There are times when I just can't help myself. Liberals are so fun to toy with and I have to admit that I take great pleasure in sparring with them.
Person #1: I'm suprised they did not put her in a chokehold and Taze her. Freakin TSA Nazi's.
pr0g33k: Guys, guys, guys... This is all WAY overblown. Obama himself said, "TSA in consultation with counterterrorism experts have indicated to me that the procedures that they have been putting in place are the only ones right now that they consider to be effective against the kind of threat that we saw in the Christmas Day bombing." See? It's okay for the government to do this to us. It's for our safety.
The country wanted change in 2008 - change from the oppressive Bush regime and the government overreach that Hitlerian president imposed on all of us. Now we have "hope and change" and everyone complains about it! What gives? We all need to settle down and accept the fact that we obviously cannot care for ourselves in a reasonable way and therefore must have a higher authority (a.k.a. government) care for us. Sure, we'll have to be taxed more to pay for that care and we'll lose a lot of liberty but as a wise friend explained to me once, you can have peace or freedom but not both. We just need to surrender and enjoy the peace.
Person #2: freakin' partiot act. Ugh.
pr0g33k: Patriot Act... I know, right?! Fortunately we have grown-ups in the White House now that know what they're doing. We just have to do what they say and pay them what they want and everything will be okay.
What's driving me crazy are all of the wingnuts screaming about the TSA and how they're violating people's 1st and 4th Amendment rights and blah blah blah... The Constitution is nothing more than a piece of paper with a bunch of outdated crap scribbled on it. We tried the whole "nation of laws, not men" thing and, let's face it: people are better suited to rule us, not old words written in a time when they thought the World was flat.
The TSA and the Obama administration know what they're doing; they're keeping us safe. Who cares if we're "mistreated" or "inconvenienced?" So what if they fondle our kids or demean our grandmothers in public? At least they're not using something barbaric like "behavioral profiling" or some other "common sense" method. None of us are entitled to the right to privacy, integrity, or dignity when it comes to the common good of society! It's time we stop being so selfish and start giving everything we have to the state. Individualism is a disease and collectivism is the only cure.
Person #3: "Fortunately we have grown-ups in the White House now that know what they're doing. We just have to do what they say and pay them what they want and everything will be okay. "
The White House can't simply abolish the TSA. That's Congress' responsibility, and it's never going to happen so long as people continue to listen to the GOP and FOX news. The most Obama could do is reform TSA policy, but it's not so much the policy that's the problem: it's the organization's very existence, how its been created, the people in charge, and the leadership of Homeland Security.
DHS, TSA, and PATRIOT were all the product of the conservative "christian", Israeli activist, and corporate right-wing political alliance. With that "Party of No" currently vowing to stop everything the government might do to improve the economy or create jobs, i imagine the public's dissatisfaction with the TSA probably ranks very low on Congress' agenda because, frankly, the general public cares much less about the TSA than they do about finding a decent job. Face it: most people don't fly much, so when they do, a few extra minutes in line isn't a big deal.
Not to mention that abolishing the TSA would only make the unemployment problem worse.
Want to get rid of the TSA? Then get some decent policymakers in power.
Vote the GOP out. Vote the "moderate" or "centrist" Dems out. Put in a passel of those folk the GOP and corporate media keep bashing as "socialist" and "liberal", the ones they keep targeting with all those hundreds of millions of corporate money, like Alan Grayson (did more than any single congressman to beef up oversight and accountability within the financial and banking industry) or Russ Feingold (one of the two or three Senators who was sane enough to vote against the Iraq war, among many other excellent acts), et al. Tax the rich at 50% of their income or above, and increase the inheritance tax to at least 40%. Use that money to create jobs and new industries. Cut the military to 1/3rd its current size. Redefine the drug industry as a medical problem, rather than a criminal one: legalize drugs, and put all the money going into the prison system into nationalized healthcare programs and create effective rehab programs, rather than the crop of involuntary incarceration facilities currently in place. Gradually shift 2/3rds of the FBI agents currently working against drug cartels to anti-terrorism policing. Abolish the DHS. Restructure the CIA, and make it accountable to military oversight. Give military intelligence a cabinet-level position on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The only way out of this mess is to rebuild the economy from the ground up, through leadership, by using the government as it was meant to be used.
