i think italy probably did ok, in terms of governmental stability, considering italy has a lot of full-on communists and fascists in it.

John, the choices between 'firebrand' and 'completely indifferent' are many, I would think, no?

I not only tend to disagree, Shakey, but it also leads to more instability and you need only look at the post-war politics of a country like Italy to see that's not ideal.

well that's the trade off isn't it - stability vs direct representation. neither system is perfect, but gov't isn't about perfection. adults (Morbz favorite demographic) acknowledge this reality.

I also like to watch tactics. Let's say Obama gets rid of DADT right off the bat, riles some homophobes, scares a few 'moderate' Democrats and ends up flubbing health care reform amidst an intra-party storm. Let's say he waits, patiently passes health care reform and uses that political credit to throw a few bones to his various constituents.

I don't think of multi-party systems as necessarily the best way to get what I want - I lean stupid left, my dudes wouldn't likely win. the point is that a multi-party system allows 1) votes that are meaningful; this is a philosophical concern, but I don't think philosophical concerns are dumb and 2) public representation, often in governing bodies, of genuinely diverse views, a thing which, in and of itself, is imo to the pubilc good

I also like to watch tactics. Let's say Obama gets rid of DADT right off the bat, riles some homophobes, scares a few 'moderate' Democrats and ends up flubbing health care reform amidst an intra-party storm. Let's say he waits, patiently passes health care reform and uses that political credit to throw a few bones to his various constituents.

lol what planet is this from

I'm going to duck in on this thread and then shut up, primarily because I'm a Britisher and thus cannot engage with your US political ways in any practical manner - but I just want to say to goole that your lengthy post a little way up and esp. "their enemies in the game are fully those things" pretty much sums up the only approach I can take to politics in the UK as well. The media, man-on-the-street and many people I know personally are determined to bury the Labour party at the next election, but seriously, FUCK the alternative.

And after feeling recently that things on ILX have been a bit below par, can I just add that this thread has restored my faith. Stay gold everyone.

I don't think that a multi-party system would necessarily deliver better legislation or policy on any given issue. But multi-party systems do go a long way towards enabling more outside-the-mainstream folks to be included. Morbz basically has NO voice in the gov't in the current situation. At least in a multi-party system he could find some crackpot lefty party that more-or-less accurately represented his views, with a real opportunity to participate.

x-posts

Shakey, somewhat jaundiced view of human nature, is that, faced with a choice between liberal democracy and stability, most people will opt for the latter so I like my stability, or as much as we can get, to be locked into the system. Every Axis power in WWII had some kind of parliamentary democracy before they went authoritarian by legal or pseudo-legal means that always included demogoguery and populism.

I would be inclined to take stability for granted in the US but a Civil War and the presently worsening culture wars going on make me a little nervous about that.

a multi-party system allows 1) votes that are meaningful; this is a philosophical concern, but I don't think philosophical concerns are dumb and 2) public representation, often in governing bodies, of genuinely diverse views, a thing which, in and of itself, is imo to the pubilc good

^^^er this. J0hn said it way better than I

Morbz basically has NO voice in the gov't in the current situation. At least in a multi-party system he could find some crackpot lefty party that more-or-less accurately represented his views, with a real opportunity to participate. There are 'crazy left' Democratic clubs here in SF and they may or may not influence the party statewide or even nationally. How much of Morbs' 'voiclessness' stem from his unwillingness to deal with the Democrats as they are and not as he would have them? (We're not going to resolve this, I can assure you and I'm not trying to be dick to Morbs, he's great guy, but this IS a valid question in my mind.)

personally I think politics are fucked at the macro level and basically any organization with more than, oh, let's say 100 people in it is going to engender a bunch of necessary evils so my more or less ideal gov't would involve everyone living in tiny atomized communal-states with direct representation for all hey how much of a crazy lefty idealist does that make me.

this means more or less that my political principles can be reduced to prizing locality and manageable scale, combined with personal freedoms, over everything else. I am just an old-school anarchist at heart really.

x-posts

How much of Morbs' 'voiclessness' stem from his unwillingness to deal with the Democrats as they are and not as he would have them?

this is pretty much where all ILX US politics threads dead-end ennit

any organization with more than, oh, let's say 100 people in it is going to engender a bunch of necessary evils

this is not the thread to discuss the sb system one more time, god

hahahahahahaaaaa

and for real there's this bizarre weighting to the outrage here that I'm guessing for idealist/unrealistic types like myself, and like morbs, is sort of the ok-now-I-feel-crazy point. nobody denies that you, max, to take an example, think it sucks that Obama doesn't rescind policies that we all know sucks and that we all thought he also thought sucked. but you seem to think morbs's grousing sucks way worse - you expend more verbiage telling him that he's being a dick than you do decrying far greater evils (fuckin', torture). am I wrong about that? I am not trying to be uncool here, seriously reporting how what I think of as the Camp of Realists (i.e., people who think editorials lambasting Obama stridently are A Bad Thing, Generally Speaking, Or At Least Not Helping Any) react - shitty Obama policies, shitty no doubt, and they say so, but they seem to find people who're so pissed off about shitty Obama policies that they see red worth more ire than the policies in question. and you can say, hey, what can I do about torture, nothing, no point in repeating myself about it, but -- well, I would disagree. people repeatedly making their voices heard about what they think is wrong contributes, if nothing else, to moving the dialogue in a certain direction. it increases the mass of the complaint, even if you feel like you're repeating yourself. that is the point of protest, and protest takes place at all kinds of levels, right down to, yes, barstools & message boards.

i absolutely dont think morbiuss name-calling and gabbneb-baiting is worse than the erosion of the justice system and the eighth amendment and so forth--in fact morbius is one of my favorite politics posters, because he is funny and in-character always, and the fact is morbs is not looking for a substantive discussion of anything (nor would he find one given that we all basically agree on this point). youll note that i am never "mad" at morbs i am just "poking fun at him" because he is "hilarious and one-note"

and also morbius posts on ilx and eric holder doesnt.

ultimate point being i dont think morbius should be quiet or stop posting or whatever, i enjoy his contributions to the politics threads much in the same way i enjoy dandy don weiners or roger adulterys or whichever other troll is posting to them

I need a support group.

― Rage, Resentment, Spleen (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, January 13, 2010 2:44 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

sorry, unhelpful :-/

<3 u

hey I'm all for breaking the two-party system.

unfortunately that would more or less require re-writing the Constitution

No idea what the hell you mean there, Shakes. (I want to replace the Dems.) And the "lefty idealists want a pink dinosaur" -- real goddamn boring, even for this place. Wait ... "split into multiple fiefdoms"? We get rid of the Deep South at last? FUCK YEAH

ends up flubbing health care reform

uh Michael, he's already done this.

goole, I want no kudos from anybody. As for Harold Ford, if he runs against Gillibrand in the primary I will abstain, as the disappearance of our old curtained booths means I can't enter and take a shit.

You bet your sweet ass I am unwilling to deal with the Democrats as they are. I think it was Henry Wallace who said it's not going to stop til you wise up.

OK, max called me a troll, farewell. Read the Hentoff piece though.

Morbz basically has NO voice in the gov't in the current situation. At least in a multi-party system he could find some crackpot lefty party that more-or-less accurately represented his views, with a real opportunity to participate.

He has one now. It's called the Green Party, and he voted for them, and they lost. Saying he has no voice in government is like saying people who voted for McCain have no voice in government.

No idea what the hell you mean there, Shakes.

It's pretty clear. The structure of our federal elections system -- i.e., the state primaries, the national nominating conventions, the 50%+1 voting system, the Electoral College -- guarantees you'll never have more than two major parties at a time. Not too hard to understand.

Here's the thing, though: Let's say, by some miracle, Morbs managed to get Ralph Nader elected in 2012. Just what, exactly and in detail, does he think President Nader does the day after Inauguration Day, that can be accomplished by executive order, by the regular exercise of the President's powers as outlined in the Constitution, or can be passed easily through a Congress with which he shares no party members? Because anything that isn't one of those three things would be as much an abuse of executive power as anything we're complaining about here.

Day One: Forbid all wars, redistribute all income fairly and equitably, ensure a sustainable environment, prosecute all war crimes.

Day Two: Ponies for everyone.

I'll take that over "Day One: discuss the possibility of incremental change. Day Two: there is no Day Two"

i dont understand who is saying that though? part of the problem with these "discussions" on ilx is that they tend to be between you and morbs on the one side and a straw man of a moderate appeaser dem on the other

max you kind of rep for that straw dude tho

how???

I mean you talk a good line, but at the end of the day, Lieberman doesn't get stripped of any committees, nobody ever gets prosecuted for torture, people get held indefinitely, and you're kind of "yeah it sucks but that's the system" afaik

or you come w/"what do you suggest they do, then?" which is a total non-sharter

dude

there are a huge number of issues about which i have an opinion, many of which i hew closely to obama and mainstream democrats on and many of which i tack strongly left--im not going to stop supporting the healthcare bill because i think its shady were not prosecuting torturers and their enablers any more than i am going to think repealing DADT is a bad idea because i think the stimulus bill was a good idea. or whatever. my support is neither unequivocal nor founded entirely on a single platform position.

max and I will hug it out this weekend

dude max I worry that you think I'm sitting here fuming when like you are my favorite moderate like ever but yeah what you just said? "there is no day two."

haha what!? i think you and i are speaking a different language

i mean j0hn... youre not saying... "all or nothing"... are you?

who was the last president with an "all or nothing" perspective? i can't think of one. maybe fdr?

