Principles dude, principles. Take off your republican hat if you need to. I also wasn’t directly affected by 9/11.
Waterboarding? Yeah, sure. Lets give the government the official green light to torture people as long as they claim to have a reason. (Waterboarding is when you’re strapped down, cloth over your face, then water poured on your head saturating the cloth and making it damn near suffocating. Bush vetoed a no-waterboarding bill a week ago.)
If the first thing we do in the face of adversity is sacrifice our principles then we might as well dissolve the Senate now. Yes I know that it’s happened before and will happen again. Doesn’t make it right.
The Patriot Act hardly increases the size of government. That quote is in my sig to remind people about what universal health care is really going to cost. As for waterboarding, I don’t have a problem with it. It’s an unfortunate necessity when dealing with extremists. If these extremists want to sit down and work out some rules of engagement I think our government would be glad to take waterboarding off the table in exchange for no beheadings and attacks on civilian targets.
StrokedZ28… Oil SHOULDN’T be at $36 anymore, not with the increase in demand. If the dollar were back up even with the Euro it would be between $70-$75, right where it should be. This >100 a barrel stuff is directly a result of the weak dollar. At $75, assuming no issues with refinery production or ethanol shortages gas would be around 2.20/gal. At that price people will still try to conserve but it isn’t such a hardship on so many people.
Not aimed @ anyone in particular, just skimmed through the thread:
Welcome to capitalism… you know, the reason why we are #1 economy. :roll2:
The Patriot Act may not effect you if you don’t break the law, but thats not the point.
Yes, yes that is the point.
We have guidlines to follow when arresting someone, look at the Bill of Rights many of them deal with the right you have when you’re arrested and the Patriot Act goes agaisnt a lot of it.
I agree, but I’ve long been a fan of disposing of most civil rights once you violate the law.
Its not the first time this gov’t has turned away from the Constitution and it won’t be the last.
This government? As in the US going back 222 years, or just the last 7 years?
Defending one self isnt a principle of yours?
Waterboarding? Yeah, sure. Lets give the government the official green light to torture people as long as they claim to have a reason. (Waterboarding is when you’re strapped down, cloth over your face, then water poured on your head saturating the cloth and making it damn near suffocating. Bush vetoed a no-waterboarding bill a week ago.)
So, lemme ask: Do you feel that human intelligence (CIA, NSA, Locutus stylez) should be given more money & attention by the government?
If the first thing we do in the face of adversity is sacrifice our principles then we might as well dissolve the Senate now. Yes I know that it’s happened before and will happen again. Doesn’t make it right.
I agree that america on the whole needs to sack up, but that applies to all facets. Not just “I’m afraid, please enact more laws to protect me”, but how about not being afraid…? Are your (not you particular) SUV, DVR’d realty shows, and “right” to waste hours & hours a day on generally accepted trivial shit that god damned important, so much that they trump you’re ability to think critically?
When terrorists make things more difficult in the lives of every American, they’re winning. The way to win the war on terror is to not let them disrupt our lifestyle.
Ok, again, how has the Patriot Act made your life difficult, or the lives of “every American” for that matter?
The terrorists made air travel a real bitch because of all the new security, so I guess they did win there. Can’t really say a better alternative would be to just go back to our old air security model though.
They made my family members spend money on passports that they would never need and cancel a vacation to the caribbean because they took over double the estimated time to arrive. They made me wait an hour every time I try to go to Canada. Air travel completely sucks now. I can’t take out large amounts of cash from my personal bank account or send wire transfers without a hassle, and I work for a major FI. My pistol permit background check takes forever and a day, which was a lengthy process before but just got worse. A lot of the country lives and votes out of fear, passing on candidates that may have won and done a better job otherwise. These are just a random sample of minor gripes I pulled out, and there are people who are impacted a lot worse.
A. Passports. We’ve treated the international border with Canada like a state line for too long. I’m glad they’re cracking down. The long waits here are because we’ve needed to expand our crossings for years. Like most things in NY though, that expansion is tied up in broken politics. I’ve crossed at lots of other places post 9/11 and not had the waits we have here.
B. Large cash transfers need to be tracked, not just for terrorism but for tax fraud and other crimes. There is nothing preventing you from doing it, just expect to have to explain it when you show up on some report.
C. The people supporting the Patriot Act are hardly the issue with your pistol permit. They’re the ones who WANT more guns in the hands of honest citizens. Lets keep our fingers crossed about the case before the Supreme Court right now and if all goes well you may see NY having to change their requirements.
So try again. Lets here about these people who were really impacted by these new laws.
I think JayS and Joe spoon all night long after they have great daytime political debates. Little do you all know but political debate is what turns on both of these men. BITCHES AIN’T SHIT!!! Discuss.
regardless of your opinion of their necessity, these are still inconviences brought on by the act. Debating that is going nowhere.
And tell the couple hundred people that got or are still detained at guantanamo for years without being charged and then were found to have not done nothing wrong that no one gets impacted by the act.
You’re saying you don’t care if the government looks into your stuff because they won’t find anything. I’m saying i do care if they look at mine, whether they’re going to find anything or not, because they shouldn’t be looking.
^ Prove to me they’re in Guantanamo because of the Patriot Act. The vast majority at Guantanamo didn’t even come from the US, if there are any US citizens there.
Your argument seems to be “I don’t like it”. I’m sorry if I want a little more than that. Show me some real examples of innocent citizens being harmed by this. The reason most people are so indifferent is because these examples don’t exists.
The government can’t harm the innocent. They can only find out they’re guilty through unfair means. If it included random forced searches of everyone’s house, it still wouldn’t harm anyone that wasn’t guilty of something, unless one of the feds took a mean deuce in their bathroom or something, but that doesn’t make it right. Obviously that couldn’t happen because houses, unlike phones or computers, were around when the constitution was created. I think right to privacy trumps “if you did nothing wrong, you had nothing to hide.”
^ You keep using all these emotionally moving images like the officer making random searches of innocent people’s homes. I’ll ask again… PROVIDE ME AN EXAMPLE. You make it sound like I can drive down any street tonight and see APD kicking in random doors. If that was the case the public would be in an uproar. The truth is the police as just finding it easier to kick in the doors of criminals, which is why no one cares.
how the hell am i supposed to know who they are listening to? Do you think the feds file a report for people they listen in on and didnt find anything, just so they know?
No, but if they’re doing all these warrentless searches of the innocent I’m sure people would be talking about it. You’re telling me with all the warrantless searches of innocent people they’re doing you can’t find one person with their hand up saying, “It happened to me”. In this information age, where if someone doesn’t like a TV show they start an online petition, there isn’t one reliable source of someone complaining about their warrentless search?
