Congress: Are you spying on us? NSA: We don't spy on you except to the extent that we spy on everydamnbody

But you know only foot soldiers ever get put on trial. Yea, put 'em in a cell, that’ll teach their bosses a lesson!

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And they’ll just spin it to their advantage, getting lucrative book and television deals with their rock star lifestyles…there is no shock anymore…

They aren’t afraid of congress that’s laughable. Given their data collection capabilities, along with basic forgery skills, the “gotcha” nature of our entire current political climate, any number of, or any individual congresscritter can be “nuked from orbit” via a simple strategic leak of an ill advised phrasing or inside joke. Any Republican who ever wondered out loud if maybe there should be some limit on the second amendment, any democrat who ever uttered anything that might offend the professionally offended wing of that party, this is essentially everyone, even if they never did anything a reasonable person could construe as “wrong” now, toss in the fact they are all lawyers, many of them crooks.

The NSA therefore has essentially 100% effective career destruction capability of any and all who would oppose them, correct? Never mind if they resort to some sort of dirty tricks. A lot of us grew up in what we believed was a free country, and we often still act like it is, but it isn’t, and hasn’t been for some time now. At least five or ten years. The president thinks he can have you killed if a secret court says it’s OK…

Even worse, he was supposed to make that sort of thing BETTER not worse. What recourse do we have? Vote for the more traditionally authoritarian party which has long given the military and political elites whatever power they request? Sure that sounds like it will make it better.

Write something like that, and I wonder if it’s smart to post it online? IBM’s Watson AI, combined with the google search technology and ubiquitous data collection, they{1} see my name, cross reference whatever other silly things I’ve said online…

1: I hope we’re not there yet but clearly when Big Brother arrives completely he will be an all seeing AI serving some secretive behind the scenes masters, at least in the beginning at some point they’ll be serving him, and we’ll have gotten exactly what we deserve.

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NSA can have all the dirt on politicians they want – it won’t change a thing. People who support the Left will dismiss it as Right propaganda and vice versa.
Twenty years ago it could have killed careers. Now, people who vote brag about worse things on their Facebook pages and they are not going to care. At worst, politician says he is sorry, writes a book, becomes TV pundit and retains clout. If he is unrepentant, he won’t go anywhere.
Shaming as a political weapon is a blade that has been dulled. It will only rattle the rival side, but does nothing to shake the believers, Left or Right.

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I do not think twice about saying what I think about this online or any other way. I refuse to do that. They may get to record the existence of my every utterance, location, human contact, and meal - but I still own the power of free speech, and by God, I’m gonna speak freely! To them, about them, near them, and to anybody I choose. Because, if my personal power is limited and my personal rights are violated (literally) up the wazoo, then if I can at least set an example of fearlessness that’s what I probably should be doing.

I’m am not afraid of these guys - I am extremely pissed at them. I believe you should also speak fearlessly and I hope you see it the same way.

Jump to the Right? Hardly! This mess is utterly bipartisan! Here’s the text of the email I got from Marco Rubio on the NSA scandal:

"Thank you for taking the time to contact me regarding leaked reports concerning the National Security Agency’s collection programs to safeguard our nation. This is an important issue and I am grateful for your thoughts as well as the opportunity to respond.

As you know, it was recently leaked to the media that the National Security Agency has collected phone record metadata as a tool used to track terrorists. This dangerous national security leak allegedly came from Edward Snowden, a contractor working for the NSA with a top secret security clearance. As we continue to learn about the information that Snowden had access to, it is important to consider both the national security perspective and the protection of individual privacy granted to U.S. citizens through the Constitution. As a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence, I have been briefed on these programs and know that they are valuable tools used by our government to protect the U.S homeland. Please know that I will continue to follow this situation closely and ensure that any privacy concern is heard and addressed appropriately.

It is an honor and a privilege to serve as your United States Senator. I appreciate you offering your opinion on this important issue. If I can ever be of assistance to you, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,

Marco Rubio United States Senator"

And my response, which I post here in front of God and everydamnbody:

Dear Senator Rubio,

You do not ‘represent’ me, let alone my interests or anyone else’s. You serve only your own ambitions, you selfish, self-important prick. And apparently, you have either never bothered to read the Bill of Rights, or else you have chosen to disregard it entirely.

Therefore, you, your beloved NSA, and the Select Committee on Intelligence can absolutely kiss my American ass. Obviously, you know where to find it. But please feel free to call any time for detailed instructions.

Sincerely,
Alice Weir United States Citizen

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Nicely done! And vote with your feet. Here’s how not voting can effect change.

In the USA, we are taught to vote, no matter what, and we are demonized if we don’t vote. That is an old superstition.

The core element in the voting sentiment is mathematically true: We are told that the more votes a candidate gets (“get out the vote!”), the better their chances of winning. True.