I think it'll be silly if we really drag this out more, we're entrenched, but just for example:

im not going to stop supporting the healthcare bill because i think its shady were not prosecuting torturers

right. and on the issue of prosecuting torturers, your position is, that's pie in the sky even though you agree that it should happen, but it's not going to happen, so let's get us a health care bill, and even when the health care bill gets so riddled with holes that it takes an act of heroic positivity to focus on the positives (which are there! no doubt ok), let's still just stick w/the team and get us that health care bill, and, well, "moderate appeaser dem" doesn't sound like a straw man to me at that point! whenever it's time for action (nowhere clearer than with lieberman), you're making the case for caution in the name of potential, and incremental, gain. which to me are vague promises that by the time they come around will be symbolic (a la the health care bill tho again yeah I'll concede that it's better to get more people covered than none at all but the long term political costs of making it clear that you can pretty much do whatever you want to a Democratic bill as long as it eventually passes will be catastrophic for countless other human beings whose needs aren't known yet, because the bills that'll be eviscerated under such a paradigm haven't been written yet)

etc etc

I mean the thing is "have standards" isn't the same as "all or nothing" imo

haha what makes you think thats my position on prosecuting torturers?

max, do you agree that the day to draft a memo to the justice department about the necessity to hold torturers accountable, as well as those who drafted memos in support of torture, was 1/20/09, and that every day on which such a memo isn't drafted is something of an outrage?

oh wait that's ponies & unicorns, my bad

well, yeah, of course i agree with that

do you agree that, until such a time as such a memo gets drafted and the issue moved to the front burner, the right thing to do is agitate for action on this important issue, daily if need be?

yes

do you agree that a person who's been imprisoned without charge for seven years has a right (don't wanna say "human right," not sure how to describe this right - maybe "is entitled," is better) to have his charges read to him in some sort of court no later than, say, next week?

but I mean, I know you do

but you also think: none of that is happening; what's in front of us is what's in front of us, and when it's not as good as we'd hoped, it's still a step in the right direction. which, from a human angle, as a health care provider down at my core, I feel you, but taking the longer historical view, fuck no. that's toxic moderation. it sets up generations without end to get less than they deserve, to compromise their reproductive rights because a politician thought they made a nifty bargaining chip (and would conveniently invoke the will of the voters in re: reproductive rights when the issue came up, as though the electorate had any business worrying about others' reproductive rights), to get screwed over in the name of incremental progress and with the people who got less screwed held up as a trump card. my position isn't "all or none." it's "play harder."

which is the point at which you tend to say "but he's not a leftist, he's a moderate!" and I say "yes, precisely, so're you!"

taking the longer historical view, fuck no. that's toxic moderation. it sets up generations without end to get less than they deserve

i mean--all can say to this is no. this isnt true. i mean, historically, this has never been true. as his been pointed out a million times, the major social welfare programs we think of as the crowning achievements of FDR, truman, LBJ--i.e. social security, medicare, medicaid--all started as much, much smaller programs than they are now. all you need is a foot in the door; its much harder to take those programs away than it is to create them.

if i thought that incrementalism was toxic to progressive causes i would be on your side. but i dont. i think its just about the only thing thats ever been shown to work in terms of major domestic policy initiatives. and i could rattle off a list of reasons why i think thats true, but in the end what matters is that the track record of progressivism in this country shows that its true.

now, that being said, in terms of civil rights issues--i.e. voting rights, marriage rights, reproductive rights, the right to not be tortured in cuba & so forth--no, i dont think incrementalism 'works.' but those are 'all or nothing' issues: you either have rights, or you dont.

right I would think that except among the extremely moderate those issues would all be more important than a foot in the door health care bill - measure twice, cut once

instead, those civil rights will all be relegated to ponies and unicorns land for the next two or six years and people like me who think "you know, fuck this party, then" will be caricatured as somehow unrealistically extreme

right I would think that except among the extremely moderate those issues would all be more important than a foot in the door health care bill - measure twice, cut once
--Lee Dorrian Gray (J0hn D.)

eh. depends on what u mean by moderate i guess--i can think of a couple communists who seem more interested in providing universal health care than certain civil liberties

1. I love how when multi-party systems are mentioned, everybody's always all "Italy!!!" "Israel!!!!" Yeah, post-war Germany has been SO unstable. Same w/ Austria, France, Holland, Switzerland, etc. ad nauseum.
2. Shakey Mo needs to read some Lani Guinier, or at least re-read the US Constitution and some Burger and Rehnquist Court decisions on voter law -- ESPECIALLY the dissenting opinions. Right wing activist judges saying the Constitution protects the two-party system does not make it so.

great reading in this thread

Burger and Rehnquist Court decisions on voter law

ha i was gonna say this but didn't feel like jumping in, and election law is so frustrating to me i even try to forget about it. there is one case i was thinking of where rehnquist says, really out of nowhere when you think about it, something like "the states have an interest in protecting the two-party system," meaning they're allowed to make things more difficult for third-parties (i think this case was about ballot access). there's nothing saying that in the constitution, obv, and i don't believe it's a problem the framers were thinking about. there are other more recent problems with drawing congressional districts, too. otm re: guinier too.

i think i was thinking of this one http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/95-1608.ZO.html
what he really says is states can protect "ballot integrity and political stability" by enacting laws meant to hurt third-parties

We went through this song and dance with Nader and the legacy of that will haunt America for a long time.

Al "I Agree, I Agree, Governor Bush" Gore is to blame. Thank you.

1. I love how when multi-party systems are mentioned, everybody's always all "Italy!!!" "Israel!!!!" Yeah, post-war Germany has been SO unstable. Same w/ Austria, France, Holland, Switzerland, etc. ad nauseum.

Fwiw, I think Germany has one of the best constitutions in the world and one that might interest Americans since it, too, is a federal constitution but saying that it's a paradise for small parties is a little disingenuous. It's great that anyone who gets over 5% gets some representation but in the end those parties can do little but help either the Social Democrats or the Christian Democrats.

As to Lani Guinier, I think she was quite unjustly pilloried in the most partisan manner and the voting systems she mentioned that undid her nomination are not too dissimilar to ones used by the county of SF.

hmmm... Civil Liberties Eh.

2. Shakey Mo needs to read some Lani Guinier, or at least re-read the US Constitution and some Burger and Rehnquist Court decisions on voter law -- ESPECIALLY the dissenting opinions. Right wing activist judges saying the Constitution protects the two-party system does not make it so.

the two-party system is inherently protected by the part of the constitution that says "the dude who gets more than 50% of the vote wins"

It's great that anyone who gets over 5% gets some representation but in the end those parties can do little but help either the Social Democrats or the Christian Democrats.

as it should be, if they only get 5% of the vote? we have a green party in govt at the moment, and they've got far too much power in terms of their democratic vote. recently passed NAMA (our 60bn bank bail out) because of an agreement to ban fur farming (ireland has four fur farms)

ya oftentimes it's the tiny parties who hold the balance of power, as with irish politicians in britain 100 years ago.

'Cause that's the 'greenest' thing they could think of to do for Ireland...

xpost

Exactly, the Unionists were ever a thorn in the side of the Tories.

the two-party system is inherently protected by the part of the constitution that says "the dude who gets more than 50% of the vote wins"

― iatee, Thursday, January 14, 2010 10:29 AM (6 minutes ago)

where does it say that, i'm really curious now

as with irish politicians in britain 100 years ago.

heh in fairness, we were only there cos our own parliament (well, such as we had) had been nicked by the brits.

100 years ago? I seem to recall the Ulster Unionists propping up the last year or so of the Lol Major government.

i think all twu is saying is things could have gone way differently in spite of the constitution, which is true. it doesn't say we have to have 2 parties.

Shakey Mo needs to read some Lani Guinier, or at least re-read the US Constitution and some Burger and Rehnquist Court decisions on voter law

One of the less discussed portions of Bush v. Gore was SCOTUS' decision to limit its scope – which, you might remember, rested on equal protection grounds, certainly the only time in their careers that Rehnquist, Scalia, and Thomas EVER showed interest in said clause – to that case and nothing more. One of the strands of modern conservatism is its intense interest in a jurisprudence that protects majority rule. As long as a majority for said jurisprudence exists in SCOTUS, voter law is gonna be fucked.

the constitution was written w/ the idea of having elections where whoever got 50%+ was gonna win a certain vote - that (despite some of our founder fathers' wishes) is going to lead to 2 parties

xp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duverger's_law

yeah i know all that but it doesn't ban proportional representation or multimember districts is the point. but whatever.

multimember districts and proportional representation are 'banned' by uh, not having them and having senators and congresspeople. every state gets two senators and they're elected by popular vote - there's no way to interpret that as a proportional representation system

there's IRV, tho; there's other ways of opening up voting choice.

it's kind of both problems tho -- the mathematical issues of election decisions are non-political, but any decision to change from one to another is! it's existing D and R voters that have to worry about losing something if the math changes

~*Civil*~

~*Liberties*~

the idea that a multiparty system would be better at ALL is pipe dreamy and comes from j0hn d and morbs believing that more than 5% of the american public agrees with them.

at the moment the existence of far left wing people *does* matter in the political sense (the democrats can't afford to alienate everyone on the left - they can afford to alienate morbs)

but it doesn't matter a lot. not because left-wing people are pushovers who will vote for dems no matter what. it doesn't matter a lot because there aren't a lot of far-left wing people in america. whether far left-wing people make up 5% of a multiparty system or 5% of the american congress (about as many as there are now?) doesn't actually change much - if they want to have any political importance, they'd have to compromise on some of their values.

http://www.facepunch.com/fp/emoot/frogc00l.gif

http://www.howderfamily.com/graphics/blog/original_gerrymander.gif

cool article http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/guinier/publications/clothes.pdf

not because left-wing people are pushovers who will vote for dems no matter what

That's exactly what they are, by the always-amusing Sunday Morning TV Pundits' definition of "far left" (eg, donors to Amnesty International) that you are using.

Nearly all of you folks know you're going to vote for Obama in 2012 no matter what he does in the next 3 years. That spells ZERO LEVERAGE.

likewise, nearly all of the people on hardcore right-wing sites voted for mccain even though they thought he was too centrist. this thing swings both ways.

