Here's a good example of government encroaching on our freedoms being fought square in the bastion of liberalism and freedom, San Francisco:

http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2007/08/nsa-hearing-ope.html#more

In other words, the gubmit has recordings of your phone conversations and who-knows-what other information about you.........and you trust them to do the right thing with that stuff. Did I get that right?

This is a fairly fascinating, and frankly terrifying, story.

By the way, when a judge is considered "liberal" on issues like this, it means he leans toward protecting the right of privacy. When a judge is "conservative" on this kind of issue, it means he leans in the direction of gubmit control rather than personal privacy. Is that why you guys consider liberals to be lower than terrorist trash? Because we lean in the direction of personal freedoms and liberties? Like it or not, "liberal" means "free." There are no hippies who prefer to be spied on. As always, I am a bit mystified by you guys' description of yourself as "freedom loving conservatives" and folks like me as "control oriented liberals." That has never made sense to me.

That's because the terms liberal and conservative have gotten so screwed up nobody knows what they really mean anymore. Conservative has traditionally meant LESS government whereas liberal means that the government is strong but controlled entirely by the people. Neither makes sense in the current political flow - they are just broad generalizations formed by public opinions of different political figures who call themselves those terms, whether their technical descriptions are applicable or not.

As a general comment to this entire thread, I just want to say that in a democratic government the public is the boss. The general public vote the people in office who uphold similar beliefs as the majority of the population. There is supposedly no divide between the government and the people that elect it. It is OUR government. In a similar vein, it is MY personal opinion that, for the government to hold secrets from the people that elect it, totally defeats the ideals that make the entire system work. To vote for someone who actually states that they intend to support laws that give the government more control and the general population less is chipping away at democracy. It makes the government and the people two separate entities, which is NOT what democracy is.

Now, I've not stated whether I consider myself democrat, republican, liberal, conservative, etc. If you've formed an opinion about me based on the previous paragraph, it says more about the current political environment of the country than it does for me or you.

civilizations are defined and exist only through war and economics.

The Constitution is not a suicide pact.

The 10th Amendment has been eroded by Congress, the Executive, and the Judiciary [even the Supreme Court]. It's purpose is to foster federalism so a central gov't has to answer to the states in any matter not granted them by the Constitution.

So it's not just the progressives that feel it's a living Constitution that has to be fixed every generation. The current progressive mass-media opinion leader is the NY Times. Just about every newspaper in the US waits for the headlines of the NYT so they can format their headlines. The controller of the NYT was arrested 3x during anti-war rallies in the 1960's.

most people get their info from mass-media.

and the Bible is just a handy guide to living right. :rolleyes:

Ron, that line was tired the first time you used it ages ago. Give it up. If you don't like the Constitution, and living within its constructs, there are plenty of other countries out there for you.

Live Free or Die is not just a NH license plate. The Founding Fathers would be very disappointed in the State of the Nation today.

You never get anything right. If you said the Earth was round, I'd have to wonder about it. No, I don't ever trust the gov't. But they can't do anything with my phone conversations. I don't conspire to commit crimes and I don't associate with terrorists. What do they have then? My talking with the lady a few times a day, calling Mom, ordering pizza? Whatever they have, they cannot prosecute me for it, as it doesn't even approach criminal behavior. And even if it did, unless it's related to terrorism, they still couldn't do anything with it. And I don't know why they'd waste their time on me when there are real terrorists out there plotting real crimes to kill lefties like you and righties like me, laughing the whole time because the most important discussion we can seem to muster is whether our gov't. is taking our freedoms away because they might use agorithms and data mining software to find terrorist chatter. We're doomed.

obviously my words are over your head.. sorry


"Live Free or Die is not just a NH license plate."
--------- is that your idea of an oxymoron ?

What don't you get. Christians & Jews don't give a rat's ass about allah.