That means people need to stop whining about how all government is bad. Government is not bad. Bad government is bad. Good government is good. Our current government may be bad, but in the grand scheme of things Obama has very little to answer for, in that regard. In the US political spectrum, Obama ranks as a tepid middle-of-the-road, go-along-to-get-along narcissist. Obama is to the Bush Junta and its comrades (like Gingrich, Boehner, Lieberman, Palin, Bachmann, et ilk) like a cocklebur is to a briar patch.
In any event, whining about the TSA sure has been fun. Now that we agree pretty much everyone with any sense thinks they should be abolished, what are we going to do about it?
Nothing. You know why?
Because half of the country watches morons like Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck, never reads any books, can't speak a foreign language, hasn't the foggiest idea where the 40 hour workweek and 2 day weekend came from, and thinks that God created the universe ex nihilo in 168 hours.
In the end, all this postured outrage over the TSA is just the product of US white folk finally getting a taste of the sort of hamfisted, authoritarian police "protections" that minorities in the US have always had to put up with. Where the situation was once uneducated white cops invasively harassing dark-skinned peoples, now we've got dark skinned people invasively harassing white folk.
We made the bed. Now we get to sleep in it.
pr0g33k: The problem with your proposals is that you only take half measures. You're wrong about cutting military spending. And you're wrong in your assessment when you say only half of the people in this country are morons. An overwhelming majority of people in America are morons! A recent poll shows that 91% of Americans believe in God in one form or another. If 91% believes in God then they'll believe anything. Fortunately, however, as a result they're conditioned to fear authority which is why cutting military spending is a bad idea. Most of these morons are the same one's complaining about the TSA yet they go along with it out of fear of being arrested and jailed. An ever-present military is exactly what this country needs. Stick a gun in someone's face and they'll give the government whatever they want!
Time and again Americans have demonstrated they cannot handle the "freedoms" they've been "guaranteed" by the so-called US Constitution. The cars they drive, the clothes they wear, the food they eat, the careers they choose all demonstrate that the "freedom of choice" is taken for granted, abused, and wasted.
You say that we should tax the rich at 50%. Really? Only 50%? Again, half measures. There should be no "rich" in this country (or anywhere in the World for that matter). What gives someone the right to have more than anyone else? It's shameful and should be abolished. As human beings, we should be equal in every way - equal pay, equal housing, equal health care, equal consumption of food, equal education, equal opportunity, equal everything! Since we obviously cannot share nicely with our comrades, then it's only reasonable that a central government manage that for us.
Since we agree on that point, the only question is: How?
Education is the first step and China was a shining example of how a government can manage its people from the cradle to the grave. China has softened its approach in the past 20 years but before the 1990's students were not allowed to choose their own careers. Instead, there was a government system of vocational guidance that emphasized the individual's contribution to society by placing them in occupations that were needed, not necessarily occupations in which they had any particular interest. America can learn a lot from this model. Most people in American choose the wrong career path for their mental or physical capacity and end up failures. If we relied on the wisdom of our leaders to recognize our strengths and bestow upon us our career paths, with their support everyone could succeed! Plus, with the new education model, we could finally rid ourselves of centuries of teachings of religious myths and abolish religion once and for all. Just as Marx said, "Religion is the opium of the masses" and teaches people the wrong message if they're ever going to progress in a modern, civil society.
Government would then have to be responsible for supplying jobs to its people which would mean a total takeover of production. We're actually farther along this path than some realize. With the bailouts and regulations currently in place, most businesses - especially "big business" - are beholden to government anyway. The current system just needs to be pushed a little farther, collapsed, then rebuilt.