*exactly what 90% of left-wing liberal people are

xp

moonbats amirite

theres more to making yr voice than trying to vote out the president--we have far, far more leverage w/ our local representatives, and a much better chance of pushing those reps and sens to the left. those congressmen and women--our duly-elected representatives--themselves push the part, the median political position, and even the white house toward the left.

and this is doubly true in this administration which if nothing else has demonstrated a clear preference for congress to do the hard work of legislating.

otm, but that would take more work than complaining on ilx!

this is true on both a state and a nat'l level by the way.

its an unfortunate consequence of our constitution & founding myths that we focus on the president as the sole embodiment of government--and moreover as a unilaterally powerful executive who can do whatever he wants whenever he wants to--but there are thousands of other elected officials in the country, many of whom can do a lot more to directly affect yr life and community in a positive way than the president, and many of whom are much more open to yr ideas and positions than the president

Nearly all of you folks know you're going to vote for Obama in 2012 no matter what he does in the next 3 years.

i dont think this is true. it def isnt true for me

not me either and i wouldn't have voted for him at all if i didn't live in an important state. i don't anymore so it's like i have more freedom but not really.

"donors to amnesty international" is an interesting definition of far left i have never heard, though

note: i am not flipped over on obama at this point, but similarly to clinton (who did not get my vote in his second term) i will be measuring the his performance carefully and voting accordingly. you might not feel so angry about all of this if you gave some credit to intelligent voters and their capacity to do the right thing.

http://lewwaters.files.wordpress.com/2008/08/freedom-isnt-free.jpg

oh hey, look at all those rong words, it is too early for me to have smart people discussion apparently xpost

xxxxp: but harbl, you do have that freedom! Why do you think I only voted for a major-party prez candidate in '84? (Mondale -- I'd take that one back too) When are you gonna send a "message" if not with your utterly unimportant safe-state vote?

re the 'lower' offices, my congressperson is legacy hack Yvette Clarke (who generally votes OK) and then we have our NY US senators who pretty much embody everything I loathe about the Democratic Party. And then there are the sterling officials of NY State....

as another safe state voter (MN - although not as safe as it once was ;_;) i do this all the time, which made a bunch of Franken supporters really really angry at me for a while.

just curious, what do you think of Franken now?

hipster voters

I def wouldn't consider mn a safe state

yeah i know i have that freedom what i'm saying is the effect of my vote for a presidential candidate is about equal to 0. yay, freedom.

the effect of everybody's individual vote for a presidential candidate is equal to zero

unless there was a tie

yes, exactly

that has nothing to do with our system or your state or anything it just means 'there are a lot of people in this country'

thank you, i know that

good just making sure

re franken: hes been the picture of party line voting, but hes still a scumbag, and i am kind of waiting for the shoe to drop tbh

I def wouldn't consider mn a safe state

― iatee, Thursday, January 14, 2010 4:38 PM (7 minutes ago)

uh really? here is a list of our presidential votes:

* 2008: Barack Obama
* 2004: John Kerry
* 2000: Al Gore
* 1996: Bill Clinton
* 1992: Bill Clinton
* 1988: Michael Dukakis
* 1984: Walter Mondale
* 1980: Jimmy Carter
* 1976: Jimmy Carter
* 1972: Richard Nixon
* 1968: Hubert Humphrey

MN also elected Michelle Bachman, Tim Pawlenty and Norm Coleman to various offices so I understand why ppl don't view it as safe.

RE: Franken, my impression of him has probably been colored by the fact that he only ever pops up on the national radar when he's being painted as Hollywood Megaliberal but he's come across as more proactive and in line with what I'd want a MN senator to do than I expected, moreso than just being "the picture of party line voting". I'm assuming you've paid more attention to him, though.

right, well you have a gop gov and franken won by two hairs. safe in presidential elections? prolly (and in an election where it wasn't, dem probably wouldn't win anyway)

Unless you live in a state with very strict rules about who the state electors must cast their votes for following the general election, your individual vote is actually worth less than zero.

good thread. something I am confused about.
why is it that people who think things can change are considered naive and people who think things will always be the same are wise?
personally I really enjoy:
the eradication of Jim Crow laws.
central plumbing.
I want to go on record and thank the naive, foolish, immature, unrealistic, childish people who brought these things about.

kind of want to abolish the electoral college tbh, unless someone passed a clause that says I and I alone get to control them

i like to think of the bachman result as the natural extension of our wrestling governor prankster side, kind of "lets send the batshit crazy lady to washington and see if we can freak out the squares!"

changing the electoral system is 100000x harder than getting rid of jim crow laws because in order for it to happen, it'd require thousands of politicans and millions of people (overly represented voting populations) agree to a system where they'd be worse off.

a civil war would be both more likely to happen and an easier way to get it done

git r done

it would require hundreds of democratic and republican elected officials to agree to a system where they might not have been elected

wow, I had no idea

next you'll be telling me that politicians often don't follow through on their campaign promises

i know, right?

what we need is a parliament of turkeys to legislate on their favourite public holiday

"changing the electoral system is 100000x harder than getting rid of jim crow laws because in order for it to happen, it'd require thousands of politicans and millions of people (overly represented voting populations) agree to a system where they'd be worse off."

ok but still i think the percentage of people nationally who give a shit about the finer points of the electoral system is lower than the percentage of white southerners in 1961 who don't want to share drinking fountains.

if its 100000x harder, its only because of apathy, which i guess is harder to overcome than fire hoses but not physically.

still this has nothing to do with the original question. basically things change, its only the direction that requires our attention.

the percentage of elected politicians who give a shit about the finer points of the electoral system is pretty high

we're talking about a massive structural change that goes way deeper than any given legislation

Let's appoint Dennis Perrin to a special committee.

here's an analogy: eliminating Jim Crow laws is like having surgery. Restructuring electoral laws is more like trying to replace your entire skeleton.

x-post

"the percentage of elected politicians who give a shit about the finer points of the electoral system is pretty high"

elected being the key word
anyways, my original post didnt mention changing the electoral college - my fault for getting drawn in.
just tryng to say that the seeming inevitability of the present makes it easy to forget that there was nothing inevitable about it at all.

Alfred, Perrin believes it's all hopeless like I do so, you know.

anyway, a reform bill has been passed by some states where its electors would commit to voting for the nationwide popular prez winner, as soon as all states passed similar bills. Seems the easiest way. No, it won't happen. Nothing to be done.

Any State could alter its electoral process internally and for the House, though not for the Senate but the biggest reason they never will is that the Republicans and Democrats have a vested interest in making sure it remains a winner-takes-all, two party system.

What's the unicameral State, Wyoming?

let's say we try and get rid of the senate (this would inevitably be a part of a proportional representation system anyway)

from the structural POV, this is a change that could actually work without the american government collapsing (just let house of reps do everything) and something that would make the political world better reflect american voters/demographics. there's no reason a wyoming senate voter should get 60x the representation as a california senate voter.

reasons why this isn't gonna happen without a civil war:
a. 2/3 of the senate would have to agree on it (lol)
b. 3/4 of the states would have to - hey guess which states aren't gonna vote for this in a million years! all the ones that are overrepresented!
c. every member of whatever political party is in power is probably going to be opposed to it for self-interest reasons, even if it makes sense for them otherwise

getting rid of the electoral college would face the same basic problems - in order for it to happen, states that are overrepresented would have to agree to change it. cause they love america so much and want things to be fair.

morbs I'm pretty sure the states that passed those bills do not and will not include: iowa, new hampshire, wyoming etc.

M. White otm

nebraska xp

basically changing the american electoral system requires such epic faith in american goodwill that you think millions and millions of voters and politicians are going to join together and do something that will decrease their political power. I don't think it's super cynical to say no, that probably will not happen in the next couple hundred years, let's talk about something else.

let's say we try and get rid of the senate (this would inevitably be a part of a proportional representation system anyway)

from the structural POV, this is a change that could actually work without the american government collapsing (just let house of reps do everything) and something that would make the political world better reflect american voters/demographics. there's no reason a wyoming senate voter should get 60x the representation as a california senate voter.

reasons why this isn't gonna happen without a civil war:
a. 2/3 of the senate would have to agree on it (lol)
b. 3/4 of the states would have to - hey guess which states aren't gonna vote for this in a million years! all the ones that are overrepresented!
c. every member of whatever political party is in power is probably going to be opposed to it for self-interest reasons, even if it makes sense for them otherwise

for these reasons its unlikely that the constitution will ever be amended to actually eliminate the senate, but one could hope that sometime in the next 50 years a sufficiently well-supported movement couldnt craft and pass a set of procedural laws or guidelines or some such that could effectively curtail much of the senates power & turn it into a, well, not powerless, but much less powerful body--like the house of lords in the UK

in the same way that the electoral college will never be eliminated via a constitutional amendment, but, as morbs points out, could be overhauled through a backdoor, state-by-state w/ trigger method

not that i'm optimistic about it at all but fwiw not every state has to pass the national popular vote bill--it takes effect when 270 electoral votes worth of states pass it. can be done without wyoming, iowa, or new hampshire.

btw i was talking out of my depth up there in case its not cringingly obvious--i dont know that much about how to kill the senate, or about the house of lords

thx harbl, I botched that.

Lord Lieberman

to get back to the thread topic, the system as it is was designed to protect little things like "civil liberties" but clearly it has failed at that.

tbh I could actually see the electoral college thing happening despite states having to give up power, just because everyone hates the electoral college so much. also it's actually not giving up that much power (iowa and the primaries, otoh) considering how rarely the electoral college 'matters'

Whatever may be said of the unfairness of representation in the Senate and Electoral Collge, let's not forget that they are the result of the compromises that gave us this Constitution to begin with and each newly admitted State had to get the approval of Congress to join. Sure, Montana, Wyoming, RI, etc..., get better representation than I do but I am mindful that without it, they would either not have joined (RI) out of a fear of being bullied by the likes of large states (NY/Virginia/Penn/Mass, etc...) or would still be dependent US Territories. They were allowed in so we could hasten our imperial designs on North America. Also, fine, they're over-represented but they still have to live there and I get to live in California.

