[Trerro]

1. It is now legal to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely without charge or trial - http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57343287/wh-oks-military-detention-of-terrorism-suspects/

2. The US is now allowed to wage "cyberwar", with this term completely undefined - http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/internet-war-2/

3. The UK has declared Occupy to be a terrorist group, giving the US an easy target to try that new law out on - http://uk.news.yahoo.com/police-include-occupy-movement-on-%E2%80%98terror%E2%80%99-list.html

This puts us exactly *two* steps away from a nation where protesting = you, and your writings, disappear forever.
Step 1: Follow Britian's suit and declare the Occupy movement to be a terrorist group.
Step 2: Apply this law to that group.
As this now makes a nonviolent, unarmed protest group arrestable at will, protest itself, is effectively an automatic life sentence in an unknown location, with any writings you've made before disappearing pulled from the net.

Now of course, this is purely hypothetical. It's extremely unlikely that this would actually be tried, and there's also a good chance that the Supreme Court will do it's job and overturn this law.

Still, the fact that both parties supported this, and the average citizen either supports it or is totally oblivious to what's going on is frankly scary. We've officially passed McCarthy era levels of paranoia.

[Pitvrug]

Yeah, over here, they're busy drawing up a "Protection of State Information Bill" which in essence just gives the current ruling party a huge blanket to sweep everything under and arrest all those pesky reporters with their insufferable "search for the truth"

"Our President, Comrade Zuma's sex life is from now on a state secret, and you will no longer be able to mock him for taking a hot shower as a preventative measure after having unprotected sex with a HIV positive woman, muhahaha"


Basically, it would seem that Democracy and the idea of a free world is slowly being eradicated in various ways worldwide.....

[Bullseye55]

This Liberal president is actually a Socialist in disguise, you know that?


He will not get impeached, because he is black. No one want to be called racist...


Stupid lame Dummkopf government!

( search up the word on Google translate, it is in German)

[GPH]

We're sort of swerving off topic here but...

This Liberal president is actually a Socialist in disguise, you know that?

Godamn socialists, next thing you know they'll have it so that the government provides us with decent road infrastructure, schooling and emergency services!

...hmm, looks like everyone is a socialist and socialism isn't actually that bad. I'm not arguing that a 100% socialist approach to society is a sensible or realistic goal but using socialist as an insult annoys me

As a side note I never understood why some sections of the American public seemed so upset/terrified by the idea of nationalised healthcare, seeming to proclaim that anyone who would support such a thing was a socialist (see above for my annoyance at people using socialist as an apparent insult ). As a UK citizen who is a) not a socialist and b) a strong supporter of the NHS (our nationalised healthcare service) that was all quite bemusing


Avoiding responding to the rest of the post in an attempt to move back on topic.


I got very angry at one of my friends last election because they said they weren't going to vote because they thought all the candidates were the same and were generally disallusioned with politicians. Possibly the closest I've ever come to punching someone in anger because of something they've said I don't care if you spoil your ballot as long as you've turned up and stated your preference. Someone told me at the time that some countries (Australia for instance) have compulsory voting with fines if you fail to vote. I would strongly support such a law being put in place worldwide.

Point being, the tenant of a democracy is, if you don't like it, vote and campaign against it. It's very concerning to see the government being quite so aggressive in their desire to stamp out protest. In the wake of the London riots I'm concerned that they'll become yet more aggressive in stamping out protests which is problematic when our voting system trends towards eliminating the voice of smaller parties and hence minimising the amount of choice that can actually be made in the ballot box. If you can only vote for party A or party B who believe X on an issue where you believe Y and you're not allowed to protest about promoting cause Y, then something has gone wrong with democracy.

[iggy]

I'll let you get away with this one cause you're young/naive/not so clever, but you should strive to understand the things you're complaining about first.


Your german/nazi reference suggest that you don't understand what you're saying.

Also, we realise its german.

edit: obviously pointed at bullseye and not GPH

[Trerro]

As with most things, neither pure capitalism nor pure socialism is good, and the ideal society would attempt to be arranged such that it tries to get as many benefits from each with as few unwanted side effects from each as possible. The result would be a society where no one goes hungry, services are provided without issue, and a healthy level of competition drives technology ever forward. Essentially, everyone gets what they *need*, and competes for what they *want*. This is, of course, much easier done on paper than in practice.