In rebuilding society, the government has the opportunity (and should take it!) to finally control the media and, therefore, "the message." No more Fox, no more Hannity, O'Reilly, Beck, etc. If you control the message, you control the people. And once the communications industry is government-owned, something can finally be done about the Internet. Probably more insidious than Fox is the spreading of poisonous rhetoric amongst comrades. Social media outlets like Facebook (ironic, I know, that I'm posting this on Facebook but this is where we are at for the moment at least) and Twitter are cancerous growths that must be eradicated. Blogs, too. Again, we're already well on our way toward this end because the US Government recently enacted laws that gives them the right to remove DNS records for any address pointing to a site that they feel contains any breach of content copyrights or even links to a site that contains copyrighted material. And how many links from Facebook and Twitter point to copyrighted material? Billions! It just takes a leader with the stones to pull the plug and we can finally be done with it.
Another thing that must be done is this: the government must start caring more for our planet. We are overpopulated now and it's getting worse second-by-second. Did you know there is a birth in America every 7 seconds! Sadly, 91% (see the above poll) of those births are to uneducated, backwards-thinking people who do not deserve to reproduce. It's past time for the government to enact eugenics laws in this country. People should have to apply to the government and get approval to reproduce. We have to take a test to get a driver's license yet these morons can multiply like senseless rabbits at will! And most are too feeble-minded to care for their own offspring and the government ends up caring for them anyway at the expense of society. And the expense is great, too, especially for children born with disabilities. We have the technology to determine genetic deficiencies so why do we continue to tolerate people having defective offspring (which should be a crime punishable by death, BTW)? It's a moral action the government has to take if we are to have a truly progressive society.
America can once again lead the World. The government just has to start the education/re-education process and make the tough decisions now before it's too late. I agree, Kyle. Vote out the GOP, the "moderate" and "centrist" Democrats, and get some real Progressives or (dare I say it?) Socialists to step up and do what's right.
Person #3: The US's goal should not be to lead the world.
It should just try to make itself happy and comfortable, and build a future where it stays that way.
That's all anyone wants.
The first thing it will need to do to get there is cut the military.
The next will be to rectify the oppressive distribution of wealth; that can be done in many different ways: taxation, welfare programs, or perhaps even just a "Right to Work" law, that does away with the permanent unemployment rate that's been built into the system in the last 50 years.
In any event, most of your suggestions are frighteningly authoritarian. The reason the US is in trouble, right now, is because of just such authoritarian measures: the Drug War, the Iraq War, the North Korean Sanctions, the Prison Industry, and on and on.
I cannot support authoritarian solutions except in the most extreme of defensive postures. The US is large enough and powerful enough, right now, that there is certainly no need to play defense.
Unfortunately, the wealthy elite *are* on the defensive. Thus, we get the TSA, the Iraq War, the Petraeus debacle in Afghanistan, "Plan Colombia" (20,000+ dead since Clinton began it), "Plan Mexico" (10,000+ dead in just the last five years or so), Gitmo, the largest prison population on the planet, etc.
The problem is authoritarianism. Forcing people to get a license to have a baby is not going to eradicate the growing gang problems in US cities, and choosing people's profession for them is not going to feed their families.
Then again, i have a hard time believing you're not just playing the provocateur, here. Or perhaps you're attempting a cynical reductio ad absurdum? I hope you'll forgive me for being so dense, but i just can't tell.
pr0g33k: Whereas 91% of Americans are morons, they should not be underestimated. As the oft-quoted idiom states: Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups. They won't simply give up their freedoms to the state without a fight. Please do not take this as a personal attack, comrade, but I believe you're being naive when you state that authoritarian measures are not warranted when it comes to rescuing America from the idiots in our society.
The rich definitely won't give up their ill-gotten gains without a legal fight. Which brings me to something that I should have addressed earlier; the current court system has to go. It's currently slanted too far in favor of the rich and away from the workers. What the US should do is abolish private lawyers and instead have a government system of legal defense that is administered by the wisdom of our leaders. This goes back to that equality I talked about earlier. Right now the workers are not equal to the rich when it comes to legal issues. One has to be rich in order to redress their grievances. This will not do if we're to have a progressive society.