Didn't NH just vote to empower their Sec of State to move the primaries as needed to make sure they were first?

yeah yeah I know, founding fathers, compromises, etc.

but if you really wanted to talk about proportional representation of american voting interests - the house of reps basically does this already. it might do it better with a multiparty system, but it wouldn't be as epic a change as getting rid of the senate - a body that REALLY, REALLY doesn't do it.

we shouldn't have to daydream about dissolving the senate or altering state representation in order to get what we should have had all along.

anyway, it's worth pointing out that the statement that "none of you will do or can do anything about lieberman! no leverage!" isn't true at all. i mean, no, i live in minnesota so my "leverage" over him is zero. but a whole lot of people like me in connecticut DID do something, and they booted him in a primary in 2006. but he ran anyway, and a lot of other people in connecticut voted for him, and he won. sometimes you lose.

you guys should really check out that article, very interesting. to me anyway, and i love boring shit so maybe not :/

constitution is shitty and fascinating imo

re: states, you know it's not "RI vs VA" that's the problem, it's the "why in the hell do we have a north AND south dakota" problem -- the boundaries of states past the original 13 were drawn as they were for highly, highly political reasons to stack the senate, slavery mostly. there's no good reason to live under those partisan compromises anymore. there are bad, insurmountable reasons. i hate the states, basically. but i love america.

I read some of it - it seems interesting from a philosophy POV but it didn't seem to have much 'this is what realistic steps should be taken'

yeah if we didn't have states america would be like, perfect

(and if it does plz share)

xp

well my/three word username's point in mentioning her stuff is that things could have be done within the constitution to change how voters' interests are represented because it really says so little about how people are supposed to be elected. i dunno it just really makes u think

it's not like *easy* it's just not so pie in the sky

I mean if there's no talk about how it could actually politically happen (which is what I got the sense of) - then it doesn't do much good and is just an interesting legal article.

yeah well you could do it locally (some places do already i think) or a single state could do it with their congresspeople if they wanted. it was basically in response to your/others' saying the two-party/winner-take-all system is in the constitution; it's not. that's all i mean pretty much!

well, the system itself basically implies it. you can have alternate ways of voting for senators, but you can't have a prop representational vote - it's going to be winner-take-all by virtue of the fact that there are two seats. likewise w/ president.

w/ the house, as long as it's organized by state, the best you could do is have a proportional representation for a big state's house members. but you couldn't do it with small states. limited number of seats = winner-take-all in some form.

(and winner-take-all = two party inevitability)

guys lets design a new constitution

or ask the president to follow the current one?

i have a pen if someone has some paper i can use! xpost

JJ -- in the mail

http://www.allhatnocattle.net/scalia-gesture_1.jpg

dude we should totally use parchment colored paper to make it look all classy

and cursive!

off to buy calligraphy set at jolly's hobby store brb

i hear kinkos does good work

u need to wear breeches and a powdered wig while u draft it

done and done

yeah took care of that one when i got dressed this morning, it's a thursday, dude

also a poet shirt unless you are working that george washington romance novel cherry tree choppin look

Here's a start:

We, the people of the United States, are tired of your shit. Yes, you; not the person next to you, not all of the people you complain about. YOU. We are tired of how you sit on the side passing judgment on everyone who disagrees with you and rolling your eyes at everything while doing nothing measurable that contributes to fixing what you think is wrong with this country. We are tired of you lazily and easily denigrating every idea and every effort from every angle imaginable. We are tired of your simultaneous refusal to compromise and your craven unwillingness to take a stand.

We, the people of the United States, are fucking sick to death of you, the people of the United States.

http://archives.uvamagazine.org/atf/cf/%7B8A7B03C1-B900-49F1-B435-B2B4777BFF0E%7D/jeffersoninparis.jpg

to keep the kids interested we should probably change "ratify" to "RADIFY!"

HI DERE are you wearing a wig when you wrote that, y/n

well if we're aiming for kids, maybe we should make it a comic book??

^^^^^^^^^^^^^

hmmm

when am I not wearing a wig, esp. at work

http://www.monkeydyne.com/rmcs/opencomic.phtml?rowid=269427

to keep the kids interested we should probably change "ratify" to "RADIFY!"

Thread was worth it for this.

Morbs, the whole idea of "Obama could do anything and you'd vote for him" is kind of silly. Obama can't become a rightwinger, because then his political positioning wouldn't make sense. So yeah, he might do some shit I don't like. Clinton did too. But Clinton was a better president than the alternatives. Much better.

That's why OPama appointed Sotomayor instead of, for example, Samuel Alito 2.0.

There's a difference between moderate Democrats and the kind of Republicans who, nowadays, can gain the nomination for President.

Obama can't become a rightwinger

he is one.

GHW Bush (who I don't like, certainly) > Billy Blythe

ie,

http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-01-12/columns/george-w-obama

interesting.

In November 2002, a CIA missile strike killed six al-Qaeda operatives driving through the desert. The target was Abu Ali al-Harithi, organizer of the 2000 attack on the USS Cole. Killed with him was a U.S. citizen, Kamal Derwish, who the CIA knew was in the car.

Word that the CIA had purposefully killed Derwish drew attention to the unconventional nature of the new conflict and to the secret legal deliberations over whether killing a U.S. citizen was legal and ethical.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush gave the CIA, and later the military, authority to kill U.S. citizens abroad if strong evidence existed that an American was involved in organizing or carrying out terrorist actions against the United States or U.S. interests, military and intelligence officials said. The evidence has to meet a certain, defined threshold. The person, for instance, has to pose "a continuing and imminent threat to U.S. persons and interests," said one former intelligence official.

The Obama administration has adopted the same stance. If a U.S. citizen joins al-Qaeda, "it doesn't really change anything from the standpoint of whether we can target them," a senior administration official said. "They are then part of the enemy."

Both the CIA and the JSOC maintain lists of individuals, called "High Value Targets" and "High Value Individuals," whom they seek to kill or capture. The JSOC list includes three Americans, including Aulaqi, whose name was added late last year. As of several months ago, the CIA list included three U.S. citizens, and an intelligence official said that Aulaqi's name has now been added.

i read this as saying there is authority to target the us citizen specifically. "strong evidence"? how "imminent"?

"evidence that would hold up in a court of law" is obviously being ridiculously naive, right?

have we not talked about this?

http://johnnyedge.blogspot.com/2010/11/these-events-took-place-roughly-between.html

guy is a hero imo

I have come around on him slightly since the disgusting savages thread, but only on the basis of "these TSA screenings are ineffectual at finding bombs, etc." I still think he's a real jackass.

Did he give his father-in-law a heads-up that he was going to do this? I hope the old man is pissed as hell. They were supposed to take a nice trip out to South Dakota together and instead dude has a hissy fit in the airport.

Am not really worried about low-level radiation/rentacops touching my junk.

first they came for the goolies
i did not speak out because i wanted the air miles

lol

Everyone except him in that story is still unbelievably stupid and petty. He might be a big whiny point-maker but he's still right.

Don't worry, the TSA is taking steps to ensure future compliance.

All of these savages at the airport who don't want to go through the x-ray AND don't want to be frisked and believe that either of these are an imposition on their civil liberties.

― kkvgz, Monday, November 15, 2010 2:42 PM (2 days ago)

this lame crypto-conservatism is half the problem. reminds me of my stepfather (who i love dearly, but): "did you hear there's a new law that says you can't discriminate on the basis of sexual identity? the ACLU is really just a joke at this point"

imo the savages in this equation aren't people who don't want to be publicly groped or made to walk through a porn machine without a whiff of probable cause

i'm guessing this guy has never tried to get into a nightclub in a large city before

where do you get conservatism and discrimination from? this has nothing to do with either of those things k3vin.

He might be a big whiny point-maker but he's still right.

This, exactly.

probably not one of those TSA-bouncered clubs you're thinking of xpost tracer

kkvgz, you must be INCREDIBLY naive to think that discrimination has nothing to do with security screening at an airport.

kkvgz the point is the laid-back attitude wrt people's rights. the situation at hand has nothing to do w/ discrimination per se (xp: also right, what jon said) but i was using a personal example as a comparison

(xp: also right, what jon said)

Wrong, because jon wasn't even paying attention to the conversation and just saw the words "screening" and "discrimination" together.

So also, just for references, I consider myself a very progressive person and don't want to be lumped in with gaybashers just because I want to be safe on a plane. NOTE: I recognize now that the techniques are flawed, but if I had a choice of flying to South Dakota and freaking out in an airport, I'd probably swallow my pride and go through the nudie booth.

http://www.onlineatlas.us/images/south_dakota_480e.jpg

http://www.wilderness.net/images/NWPS/black_elk.jpg

http://wilderness.org/files/BuffaloGapNationalGrassland-SouthDakota.jpg

I consider myself a very regressive person, a wonderful dancer and a great friend

FWIW, dude posted this this morning:

http://johnnyedge.blogspot.com/2010/11/what-will-i-say.html

right, and that's up to you, and depending on the situation i might do the same.

I consider myself a very progressive person

then maybe think a little harder on this one

Bruce Schneier to thread

Wrong, because jon wasn't even paying attention to the conversation and just saw the words "screening" and "discrimination" together.

I was paying plenty of attention. You were trying to turn this into a more general discussion than the specific example being cited and, to that end, you simply can't ignore discrimination when discussing airport security screening.

That guy isn't a hero, he's a pissed-off white dude.

I agree with him, but come on.

Did he give his father-in-law a heads-up that he was going to do this? I hope the old man is pissed as hell. They were supposed to take a nice trip out to South Dakota together and instead dude has a hissy fit in the airport.