Voter apathy is actually biggest problem the US faces by far. People ask why fundamentalists wield so much power in this country (when they're virtually nonexistent outside of the Bible Belt), and the answer is simple: When you're 15-20% of the population, but you all vote, and only 50-60% of the total populace bothers, no one can afford to ignore you, as your votes end up counting almost double. What we need is more participation in general - not only in terms of electing, but referendums to overturn ridiculous laws (or to force needed ones through that elected officials are afraid to touch), and with people who campaign on one platform, then do something entirely different, recall elections to fire them. It wouldn't even take much - fire 2-3 senators, and suddenly the rest would decide they want to keep their cushy jobs and start listening to the people again.

The question of course is, how do we get everyone to actually care again? Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer to that.

[Pitvrug]

@ Bullseye: Stop whining that your President is a darkie, if you really want a racial comparison, After Mandela, he's probably the most respected and thought of Black President in the world.

@ iggy: How come saying Dummkopf suddenly makes it a Nazi reference? it literally means Dumb-head 

@Trerro: The simple sad truth is that the human population is increasing exponentially, and natural resources are not, therefore no socially acceptable measures can be implemented by any government to provide everyone with what they need.

[iggy]

@ Bullseye: Stop whining that your President is a darkie, if you really want a racial comparison, After Mandela, he's probably the most respected and thought of Black President in the world.

@ iggy: How come saying Dummkopf suddenly makes it a Nazi reference? it literally means Dumb-head 

@Trerro: The simple sad truth is that the human population is increasing exponentially, and natural resources are not, therefore no socially acceptable measures can be implemented by any government to provide everyone with what they need.

Cause he's talking about socialists, than randomly says the only german word he knows... I speak german so I know what it means but I just thought it was a bit too random to not be a nazi reference (cause otherwise it just doesn't make any sense)

[Kiashien]

Voter apathy is actually biggest problem the US faces by far.

Voter *time* is the biggest problem by far- FOX news blatantly complained that minorities voted this time. On live news. I *bleep* you not.

I vote. Campaigning and all that crap? When the hell would I do it? I get 36 or so hours a week to do something other than *subsist*

Life's just gotten so hectic, that it's nearly impossible to do anything like "campaign"

Sad, awful, and not good- but true.

[iggy]

This reminds me that the piratebay has a pretty great april fools running currently!

Also, there's no solution to any of these problems other than people becoming more tolerant and peace loving in general. This can be moderated slightly thanks to some proper education but even than it's not going to make a huge difference due to the inherent profits you can reap from being a total corrupt backstabbing douchebag in a human society. Obviously everytime there's something to gain someone will try to take advantage of it in one way or another which is pretty basic economic knowledge, so obviously it also applies to corruption.

some more points to end my rant:

- Elections are about whoever answers the least questions and tries to upset the smallest minorities while pleasing the largest majorities with whichever bullshit answers they do provide
- Voter apathy is obviously a direct cause of this, or maybe people just used to believe in general political bullshit more than we do now because it wasn't as perfected as it is now, and there's obviously a lot more coverage on it than there used to be.
- Most if not all governments care only about the next 4 years, except maybe kim yong yung, he's obviously a great leader who's playing the long game! (I'm joking for people who are not clever)
- Again, this leads to voter apathy and I would even call it 'voter hopelessness' because you know there's really nothing you can do to change how things work. Either you don't vote and lose whatever miniscule insignificant power you had and people can just blame you for the system not working because you didn't vote. Or you can just suck it up, vote for someone who comes the closest to your own opinions/concerns and than cry yourself to sleep every single night when he gets elected and obviously accomplishes almost nothing of what he said he would accomplish. It might not even be his/her fault due to the way opposition parties sometimes try to sabotage current government plans (very constructive) but you're obviously still going to be pretty annoyed at this person and the system in general.

To sum it up short, I don't think people are inherently bad... but in any group there's always a few who spoil it as much as possible for the others.

/rant