"Forcing people to get a license to have a baby is not going to eradicate the growing gang problems in US cities, and choosing people's profession for them is not going to feed their families."
I respectfully disagree. If our leaders identify men and women who are likely to produce offspring that will be undesirable, then those men and women should not be allowed to reproduce. This can be done through forced sterilization or forced abortions. That solves the problem at the source! Practically overnight (well, within a generation or two) we can rid our cities of gangs. By selectively breeding the population, we can assure our bright future - the future of which you speak whereby we're all comfortable and happy. Also, we would save a lot of health care resources if we selectively bred because we could weed out the sickly and those who would be prone to disease.
As for the government selection of its workers, if the government appropriately selects its workers and puts them in jobs that are needed to sustain society then of course the government will also provide for their workers and their families. I fail to see how the government choosing professions for and employing its workers would not feed their families. Quite the opposite, actually! With everyone in their place, society as a whole would prosper far beyond what our crusty founding fathers envisioned in their lame (and obviously failed) capitalist system.
Person #4: certainly you are not serious about this... maybe I DON'T get your humour but talking about "selective breeding" and "forced sterilization" is at the least, not funny, and on the other hand if you truly believe this, scary beyond imagination. Maybe you need to re read your precepts of Buddhism, especially number 4.
pr0g33k: I'm merely pointing out the obvious and historically relevant result of a progressive society. The American Eugenics Movement was born out of the Progressive Movement (which was born out of the Socialist Movement) and is still very much alive today. When the American Eugenics Society experienced negative press after what Hitler tried with eugenics during WWII, they enlisted the help of the Progressive Margaret Sanger and changed their name to Planned Parenthood. I highly recommend watching the documentary "Maafa 21" for more information.
Check your history books and you'll find:
"The Progressive Movement believes in a powerful, centralized state, conceiving of government as the best means for promoting the social good and rejecting the individualism of (classical) liberalism; the progressives venerate social efficiency, almost to the point of identifying progress with greater efficiency; the progressives believe in the epistemic and moral authority of science, a belief that comprises their view that biology can explain and control human inheritance and that the still nascent sciences of society can explain and control the causes of economic ills; the progressives believe that intellectuals should guide social and economic progress, a belief erected upon two subsidiary faiths, a faith in the disinterestedness and incorruptibility of the experts who would run the technocracy they envisioned, and a faith that expertise could not only serve the social good, but also identify it; and, while generally antimonopoly, most progressives believe that increasing industrial consolidation is inevitable, and usually desirable, consistent with their faith in planning, organization, and command."
In a progressive society, there is typically an abolishment or, at the very least, a devaluation of religion and therefore an abolishment of any moral code surrounding the value of life. A fetus becomes less of a human being and more of a clump of cells that can be discarded like any other benign or malignant mass. In our society today there is an assault on religion - especially Christianity - because of the threat it imposes on the Progressive's agenda. For example: "DHS, TSA, and PATRIOT were all the product of the conservative 'christian', Israeli activist, and corporate right-wing political alliance." [Kyle Pearson] 'Tis the season for the atheists and their billboards, signs, protests, and condemnations of Christmas celebrations, too (interestingly, similar actions during Ramadan are suspiciously absent).
If we're going to have a serious talk about social entitlement programs, universal health care, welfare, wealth redistribution, social engineering and planning, and other progressive or socialist endeavors, then we need to look at where those movements have been and where they are likely to end. Yes, I agree that it is scary. But is this not where we are headed? Do we not have a centralized state, conceiving of government as the best means for promoting the social good while rejecting individualism? Is it not only the intellectuals (i.e. ruling elite) that guide our social and economic progress? Are we not experiencing legislation and regulations that actively promote industrial consolidation? And are we not, as a nation, rejecting more and more our religious faiths and accepting science and reason as an appropriate and politically correct replacement?
The more freedoms we relinquish, the more power our government gains over us. The more power our government gains over us, the more freedoms they can strip away at their discretion. It begins with government protecting us from ourselves and ends with us in chains.