Am not really worried about low-level radiation/rentacops touching my junk.

― kkvgz, Wednesday, November 17, 2010 7:53 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

did u read the thing? he checked online before going to see if san diego had the xray machines. the tsa site said they didnt, so he figured he was ok.

later in the video, btw, they tell him to check the website, and he says he did.

i mean fwiw i wouldnt want to hang with this dude, and hes not exactly rosa parks, but he seems to have basically done all the stuff that he was supposed to. i genuinely dont think he was looking to pick a fight.

^^^^ exactly

if the TSA guy was played by Jake Gyllenhaal I'd him grope my junk.

sure, you could say the same about rosa parks i guess

come to think of it, imagine how pissed off everyone else on that bus must have been? i bet they had jobs to go to

xxxp loool

that was xp to dan

A friend got a rather aggressive pat down from an old lady at an airport in Mississippi. Apparently all up in the boob area by hand.

I can see how someone might find that overly invasive.

If I had to choose between getting on the plane and being basically seen naked by a bunch of people who I don't have any grounds to respect in the first place (ie TSA agents), I'd probably do whatever I had to, to be allowed through. However, I'd be making that choice strictly out of fatalism, b/c I assume when flying that nothing that happens in airports has anything to do with convenience, comfort, or dignity, and that passengers fly 100% at the pleasure of the airlines/security.

I'd be disgusted w myself, and feel violated by both the system and the people who carried out the screening. That's just not right. Being an airline passenger shouldn't feel like a sexual harassment (all joking aside).

you are not "seen naked" in the x-ray machine, there's a kind of blotchy outline of your body shape

this kind of thing really doesn't bother me at all, and i think this guy needs to get over himself, but i do sort of wonder how muslim women must feel about this and/or their husbands

TEHY ARE EXACTLY TEH ONEZ WE SHOULD BE SCREENING DO U C

they should just get over themselves

tbh one of the reasons I don't feel THAT strongly about this is because 90% of the time I have no real problem with people seeing me naked (and, if I do, it's because of my gut, which is also noticeable when clothed, so *shrug*)

To be clear, I agree with the baseline position this guy is taking, I just doubt I would ever make a similar stand.

major lolz at the fact that it's america's prudishness that finally gave the impetus for "regular joes" to push back against the security apparatus. as if it wasn't all ridiculous theater ~before~ the boob scanners and the junk touching.

^^^ this is kind of what I was getting at

basically i'm with dan: don't give a fuck if you see me naked (sorry neighbors), think the TSA is a joke, not gonna make an ish out of it because u kno i got a plane to catch

~we are in agreement~

go HSTNGS

"We'd like to welcome you to Minnesota Nude Airways..."

kevin have you seen the images from these backscatter machines? what exactly is there to get worked up about here?

those x-ray machines got some bad publicity early on iirc which seems to have led to the idea that they are actually looking at a definitive naked picture of you instead of, you know, an x-ray

enh, i dunno, maybe ppl are trying to frame it as a wedge issue? say: before, the security measures were just annoying and emblematic of The Erosion Of Civil Liberties while not being technically illegal, but the backscatter machines and pat-downs cross some clear bright line and if we go after them we might be able to reform the whole system, etc etc

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PJnXQFoGJqY/TFdC04XffDI/AAAAAAAACUk/7xpmhQpig-I/s1600/xray.jpghttp://www.scottosphere.org/images/backscatter-xray-scan.jpg

I am not going to go so far as to say there's NOTHING to get worked up over here, but honestly you can send my backscatter pictures around the world and I'm not going to really care

then again, I sent a naked picture of myself to a woman in North Carolina that I didn't know based on a dare made between this woman and my college roommate, so I am maybe a little deficient in the "body shame" department

actually that pic looks a lot more revealing than the example ones i saw in an article a year or 2 ago when they first started going into airports

oh he is xpost

its been a long 25 years folks. let me tell you

see the other thing is that the tech nerd in me is like "those machines are actually pretty dope"

you know how Diddy invented the remix?

WE INVENTED THE NAKED TRAMPOLINING

also whoa somebody should pick up a horror movie concept design from those backscatter pictures like immediately

ha no i'd like to know why white people should just get over themselves but you're so concerned about the muslims (xp)

i sort of agree with what gbx is saying, which is to say that after a couple of minutes of bitching, i'd probably submit to the grope if i had a plane to catch. that's not the point, though - i shouldn't have to be put through something like that. which is why i'm glad there are heroes like this guy who are willing to stand up for his rights and risk a large fine and criticism from the jaded too-cool just-get-over-it-crowd so life for people like you and me who share his beliefs but maybe lack his balls can be a little better

seriously fuck you

ok if that's a real image from an airport machine that's pretty fuckin icky

kevin - interested in why you think you shouldn't have to be put through a machine that checks to see if you're carrying weapons - is it the nudity? the general principle of the thing? if the latter, what's the principle?

see the unfortunate upshot of all of this is now i feel like i should be at at least half mast the next time i go through airport security

http://gizmodo.com/5690749/these-are-the-first-100-leaked-body-scans?skyline=true&s=i

yeah max those are the pics i saw first, and thought (wrongly) that they are the kind of images that are being produced in airports

see the unfortunate upshot of all of this is now i feel like i should be at at least half mast the next time i go through airport security

loooool "airport insecurity"

"excuse me sir i will gladly submit to your scan but i must powder my nose first"

dan what the hell is up your ass

get an xray machine lets find out

actually that's one place they can't scan

YET

don't fucking tell me I "don't have the balls" to take a stand on an issue that does not actually bother me, is what's wrong with me

I don't give a flying fuck if you use that type of rhetoric to describe yourself but do not fucking use it to describe me

yeah, that's a little aggravating. esp since if you believe as i do that the whole security checkpoint thing is ~mostly~ theater, then the "heroic" thing to do would be not fly, ever, which really isn't gonna work for me

like not to be all 'wake up sheeple' but if the backscatter machines are what finally twigged you to the fact that airport security is insane, then you are srsly late to the party

So the images above AREN'T what the backscatter results look like? Because I find those totally unacceptably revealing.

I've been wanded and had the pat-downs before, didn't bother me, but then since I'm usually wearing a skirt, it's not like they go UP it or anything...maybe that's keeping the guards from going any nearer the crotchtal area?

ok lol k3vin did u really call this dude a hero like hes the rosa parks of the airline security set or

RAPISCAN probably a scarier company name than BLACKWATER.

i mean frankly i am more interested in using this thread as a venue for my hilarious dick jokes but that seemed like it at least needed a comment xpost

the other day i dropped trou at eurostar security. nobody asked me to though. it was pretty sweet

Of course it's insane, but I can't afford to lose a ticket or whatever. I can't shrug off a couple hundred bucks, that's food money. I hardly ever travel at all, so when I go, it's basically non-negotiable.

okay who the hell greenlighted RAPISCAN as a name for a company

laurel the images that dan posted ARE what airport machines produce. the images at max's gizmodo link are not.

Have yall linked this yet:

Unlike a medical X-ray, the TSA X-ray machines are a sci-fi fan's dream: they are lower-energy beams that can only penetrate clothing and the topmost layers of skin. This provides TSA agents with a view that would expose any explosives concealed by clothing. But according to the UCSF professors, the low-enegy rays do a "Compton scatter" off tissue layers just under the skin, possibly exposing some vital areas and leaving the tissues at risk of mutation.

When an X-ray Compton scatters, it doesn't shift an electron to a higher energy level; instead, it hits the electron hard enough to dislodge it from its atom. The authors note that this process is "likely breaking bonds," which could cause mutations in cells and raise the risk of cancer.

Because the X-rays only make it just under the skin's surface, the total volume of tissue responsible for absorbing the radiation is fairly small. The professors point out that many body parts that are particularly susceptible to cancer are just under the surface, such as breast tissue and testicles. They are also concerned with those over 65, as well as children, being exposed to the X-rays.

The professors pointed to a number of other issues, including the possibility that TSA agents may scan certain areas more slowly (for example, the groin, to prevent another "underwear bomber" incident like the one in December 2009), exposing that area to even more radiation. But the letter never explicitly accuses the machines of being dangerous; rather, the professors encourage Dr. Holdren to pursue testing to make sure that the casual use of these X-rays is safe.

Dr. Holdren passed the letter on to the Food and Drug Administration for review. But, in the FDA's response, the agency gave the issues little more than a data-driven brush off. They cite five studies in response to the professors' request for independent verification of the safety of these X-rays; however, three are more than a decade old, and none of them deal specifically with the low-energy X-rays the professors are concerned about. The letter also doesn't mention the FDA's own classification of X-rays as carcinogens in 2005.

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/11/fda-sidesteps-safety-concerns-over-tsa-body-scanners.ars?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss

ok if that's a real image from an airport machine that's pretty fuckin icky

kevin - interested in why you think you shouldn't have to be put through a machine that checks to see if you're carrying weapons - is it the nudity? the general principle of the thing? if the latter, what's the principle?

― progressive cuts (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, November 17, 2010 11:58 AM (12 minutes ago)

it's both - i don't think i should be subject to indiscriminate, unreasonable searches or seizures (which it seems like we're starting to agree that's what this is, now that everyone has bothered to look at the images) without being shown probable cause. it's right there in the fourth amendment.

well yeah but have fun defining "unreasonable" though

ok lol k3vin did u really call this dude a hero like hes the rosa parks of the airline security set or

― O_o-O_0-o_O (jjjusten), Wednesday, November 17, 2010 12:12 PM (4 minutes ago)

yeah i did - please explain to me without benefit of 60 years of hindsight how this is principally different than what rosa parks did.

also, should we be subjected to discriminate searches (ie, profiling)?

The Rosa Parks sit-in was an organized protest against a discriminatory practice organized and executed by the Civil Rights Movement. This is a guy with a cell phone camera protesting (quite rationally IMO) an indiscriminate practice.