But guess what… the reverse is true, too.

The more votes a candidate DOESN’T get, the worse are their chances of winning.

Like, duh, right?

Not only this, but the more people who don’t vote, PERIOD, the more that increases the volatility of the voting system, and therefore decreases any one candidate’s chances of success.

If it’s an entire system that you despise, full of people you cannot in good conscience vote for, then you do have a viable third option: DON’T VOTE. But you have a responsibility that comes with that choice, too. You have to ensure that OTHERS don’t vote in that election, too.

If the government is full of scoundrels and bad choices, and only scoundrel candidates are knocking on the doors, then your responsibility as an American is to NOT VOTE FOR THAT GOVERNMENT!

I have already made plans to vote - but to do it this way:

  1. In all cases where more than 2 party’s candidates are available, vote for the third party.
  2. In all cases, vote against the incumbent.

That way, we fire them all. It won’t make a real difference if all that happens is that the Dems and Reps switch places, thus the 3rd party votes as first preference. I don’t even have to like or approve of aid third party, because they’re all a possible improvement over the present mess. That would be enough to throw them out of whack and also get rid of everyone who played this “Um, who, me?” game and allowed this NSA thing to drag on unopposed.

(I’m not voting for anybody, but voting against all of them. Same idea, different method.)

Edited to add: Also doesn’t interfere with awjt’s method above, should you choose that one instead.

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I like it. Just “don’t throw your vote away”! LOL.

Now, these rules get dicier (“dice-y-er”… I don’t know how to spell dicier so it looks right) the closer you get to the local level. At the truly local level, it makes no sense to differentiate candidates into D and R. It’s preposterous. So, at the local level, you really need to do your homework as a voter and citizen. Read the local papers, talk to people, even talk to the candidates and find out what their angle is. Sometimes, there are good ones.

Occasionally, in lucky areas, there are good people at the national level, too, who identify D or R. OCCASIONALLY, such as Bernie (not D or R but I) or Elizabeth Warren, or Jim Jeffords way back. It’s rare, and these people are subject to the same Washington DC bullshit that everyone else is, so treat them with a block of salt.

I’m just trying to say that my exhortations not to vote are not an inflexible suggestion. There are cases when it’s useful to vote for one of the plain vanilla candidates. But do your research, and never vote blind. It’s better not to vote than vote in a slate. Far better to go third-party or not vote at all, if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Good conversation, AliceWeir, thanks. AWJT

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I understand that Congress wraps itself in lots of layers of bureaucracy to prevent itself from actually making laws, and that the NSA has enough data to make almost anyone look like a monster. Still, in the more naive parts of my imagination picture a senator saying, “Here’s a bill that permanently strips your agency of all funding. It gets voted on on Tuesday. I expect thorough and accurate answers to every question on this list before then.”

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Thanks to you , too.

With the recently-extended National Defense Authorization Act with its near $700 billion budget and authorization for the President to order any citizen apprehended on US soil and held indefinitely without trial. In Congress, only 3 Democrats and 12 Republicans voted against it!

At the state level, however, Governor Jerry Brown, in CA, called for a state law to ban any cooperation whatsoever at state level with this monstrosity. It passed overwhelmingly, with exactly 1 dissenting vote. That’s 80 members - 54 Democrats, 25 Republicans, and 1 vacant seat.

So, there are some positive actions that can be taken at the state level. MOC’s running in the next election are certain to begin grandstanding and claiming positions their votes last month absolutely deny. But, we only have to fire them en masse once to get the message through loud and clear.

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lol

^^ Even though I consider this a perfectly apt addition to the conversation, BBS needs a minimum of 6 characters. Because of course 6 is the magic number in which a contribution becomes worthwhile. I could have just added some needless punctuation, but I thought I’d soapbox instead.

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Bad idea. As it is, only about 30% of registered voters ever bother showing up to the polls in presidential election years. It’s worse in years when only congresscritters are up for re-election. If more people got off their duffs and voted, we might have the congress we deserve instead of the one a minority of us decided we’d get.

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If not for the heavy preselection of scoundrels, I would agree with you. But if you have no one to believe in, there’s no point in participating.

Volatility should be handled with caution. It doesn’t help individual candidates or people who are counting on them, but it does make it easier for the over-all window of political discouse to shift, since more randomness allows more radical candidates to get in as often. And certainly we should want an appropriate shift.

But if you think about how this works out, it leaves the shift entirely determined by the ones who select candidates in the first place. Not voting or treating all candidates as equivalent gives them even less worry about keeping things palatable to the general electorate, so really, such volatility is a benefit to them. Make sure they’re on your side before you push for it.

As IronEdithKidd says, America already has low voter turnout, and it’s not hard to tell who is pushing for it and who gains from it. It’s gone with a slide far toward the interests of wealthy campaign donors, who with little interested electorate are all but the only ones that determine whether someone might be elected.