I like to go to music festivals. Over the past few years, at least one long time festival's organization has given up (I know a few of them personally) after several years of over-the-top, "gung ho" undercover LE tactics. I'm 47 years old, and I've never seen anything like it in my lifetime... using night vision goggles to spy on folks in their campsites and bust them for smoking a joint. Hand-cuffing 20 year old "hippie chicks" and 60 year old "roadies" (backstage) and having them face down in the dirt for the same offense. Another festival (that I did not attend) had almost 90% of their whole festival site (including camping areas) under total camera & night vision survailence. All of this is happening under the guise of "homeland security". The hardware suppliers are eager to set up shop (for free) for a weekend, show their wares to LE agencies with "homeland security budgets" to spend, and it's totally out of control IMO. I (and MANY others) have done nothing wrong, "should" have nothing to worry about attending a relatively small music festival, but imo our rights have been violated to the point where I don't want to go anymore. If this is "winning", then I'm afraid we have lost :(.

Sure they do. Allah is God in a different language.

Really, you make this statement so authoritatively, do you have some background in Arab language translation? I hate it for you Chick. I know you have the apologist knob turned wide open but the facts just don't support your statement. The Satanic verses, which resulted in a death threat for Salman Rushdie for the publishing of, are the actual teachings of big mo. In them he told the brethren that to follow him, they could continue to believe in the entire pantheon of pagan gods of the local religion. His only requirement was that they consider al ilah, the moon god as the head god. Once they ran the **** out of him, threatening his life, he decided to target the Jews for conversion. It was at this point that mo, in an attempt to make his new religion palatable to the monotheistic Jews, dropped the rest of the pantheon, leaving only al ilah, the moon god. As you may be aware, the Jews didn't bite. Al ilah, the moon god, bears no relation to the God of Abraham. Ask a Jew. Do you happen to know what the symbol of islam is? Could it be the crescent MOON? Allah id a contraction of al ilah. nothing more, nothing less. It has never been synonymous with the concept of God. It is currently being spun that was by the muslims. Ask a Jew if Jehovah was ever the moon god.

Nothing wrong with being uninformed, just dont bury your head in the sand.

I believe you are referring to the war on drugs, something I have never been in favor of.

LMFAO

The uninformed one with the head in the sand is you, Mule. Your problem, not mine. Good day. SmileWavy

No I most certainly am not, but it doesn't surpirse me that some would think this is about drugs. I'm talking about MY rights being violated under the guise of HOMELAND SECURITY budgets! I do not want to live in a society where everything is monitored via cameras and night vision goggles, whether it's a war on drugs, terrorism, or whatever :(!

ps: What I've described is DIRECTLY the result of Homeland Security budgets being misused & abused...

that is an INFORMED truth about the origins of Islam....Glad to see someone else knows this too

Isn't that kind of like complaining that I went for a peaceful drunken drive and happened upon a DUI checkpoint? You have a bunch of people getting stoned at a concert, pot is illegal, that's the risk you take. While it is not the worst thing in our society, that is the law.

Interesting point, since DUI checkpoints are clearly forbidden in our Constitution, yet local jurisdictions have decided to let them continue "for the greater good".

The problem with warrantless wiretapping (for those who actually buy into the "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" crap) is thus:

You let the government into your Constitutionally-protected private communications and first off, do you think you'll EVER get that freedom back, once it's been given up? Let's not kid ourselves. The #1 goal of government is maximizing control over the populace. I can think of not a single instance of government relinquishing control they gained.

Think of this scenario - you let the government wiretap your phones under the rationale of "we want to screen for possible terrorist communications", which you don't partake in. Think they just chuck the phone records then? Nope. When they get around to it, they'll revisit them in order to screen for violations of any/all other laws (including those which either may not exist yet, or may be so obscure you're not even aware you're violating them). There are so many laws on the books, can ANYONE honestly claim to know all of them? Are you 100% sure you're not breaking some law even by sitting here reading this? I'll bet you are. That's where we are.

Rule #1 - don't give 'em an easy one. Government and law enforcement have crossed a threshold in this country where they are no longer accountable to anyone and do not represent the public. They are NOT your friends, much as they might try and brainwash you into thinking so.

You want to give up the ONLY rights standing between us and totalitarianism? Be my guest. Just don't drag the rest of us down with you.