Call me naive but I still wonder why women in burkas and Sikhs get the evil eye when a terrorist isn't going to look "foreign" in order to board a plane.

yr country needs to lighten up imo

you're not a five year old, dan - "indiscriminate" aka arbitrary aka occuring without probable cause

juan williams should do all airport screening

also i dunno i'd have to read the studies or w/e but getting irked by the medical risks of backscatter machines is totally moronic. you are about to get on AN AIRPLANE. you probably get more radiation just sitting on the plane than you do from a backscatter machine. obv you want to minimize exposure at all times, but for real ppl instead of aiming for these new machines, why not just say 'u kno this is all pretty fucking stupid imo'

pretty sure the stakes for rosa parks were considerably higher, also standing up against segregation a wee bit more vital than being an immovable stone in the gears of airport security tyranny imo xposts

also somebody should prob take me out back and slap me around for pulling a rosa park reverse godwin here so, apologies and all. still this dude as a hero is pretty lolworthy imo, whther u agree with him or not

juan williams should do all airport screening

in a burka

ok k3vin but there are plenty of people that would argue that choosing to board an airplane constitutes probable cause.

Call me naive but I still wonder why women in burkas and Sikhs get the evil eye when a terrorist isn't going to look "foreign" in order to board a plane.

― otherwise, and twat (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, November 17, 2010 11:21 AM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

u r naive

"hmmmm i wonder why irrational ppl without a clear understanding of how terrorism actually works that have been subject to a decade of media demonizing ppl with funny clothes might still squint at a sikh when he gets on a plane, wonder why that is, hmmm"

uggggggh just typed a really sarcastic explanation of the differences between this guy and rosa parks but hated myself for it

but yeah basically kevin you sort of lost a lot of points there

whoops lol gotta cross the street, i see two black teenagers walking ~suspiciously~ in my direction

im not saying whats right or wrong btw, just saying that appealing to the clarity of the 4th amendment is like appealing to the clarity of uh any amendment xposts

of course it doesn't help to have even bill moyers rewrite parks' history as "one woman whose feet got tired one day and said she'd had enough" or whatever

xposts

being mad as hell and not taking it anymore != u r rosa parks

whoops lol gotta cross the street, i see two black teenagers walking ~suspiciously~ in my direction

You should recross and throw them under the bus, Obama style..

xpost

i should dig up some schneier columns, dude is basically the best commentator on this stuff. he and a nyt reporter (i believe) just punk'd TSA a while ago and traveled through security on fake boarding passes, with like keffiyahs and osama bin laden T-SHIRTS, no problem

lyou know the number one thing keeping bombs off planes? NO ONE KNOWS HOW TO MAKE BOMBS, AND EVEN LESS PEOPLE HAVE A DESIRE TO USE THEM TO BLOW UP A PLANE

im not saying whats right or wrong btw, just saying that appealing to the clarity of the 4th amendment is like appealing to the clarity of uh any amendment xposts

― O_o-O_0-o_O (jjjusten), Wednesday, November 17, 2010 12:27 PM (1 minute ago)

what are you saying? i'm saying my position is that this is of really shaky constitutionality. no shit it's not set in stone, but it hasn't been decided by a court. i'm just saying what i think

i mean are we seriously having a discussion on whether he deserves to be called a hero (who cares? he is to me) when there are plenty of people in this thread who are basically ok with the policy itself

again my q is: why ~this~? how is scanning yr person suddenly unconstitutional but scanning yr bags not?

im saying that there is like almost zero chance of making a workable constitutional argument against this. xpost

walk through a porn machine

thanking u for album title

then again, I sent a naked picture of myself to a woman in North Carolina that I didn't know based on a dare

my wife is still pissed about this fwiw

TSA = Too Stupid for Arby's.

I really don't like the idea of random shitworkers staring at people's genitals (including my own) and TSA people do the petty power thing realy well, if motivated.

BTW Rapiscan is Miichael Chertoff's company, that's part of *my* objection to those machines.

again my q is: why ~this~? how is scanning yr person suddenly unconstitutional but scanning yr bags not?

Because when they scan yr bags, the minorities working at TSA see yr iPad and get sad/envious, but when they scan yr body and see yr tiny junk they laugh and feel superior

again my q is: why ~this~? how is scanning yr person suddenly unconstitutional but scanning yr bags not?

Those two examples don't feel the same to me AT ALL. My bags are not ME.

please see my suggestion upthread, a quick trip to the airport bathroom is a small price for a lifetime of TSA memories xpost

I don't EVEN have an iPad!

i like the louis c.k. bit when they find a huge thing of lotion in his bag and he's like "it's supposed to be for moisturizing but i use it to masturbate with."

what they need to do is set it up so the screeners are feigning disgust and goin' all, please don't make me look at your genitals mr. or mrs. passenger, and the passengers get to yell, like, fuckin' check out my junk, look at it, pwn3d, made u look at my peen/vadge, and high five each other on the other side of the scanner

this will be a successful strategy & we will all be more secure as a result

Thing is, its totally simple to just say "Eh, whatever, i bought the ticket, i cant afford to lose it, and yeah its to make America a safer place." but if you've traveled around Europe - where they know how to treat people like ADULTS - then its just so clear how US airport safety practices basically put the traveller into a paranoid, terrorized, helpless, childlike position.

um, it's been clear for DECADES, is the thing

sure they don't feel the same but if yr contending that scanning bodies is an unreasonable search, surely scanning yr stuff is too? like, legally?

well ryanair definitely treats you like an adult. an adult cow.

i think what kevin's really trying to say is, "does anybody remember laughter?"

btw when they backscatter you iirc the person looking at the image is locked in a room somewhere and never actually sees you irl, they just radio positive/negative back to the security checkpoint

not sure if that makes it less creepy or more that you dont know who's looking at you

if you've traveled around Europe - where they know how to treat people like ADULTS - then its just so clear how US airport safety practices basically put the traveller into a paranoid, terrorized, helpless, childlike position.

truth.

laurel i think the argument would be that they are not scanning "you", they are scanning to determine things concealed under/contained within your clothes (which could be asid to be an equivalent to the baggage scan), the body scan being simply a unintended byproduct of that purpose.

im saying that there is like almost zero chance of making a workable constitutional argument against this. xpost

― O_o-O_0-o_O (jjjusten), Wednesday, November 17, 2010 12:36 PM (25 seconds ago)

go back to the jokes

again my q is: why ~this~? how is scanning yr person suddenly unconstitutional but scanning yr bags not?

― BIG MUFFIN (gbx), Wednesday, November 17, 2010 12:35 PM (44 seconds ago)

i'm not an attorney and i'm not prepared to write a definitive breif on this. does this not seem to cross a line, into the cruel and unusual? why now? why not

you are right, you are not an attorney

does this not seem to cross a line, into the cruel and unusual?

No.

cruel and unusual is about punishment, not search and seizure btw.

BIG MUFFIN so if someone is allowed to rummage around in your bag they should be allowed to rummage around in your asshole not disagreeing just looking for clarification

If I'm paranoid, it's only about what ridic rules the governing bodies will come up with next. I missed my flight at JFK the last time because if your bags aren't ALREADY CHECKED IN 1 hour before takeoff, they won't accept them. You might make the flight, but your luggage won't. Only airport I've ever been to with a 1-hour cut-off for luggage. (And if you're in the line waiting to check in with your bags when the 1hr cut-off happens, you can still forget it.)

I'm mostly helpless and/or childlike because I travel on such a tight budget that half the time I don't even buy food in the airport, so if anything goes wrong I really have no safety net except to get back on the subway with my luggage and go home. So the completely draconian security system is just adding insult to injury, in my experience of flying.

well, they are scanning to see if there is probable cause to rummage around in your asshole

although to extrapolate, this could make clearing customs a much more intimate experience

the last time i said that i got kicked out of a bar! ridiculous

xpost

this thread is totally hilarious.

To me, the clearer of the backscatter results are equivalent to nudity, practically speaking. The fact that only one person sees them and that person can't see you in person at the same time etc etc does not detract from the unacceptability of being naked for a stranger.

I've laughed out loud a lot this morning. I may fly just so I can post about my arsehole getting groped by Juan Williams.

basically this is the beginning of the end for the niche fetish of passing through security with a secret cauliflower down your shorts

Also I think I might be the only woman actively commenting on this thread...and I think gender might make a difference in the feeling of being intruded upon by imaging like this. Not a difference in the illegality, unconstitutionality, or w/e, but on how it's experienced by the passenger.

Like I'm sorry to be the one that always says "BUT GUYS, GENDER MATTERS, WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THNK ABOUT ALL THE VICTIMIZED WOMEN??" but no one itt really seems bothered about being basically naked on-screen, and I find that incomprehensible.

If I'm paranoid, it's only about what ridic rules the governing bodies will come up with next.

THIS. The main point of all this is to ramp up 'Erosion of civil liberties' for US citizens, its one more step in the list of things like announcing "The terror alert is ORANGE" every 10 minutes on the loudspeaker. What use is that, honestly? Is that telling the airport safety agents anything they don't know? No doubt all this stuff keeps up citizen support for the wars...

If someone has fooled the FBI and the CIA and the entire US Intelligence community long enough to make it to an airport (if they're even using a plane) then how is some minimal-wage TSA worker going to catch them?

I'm with you 100% Laurel, but I'm just hanging back out of this clusterfuck.

i can see that Laurel. it would work a lot better if it were true Total Recall style x-ray, imo. somehow one's bones feel a lot less private than one's flesh.

still sort of wondering what would happen if you DID have a cauliflower down your shorts. would they make you take it out?

I realize most of the posters here are some of the biggest exhibitionists on ILX so "ymmv" goes without saying....

cruel and unusual is about punishment, not search and seizure btw.

