Ok, I'll stop. I guess I've made my points and they haven't been refuted:

Supporters of broad wiretapping programs do not understand how those programs work. Their support is based in irrational psychological tics, they are blind to reason, and they don't care about the consequences of their support.

Anyone else who reads the thread will see this amply demonstrated.

think this was a similar approach Professor Dershowitz was trying to reach some compromise on as well. What do you think about torture warrants, so that SOME court at least has to review and approve the use of torture to prevent something like a ticking-timebomb scenario?

Torture warrants?

Legal warrants to torture people?

The legalization of the systematic and deliberate torture of people?

And you expect us to take you seriously? About anything?

Sometimes inciteful really is the right word... judging by this thread. ;~)

Thanks to everyone else!

While this helps explain why the Democrats are rolling over and playing dead, it DOESN'T explain why the Republicans seem so unconcerned with the power being wielded by Hillary.

Paul: Republicans, unlike Democrats, have a near scientific understanding of how to operate effectively as a minority party. They created the Unitary Executive Monster and have every reason to believe they can reign it in at will. Given the bureacratic, pedestrian, uninspired performance of Democrats since Iran-Contra, I concur.

Any Democrat who ever voted to give Bush authority not only for the war, but for any number of other egregious assaults on the Constitution, can very easily be brought to heel. Were it otherwise, the Democratic Party wouldn't have sold us out to begin with. They are trained dogs and nothing more. With her triangulation, capitulation and Third Way shell games, few would be easier for Republicans to control than Hillary!.

Political theater demands the appearance of opposition. Today's risk-averse American public demands nothing. Until we're willing to risk getting our heads cracked to restore Constitutional governance, we will get exactly what we deserve: an oligarchy which becomes more venal, brutal and oppressive each day it is allowed to rule without any meaningful resistance.

William: The Catch-22 analogy is apt. And the point you make about mass advertising versus targeted advertising cuts to the crux of the Democratic Party's refusal to acknowledge reality. Party leaders and consultants can talk about framing all they want, but message-craft isn't the problem. Sadly, the only guiding principles of the Democratic Party are:

1. Don't piss off Republicans.

2. Ignore criticism from The Left.

3. Get ready to govern again when voters tire of Republicans.

That's it. That's all there is. And a lot of pretty platitudes that mean absolutely nothing.

ondelette: Yes, it is depressing. By all means, cry. I certainly have - and do. But when we let go of the halcyon dreams of years past and bring ourselves to face the unvarnished reality of what has happened to our government, our society, our SELVES, we can rightly view the struggle as a perpetual one which is fundamentally generational in nature. Forget about what *we* have to look forward to for our remaining days, for it is undoubtedly dark and dispiriting, and start thinking about what our progeny will have to endure because of our unwillingness to fight for the noble beliefs we claim to hold dear.

As for the patent issue, get the patent; then recover the cost and use the proceeds, if there are any, to sew disorder into the status quo. It's a formula that worked extremely well for The Authoritarian Right... another lesson we can't claim to have learned if our idea of activism is funding the same grossly corrupt political system responsible for the boot on our throats.

* * * * *

Lastly, the suggestion of amending The Constitution is laughable. We have an executive branch that doesn't subscribe to it. A Congress that doesn't subscribe to it. Federal and Supreme Court justices who don't subscribe to it. A public which barely even knows what The Constitution was - and cares even less.

Whether The Constitution is amended or folded into a paper airplane, the end result - as things now stand, and will stand for the foreseeable future - will be the same. Those who look to The Constitution to save us are using a broken compass. It is a dead document, and adding amendments is the equivalent of exhuming a corpse to give it a shot of botox and a nose job.

...for the beauty of it all, so I could understand things, to make a better world, to participate in the creation of knowledge, for the excitement of solving a problem, to invent new ways to improve the world, or maybe because I was good at it. I got into language because I hoped it would help my painting. I got into painting to create beauty.

So when I was in my twenties, they told me I could make a living spying on people, in my thirties, making ways to disperse nerve gas, and in my fifties sifting through other people's electronic lives. Why?

Just because it is made of electrons and photons doesn't mean it isn't a fortress, and no one seems to care anymore that a fortress becomes a prison. There are so many things of beauty you could do with data, but no, we have to assume that 6 billion people are terrorists so we can look for ticking time bombs? And if you don't want to, you can crank out IP for greedy corporations who will never fund anything but a sure bet.

Sorry, but my steam valve blows once in a while.

Giving credit where credit is due, the lack of attention to datamongering below the radar was pointed out by Lisa S. not shooter.

As a native of Ukraine and son of WW-II (Great Patriotic War) veteran, I must say that you are one genocidal piece of work.

What with your whacked-out notions of Amerikan Exceptionalism (Red Army faced, what...80% of all Wehrmacht Divisions on Eastern Fronts), and your readiness to surrender your Constitutional Freedoms in the service of your illegitimate authoritarian masters, you sir, are an embarrassment to those Americans who truly care about Rule of Law.

Stalin would approve.

So you wanted to nuke my birthplace? No hard feelings. Here's a small token of my affection to you and your fellating travelers (h/t to my good friend M. Nemirov) :

Идите вы на хуй, ёбаные козлы, идите вы на хуй!

Идите вы на хуй, ёбаные козлы, ёбаная пидарасня!

Идите на хуй, идите, блядь, суки, в пизду,

Идите блядь, в сраку, мудилы ебучие, на хуй идите, оставьте меня!

Love,

QM