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I am glad we are finally getting more people to the meat of the conversation. This kind of discussion is GREAT.

I advocate not voting and increasing volatility not as a way of benefitting the minority, but as a way of inciting the majority to THINK, and for the minority to sit uneasily closer to the edges of their boardroom chairs.

Among the 30% of voters who turn out, how many do you think actually think about their candidates? How many actually make an informed choice to vote D or R, or do they show up at the precinct simply because that’s what they always do? And yet they’ll claim that since they voted, “the voice of the people” was heard. And they say that if you don’t vote, you get what you deserve, you’re not a true citizen, a freeloader, etc.

Hogwash.

Elections are generally rigged. While the vote tallying is usually fair, with a few notable exceptions, the election itself is corrupt. All because of the pre-selection process.

At the carnival, when you try to stand up the milk bottle with the ring on a string, the game was rigged before you, the sucker, ever walked up and handed the carny your money. That’s US elections.

Victors claim: fair and beautiful, I love this system!
Losers: we better get out the vote next time!
Losers of razor-thin elections: I demand a recount!
Ties and inconclusive counts: I want the Supreme Court to decide!

But it’s still the milk bottle game. The center of gravity is off. The election was rigged in the first place for scoundrels. Ask yourself how many stand-up people are in Congress and state governments?

How can you willingly participate in such a system?

To make any difference at all, we need to put our energy into dismantling and un-rigging the pre-selection system. Until then, elections are pointless.

Until we fix primaries and the exclusive two-party club, we are all just huffing at the wind, demonizing each other about a pointless vote. VOTING DOESN’T MATTER. You are fooling yourself if you think that voting is the only way to have an effect.

Take Fix, err, I mean Fox News. Predicated on disseminating lies and echo-chambering absolute distortions, they have had more influence on US elections than any other organization in history. Does Fox News “vote”?

If there’s a candidate worthy of your vote, then certainly vote. Don’t not vote simply because of not voting. But never, NEVER vote for a lesser of two evils. Only ever vote for someone whom you absolutely believe in and trust to represent you. Don’t vote for some candidate that is 99% the way there on your issues, but ohhhhh, he’s anti-abortion… maybe I can overlook that because he’s such a great guy. NNNNNNNNOPE. You just voted for a scoundrel.

Vote, but only when your vote actually counts for something. Which, as I said in previous posts, is going to mostly be local issues.

Voting does still influence a number of things, some of which have real impact on many people. I certainly haven’t said it is the only way to have an effect, or that it has nearly enough effect.

What I’ve said is as fewer and fewer people vote, it’s only played further to the interests of those who can afford to do the pre-selection. Voting for the least evil is not much restraint on them, sure, but giving them full control is even less.

I hear you, and it’s all perfectly logical. But I see the vanishing point as already long behind us. So, while it may or may not be true that “as fewer and fewer people vote, it’s only played further to the interests of those who can afford to do the pre-selection,” what I am saying is that it doesn’t matter either way. That’s because (imho) long ago, the game was rigged not in our favor. So, no matter what we do: vote or not vote in big elections, the endgame was predetermined. Just like a carny game. I refuse to participate in this collective fantasy.

If we changed the fantasy, then I would say that voting could matter again. But, right now, in this reality, voting does not matter.

That’s only true if you ignore everything mentioned in the two links I gave. I agree most significant change would depend on things beyond voting in the big elections, but in the mean time it still demonstrably impacts things like unemployment, deficits, rights for people from gays and workers, involvement in wars, and so on. Not everyone has the luxury to pretend those things don’t matter either way.

Not ignore - interpret correctly. By your logic, in voting for Obama, we have effectively traded our individual liberties, the right to privacy and freedom from intrusion by the NSA, for gay marriage and more jobs. If voting were of paramount importance in determining these outcomes.

But voting is NOT the primary determinant. Voting is but one part, and, as I’ve argued consistently, but one small, and at this point in history, inconsequential part.

Those social ideas that have come to fruition are not the direct result of voting. They are ideas whose time has come.

Think about the retrograde motion we, as a nation, have experienced in civil rights: are we not seeing new incarnations of racism and police brutality daily? That is because voting has not solved the issue. And more voting is not going to touch it. The social issue must come to a head, and THEN the problem will be dealt with. At that point, the voting will be an afterthought.

I don’t see voting as a cause. I see voting as an effect.

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I’ll vote for people I disagree with. I like a lot of people I disagree with. Sometimes I’m wrong and they help me see that.

I’m less interested in having a candidate that aligns on every specific issue and more interested in a person who will work in the best interest of the state/nation/people they represent. I want someone I can trust to behave ethically and do good work on my behalf.