― O_o-O_0-o_O (jjjusten), Wednesday, November 17, 2010 12:44 PM (6 minutes ago)

should have known this language would throw off the textualists

conrad: what DJP said

i mean, as i've said several times, the ~whole thing~ is basically theater. in the past, passenger security was to keep weapons off of planes, not bombs per se. bombs are pretty rare in the world, in general, and passenger security thus far has a pretty abysmal record when it comes to keeping them off planes (shoe bomber, underpants bomber, etc). moreover, if you really wanted to get a bomb onto a plane, you'd recruit an airport employee who is subject to far less stringent physical screening.

and keeping weapons off planes isn't so that the passengers don't kill each other, its to discourage hijacking. and if you don't want yr plane to get hijacked, put a lock on the cockpit door and make it bullet proof. the end.

xpost laurel---i'm sure you're right about gender playing into why some ppl seem sanguine about getting scanned, at least insofar as it involves strangers checking out yr junk. but i don't think anyone's really using that as a defense of the practice? like, the issue isn't "god its just a naked picture, what's the big deal i love being naked and so should you!" it's more "this is incrementally more invasive than what you're subject to already."

wow fuck you dude xpost

progressive cuts probably depends whether it's wrapped in tin foil or clingfilm I prefer clingfilm anyway never had a problem

good luck usa

wow fuck you dude xpost

― O_o-O_0-o_O (jjjusten), Wednesday, November 17, 2010 12:57 PM (34 seconds ago)

shit would you relax, it was a joke

like its not my fault if you dont actually know shit about the constitution, i just figure if you cant keep that shit straight you might as well not try to invoke it in your argument but, yknow, it worked for all the tea-party peeps so feel free to give it a shot

xpost yeah right

it's more "this is incrementally more invasive than what you're subject to already."

And I'm saying that increment is GIGANTIC, not some kind of technicality.

BIG MUFFIN if you're happy to accept the increments and even derisive of people who think maybe they'd rather not it's a slippery slope to ass-rummaging

if nothing else this thread has brought us "slippery slope to ass-rumaging" and in that way we have all won today

xp: it usually is

I quite liked "the unacceptability of being naked for a stranger"

lol stop guys

like its not my fault if you dont actually know shit about the constitution, i just figure if you cant keep that shit straight you might as well not try to invoke it in your argument but, yknow, it worked for all the tea-party peeps so feel free to give it a shot

xpost yeah right

― O_o-O_0-o_O (jjjusten), Wednesday, November 17, 2010 1:00 PM (1 minute ago)

alright i'd like to drop this after this but the "joke" was calling you a textualist, not grabbing language from the eighth to further illustrate "unreasonable" from the fourth

anyway i agree with laurel

i think that ~given what's already in place~ it's really NOT that gigantic from a legal standpoint.

yes, you may scan and search my bag without probable cause
yes, you may require that i take of certain articles of clothing in order to pass through the metal detector
yes, you can perform a search of my carry on luggage in full view of every other passenger (esp if i have a huge bottle of moisturizer, for masturbating)
no, you may not scan my person for ~the exact same stuff~ that you scanned my bag for

like, if the pictures returned by the backscatter were somehow processed in such a way that they only zoomed in on anything not-body, making it impossible to discern actual body parts, would that make it okay again?

the problem w/slippery slope arguments is that when they get legitimately invoked its already too late - there is no way that the current climate is going to backslide on baggage checks, so trying to go with a grand scheme constitutional violation just isnt going to hang together the minute joe america hears that it sets a precedent for lettin the terrorists carry boms in their luggage. not saying this cant be argued against, but it isnt going to be removed on those grounds.

BIG MUFFIN if you're happy to accept the increments and even derisive of people who think maybe they'd rather not it's a slippery slope to ass-rummaging

― conrad, Wednesday, November 17, 2010 12:00 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

i'm only derisive of ppl that don't realize that we've been on that slippery slope for fucking years

let's be clear though: they are scanning the bag without probable cause, but they search the bag if they see something on the scanner that could be alarming, ergo the actual search DOES have probable cause

this thread is ridiculous. this dude is not a hero. if you wanna fly, this is what's gonna happen. I personally do not care.

what if we make fisting mandatory for all passengers

don't want to get fisted, don't fly

this will separate out the people who are just flying for the hell of it

it's not clear that this is a 4th amendment violation or not (note: i'm not a lawyer), whether the body-scanners or crotch-touching is "unreasonable" or not is the issue. the standard in this country is "if cops want to, it's pretty much reasonable, maybe not if it gets on video and looks bad". but TSA ppl aren't cops, and trying to get on a plane is not the same as getting pulled over or collared.

if al-qaeda were bright they'd have their hapless bombers increase the embarrassment of their attempts. like, tiny strips of explosive laced into someones pubes -- then we all have to get our shit shampooed on the way through security. they're have trouble killing americans but they can make us hate life and each other just fine.

and i'm not "happy" to accept the increments, you tool, i'm resigned to them. they are the inevitable outcome of a clownish, reactive security policy that exists to placate stupid people into thinking that they are being made safer by almost any of it

i dont wanna be all "remember freedom" but like all this shit is just to scare u btw

xxxp: yeah but then you'll have all these people buying like six plane tickets and never leaving the airport

amtrak should start running "our service is UNTOUCHABLE" ads. we might get those bullet trains after all.

there must be a way

i mean, as i've said several times, the ~whole thing~ is basically theater. in the past, passenger security was to keep weapons off of planes, not bombs per se. bombs are pretty rare in the world, in general, and passenger security thus far has a pretty abysmal record when it comes to keeping them off planes (shoe bomber, underpants bomber, etc).

haha yeah - i mean its tedious and kinda degrading to go through airport 'security' atp but the really infuriating thing is how ineffectual & wasteful it all is. like im not sure that being forbidden to bring toothpaste on the plane is as effective as, for example, having intelligence agencies sharing information that wld provide actual 'probable cause' for a search/seizure like "this dude just spent the last two years at a terrorist training camp in yemen" but forbidding toothpaste is the thing that happens

"I just flew in from Kandahar and boy is my ass tired"

sorry there ~must~ be a way

u know they told me in boston bus station that there were no more lockers bc of 9/11 like its obviously pure silliness

lotta namecalling on this thread wtf

security fisting is serious business, Shakey

they'd been wanting to get rid of the lockers for years, they were perfect drug-drops

in re: this though -

Since Saturday, Tyner’s story has added fuel to the Opt Out Day movement which is calling on air travelers to choose not to undergo the full-body scans on Nov. 24, the day before Thanksgiving and traditionally one of the year’s top travel days.

fuck this & fuck anybody who thinks messing with people's ability to get home for Thanksgiving is a great protest, I hope these guys get fisted at security

well ok I hope that no matter what but I especially hope it now

I regularly travel with sexy items, btw, and even on one occasion informed a TSA agent who was searching my bag in my presence that he might not want to open that bag, it's just my ____. So I'm not a total prude. It's the nudity thing.

BIG MUFFIN just noticed you called me a tool - perhaps I should have said "one" instead of "you" you tool. hope your resignation to the increments doesn't one day find you in a situation that you find difficult to countenance

lamp and plax otm

if you are offended by backscatter ~on principal~ then you should also be equally offended by shoe removal and 3oz fluid containers. if yr offended primarily because the machines are icky (valid!), then that's kinda yr own deal.

principle

but forbidding toothpaste is the thing that happens

Toothpaste is a dangerous abrasive. You might sand someone to death.

hope your resignation to the increments doesn't one day find you in a situation that you find difficult to countenance

u and me both

they are scanning the bag without probable cause, but they search the bag if they see something on the scanner that could be alarming

there are random checks too though, like every 20th bag or whatever

FYI i have not noticed european security people being particularly more professional than american ones, however european train stations do still have lockers (often with a metal detector) which is awesome when you are stuck somewhere for an hour or two

can I just say

backscatter

lol

also i mean - there are real economic costs to the 'increased security measures' both in the cost of providing the 'security' in increased travel times, decrease in tourism, lost productivity &c. it just seems p stupid to be like 'oh you should just accept it' or w/e - its clearly a really terrible system

fuck this & fuck anybody who thinks messing with people's ability to get home for Thanksgiving is a great protest, I hope these guys get fisted at security

won't the TSA folks just catch on anyway and make a separate line for folks who don't care and just want to blast thru the porn machine

its weird bc couldnt u just bomb a big shopping centre or something? i mean im just brainstorming for al qaeda here a little but it seems obvious that theres this whole ritual designed to keep zip-loc bags in business and make you carry your bag all day to remind you that you live in a world where your ideals are under threat from brown ppl.

^^^^ very very OTM

yup

some serious sexual projection going on here.

ts weird bc couldnt u just bomb a big shopping centre or something? i mean im just brainstorming for al qaeda here a little but it seems obvious that theres this whole ritual designed to keep zip-loc bags in business and make you carry your bag all day to remind you that you live in a world where your ideals are under threat from brown ppl.

srsly – I asked this at the beginning. As if fisting Sikhs makes us safer.

i mean, it's pretty fucked that you literally cannot get on a plane without some form of government ID, and it's "suspicious" to buy a ticket with cash

some serious sexual projection going on here.

one hears this rather a lot at my weekly fisting circle

yeah i remember the days when our glorious mall of america was on HARDCORE SECURITY LOCKDOWN for like a week post 9/11 and then wiser peeps said oh shit, people arent coming here anymore and whammo, the terrorists won and all the metal detectors vanished xxpsotss

I guess I've been well enough trained that I DON'T find it funny that you can't get on a plane without ID. The cash part, yes.

I dunno about "Europe" treating airline passengers like adults; well, maybe I can see it, since last week I got a full pat-down at CDG two days in a row, though they admittedly did not rub my tenders (new fav expression for genitalia btw, thanks Kung Fu Panda). But it was still pretty sensual. I've not been rubbed down at an airport in the USA in many years, like, pre-9/11. The best rub down was at Heathrow one year, where I thought the guy should have bought me dinner first.

I saw the bodyscanner machines at DFW last week but they didn't send anyone through it while I was clearing security.

problem being that you can always go to a different mall, but with no real alternatives to central terminal air travel, they can do what they want w/o significant economic repercussions

i think you actually CAN get on a plane w/o ID, but you're required to undergo a body search (no cavities, conrad).

in europe its slightly less bad but not enough for me to be like "last bastion of sanity" i mean come on

what's the big deal

Do they pat down men more, uh...thoroughly/invasively than they do women? Always been fairly perfunctory w me, and then a wand over the breasts because of the underwires.

that's weird, though, right? if you don't drive and don't, say, drink alcohol, what reason do you have to need an ID, save flying? i don't need to show ID to get on a train or a bus, but I do to get on a plane? why?

I don't think TSA allows you to fly at all without ID anymore. I remember when they did, the reason my bag was searched that one time in my presence was because it was a concession to letting me on the plane with no driver's license (I couldn't find it). But that was over 10 years ago.

You need an ID to use a credit card, sometimes.

Or to pick up purchase like show tickets made in your name.

BIG MUFFIN are you kidding

this thread is ridiculous. this dude is not a hero. if you wanna fly, this is what's gonna happen. I personally do not care.

― the Whiney G. Weingarten Memorial 77 Clique (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, November 17, 2010 1:07 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark

If we weren't cool as nation with our tax dollars funding these wars - real and covert - than I think there'd be a much easier argument against the use of these invasive techniques.

I usually use a passport

the last time we flew, a gentleman about 65 yrs old was getting the body patdown and was just relentlessly taunting the TSA dude during the entire process with shit like "Sure, go to town! Get a good handful! Was it good for you, too?"

that dude would totally be on board with the aerosmith "LOOK AT MY JUNK" plan

that's weird, though, right? if you don't drive and don't, say, drink alcohol, what reason do you have to need an ID, save flying?

um generally you need ID to do anything banking related, such as opening an account or using your checkbook at a retail store or getting a loan

or is this another one of those magical "lol white ppl don't need that shit" things

isnt it per se illegal to not be carrying id in america in general tho? i know that and the $40 rule used to be used for homeless rousting, so i think they just prob extended that because they could?

the thing that bugs me about this is that eliminating the body scanners/patdowns just means that security procedures will invade yr privacy in a different way--using that warrantless wiretap data, tracking & profiling yr shit, etc. etc.

i mean at some point i almost admire the physicality of the patdowns, its like, my privacys going to be violated no matter what, if nothing else id like to be reminded of that by a firm hand on my balls

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/the-things-he-carried/7057/

but yeah i mean theres no turning back, we live in the 2010 surveillance state, just wait till the kids born in 2000 are adults, privacy what privacy. i guess it would be nice if big brother actually WORKED at making me safer though.

isnt it per se illegal to not be carrying id in america in general tho?

per se, maybe, but the right to NOT have ID is def one of those things that gets civil libertarians worked up. papers please, etc.

again, it's not that there aren't other things that require ID (i've had the same bank account for 15 years, opened before i had ID of any kind), it's that it's weird/useless to require it to set foot onto an airplane.

What is the $40 rule?

i mean at some point i almost admire the physicality of the patdowns, its like, my privacys going to be violated no matter what, if nothing else id like to be reminded of that by a firm hand on my balls

― max, Wednesday, November 17, 2010 1:29 PM (1 minute ago)

i guess i just feel a bit panopticon™ abt this notion bc of the extent to which this is about creating the atmosphere of paranoia, its more about making u realise that u are being watched than abt actually watching and affecting anything

yeah i believe "foucault is instructive" here

otm. it is theater.

OTM OTM OTM

also hence the phrase "security theater" xp

right!

BIG MUFFIN do you think it normal/useful to require proof of identity from someone who is entering/leaving a country?

yeah i believe "foucault is instructive" here

well, we have been talking about fisting

$40 rule is the old thing where if you didnt have x dollars in cash on your person in most municipalities, you could be arrested for vagrancy, which was a good way to run neerdowells out of the city limits legally. xpost to jon chicago

iirc most of those laws have been overturned, but im sure they're still on the books in plenty of cities thx to inaction/occasional utility

maybe? not sure how that is at all relevant, btw. especially since the only "proof" that a passport provides is that of citizenship, and that's assuming the document was in fact issued by the govt it purports to represent. it doesn't prove anyone's "identity" (why do you need to know it? are they a criminal? what ~is~ identity?), inasmuch as you are relying entirely on the issuing body to, what, not give passports to bad people?

like for real the main reason we have passports is to keep tabs on WHERE people are coming from, not who they are specifically.

Thanks jjusten, I'd heard references to those laws before, but never heard them referred to in that way.

and really the historical reason for passports, probably, is to be able to say "i am a citizen of $PLACE and ought to be considered friendly/not a threat to you, local gendarme"

checking names against watch lists is a pretty recent innovation

Just remember, they hate us for our freedoms. Like the freedom to get your balls felt up if you want to step on a commercial plane.

Interesting point in that Jeff Goldberg Article about how you can defeat the watch list. In Europe or flights going to Europe, you have to show your ID at the gate and this is the only time the ID is checked against the computer record and therefore that the purchaser of the ticket and the person getting on the plane match up. This doesn't happen in the US and it has always bugged me. I'm not even sure if its a rule,I think they do it because the fines for bringing in someone without a passport or visa are so high and its so easy to swap boarding passes beyond security.

yah i guess a big difference b.w this erosion of privacy and google street view is that i have actually found google street view totally helpful in getting around whereas all this bs is just a pain in the ass essentially

another re: passports, and how they're not like some gold security standard that we ought to emulate with domestic passports (which is what you're implementing when you require govt ID to travel by air): i have two of them. one irish, one american. when i've been to europe, i leave on my US passport and enter on my irish one because the lines are way shorter. i never get any stamps, and can bypass the scrutiny of immigration on both ends, lickety split.

oh well aren't you lucky

I suppose you then gallop out of the airport on a flying pony that takes you to Magic Topless Gumdrop Land

I'm not implementing anything you tool

well i know a south african woman who was living illegally in a european country for a couple of years and whenever she had to fly she would just get in the queue behind black ppl and she never once had any trouble. wait she was white btw.

haha somehow that was a given

I'm not implementing anything you tool

relax.

man, imagine if they did random cavity searches the way they do random bag searches (which I'd forgotten they do since I haven't seen one in years)

http://humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/

as an aside, this is a big pile of crazy

Just remember, they hate us for our freedoms.

in fairness, I mean, I hated it so much when GWB said this, but nobody has said this in a long time afaik. Because everybody knows it's bullshit except the new breed of ultrasuperdumbasses. for the most part people are not coming w/"they hate us for our freedoms" right now. more just "they want to fuck our shit up."

as an aside, this is a big pile of crazy

lol wtf

As Martin Luther King Jr. had so soulfully iterated four decades earlier during the height of the Vietnam War:

again, i will measure the quality of your argument by the level of your commitment to sticking with a single font color.

I hadn't yet scrolled past the part that looks like a very conspiracy Christmas

xp: lol

i will measure you by the color of your fonts and the content of your character

http://print-humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2010/11/body-scan-alert-not-suffering-indignity.html

I mean, there are nuggets of actual defensible points mixed in with SEVERE paranoid schizophrenia and stupidly photoshopped images that seem to be there to take up real estate:

http://humanbeingsfirst.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/ali-baba-boob-job-bomb.jpg

waht

http://humanbeingsfirst.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/image-keeping-americans-westerners-secure-from-terrorists-source-bild-de-14457736.jpg

this is posted on the main page as well with this text:

Caption A fabricated image depicting a fabricated threat in this fabricated War on Terror - Not Standing for Indignites at American Airports

if you wanna kill this, i guess focussing on it being done to children is prolly ur best bet but i mean w/e its the whole sorry context that needs to be remade

that seems right, but then again this is a country where grown men tackle 8-year-olds after NFL games so...

i am learning so much

Our countrymen also kick kids at rock shows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nk4NcMqoIk

"I'll put a boot in your kid, it's the American waaaayy"

http://humanbeingsfirst.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/image-keeping-americans-westerners-secure-from-terrorists-source-bild-de-14457736.jpg

Mac fans can have fun by CTRL+ALT+CMD+8 with this one.

It's going to hurt like hell when she poops that gun out though.

that chick's got a pretty hot bod

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBL3ux1o0tM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXJ-BPabDKA

goole you have just sold me on whatever the fuck news service that is

Mac fans can have fun by CTRL+ALT+CMD+8 with this one.

!!!

I don't know what that does and I'm afraid to try.

it inverts the colors on your display

that website has some 'interesting' articles

I like how the scanner moved her arms too!

Meanwhile, bringing a cello to the UK is grounds to be denied entry

poor indie bands never knew what hit them

lol

do tattoos show up at all on these scans? b/c i'm thinking you could get a tattoo right above the junk totes dissing on the tsa, big lols all around right?

Mac fans can have fun by CTRL+ALT+CMD+8 with this one.

!!!

Wow! Yeah boobs but also, this is a really cool trick and it even works on video! Cool!

Haha. Comes in handy with my stupid tumblr, Images Inverted.com.

http://amarillo.com/news/local-news/2010-10-11/lawsuit-airport-search-indecent

Passengers are not being hauled out of their homes or tortured or placed in prison without access to legal counsel — things that actually have happened to American citizens in recent years in the name of security. Nor are people being turned away from the polls or told they can't unionize or being beaten by police officers — also things that have happened to real live Americans in recent years. What's going on in the airports is simply a form of government humiliation that has hit the professional class.

http://enikrising.blogspot.com/2010/11/and-when-they-came-for-yuppies-i-said.html