Hours later, percentages unchanged.
Sad to see. Thirty-Five percent of respondents--actual internet users (capable of turning a computer on and navigating to access the internet or, at least typing a few words), have apparently been brainwashed by our government... They are in error in so many ways.
First, they must be really scared--there is real cause for concern, but we shouldn't be so desperate as to give up our rights (which others have fought so hard and died to create and preserve). "Terrorists are capable of killing us all, or at least whole cities, and we're almost powerless to stop them, so we must trade our right to privacy in exchange for enabling our concerned government to find terrorists and discover their plans--anything to be safe from terrorists!"
Second, they're conditioned to 'obey', or worse, actually 'trust' "Authority". "If the
President/Government says it's necessary, it must be necessary--I will do as I'm told and accept this."
Third, they can't seem to realize they're being lied to, or worse, it doesn't even matter to them they're being lied to. "The President says it's okay, it's legal, it's only listening to those awful terrorists and they're protecting my privacy... surely it's true, this is America!".
Fourth, they don't exercise much 'critical thinking'. "Uh, I don't understand why those radical lefties are so upset, so what if the NSA is collecting millions of people's phone records? They need that to find the terrorists, but even so, they're only listening to the terrorists and nobody else. Besides, it's all legal anyway. I don't get it?"
Fifth, they appear to be poorly educated about how our government works (is supposed to work), and are ignorant of both the meaning and importance of the Constitution. "Since the President authorized it, it's legal and the Congress and the Courts have to accept it because he's their boss--they answer to him and do what he tells them to do, right? Besides, we don't really have a right to keep the government from discovering private details about us--how else would they find the terrorists?".
Sixth, the seem placid, unperturbable and complacent and also unable to recognize that even one such successful encroachment on our rights is an invitation to further encroachment. "Secretly tapping the "terrorist's" phones is great! But, collecting a bunch of phone records is no big deal; if you don't have anything to hide, you have nothing to worry about. I'm innocent, so I have nothing to fear. So, I have no problem with the program; in fact, I support it because it helps keep us all safe and alive. Besides, it's just some phone records... what's the big deal?"
Seventh, they're missing the point, again and again. "Tapping phones and collecting phone records is legal, acceptable because I have nothing to hide and it's actually necessary! What do you mean it's against the law? Whose law? Who says? Congress, what do they have to do with this? The Federal Courts? Why are they involved? What do you mean this could cause a Constitutional Crisis in which the Executive is trying to dismiss or overrule the other two branches of government? Surely you can't be serious in claiming that collecting millions of phone records is both an invasion of privacy and plainly unnecessary and proves that the NSA is going to be investigating untold thousands of innocent Americans under the pretext of "national security" and "the search for terrorists". You must be insane to think that just because there is no oversight whatsoever that the NSA/Bush Administration would even think of abusing such information and power?" And, so on...
Eighth, they often don't even understand what's being done (well, no one outside of those involved really knows what's being done, but we know some things). "The NSA only taps the phones of terrorists, and they don't use that court thingy because they're working so fast and they're so busy they couldn't possibly use it for, umm..., oh yeah, 'warrants'. They would never listen to me because I'm not a terrorist. Besides, they have the full support of Congress, and the Courts don't mind--they all support the President. As for the phone records, once they've analyzed them, they will be able to find all the terrorists and besides, that information doesn't have any personal details about me!"
:bluebox:
This is a response to the 'Eighth' error. Why sure, the goverment magically knows which phones belong to the terrorists, so they only tap their phones and the ones the terrorist calls--nobody else.... Not so. They're clearly going to have to listen in to many innocent people's phones, and there's a very real chance they'll be intentionally spying on all sorts of people who have nothing, not one iota of evidence of anything to do with terrorists--though they probably are people who are politically involved and especially likely candidates if they're Democrats or Liberals or Peace Activists...
Yet there's no court oversight as Congress demanded--in fact, that's the specific reason for the FISA Court. It's there to make sure the NSA (and the Bush Administration behind them) is not abusing it's powers. It allows for urgent, fast, no time to get a warrant wiretapping, simply report it to the FISA court in a few days. It's true, though, that the NSA wouldn't have time to report/request warrants if they went after tens or hundreds of thousands or millions of Americans.
Which, by the way, proves another one of Bush's blatant lies; his claim they're only spying on suspected terrorists (unless you wildly expand and stretch that definition to include literally every regular citizen--and, that actually sounds like something Bush would think--especially now that it's clear that most citizens don't approve of his performance of his Godly calling) cannot be true because there's no possibility that there are even a small fraction of that many terrorists in the whole world. They also can't really expect that the FISA Court would approve millions of wiretaps when there is exactly zero evidence of any links to terrorism.
Actually, even with just the phone records (and no one knows if that is the limit or extent of their collection--they could just as easily record every phone call and translate it from speech to text and store both the recording and the transcript away) would provide very little information pertaining to terrorism, but it would provide a clear description of your entire social circle and much of your personal activities... What would the government need or want that for? Seriously?
Bush and his Administration are in the middle of an unprecedented "Power Grab"! They are seeking almost "Dictatorial" powers and calling it the "Unitary Executive"... They have thumbed thier noses at Congress and the Laws of this land. Congress makes the laws, the Courts interpret them and the Executive is "supposed to" enforce them. The Executive is not supposed to be "above the law", but they are. Right now they are, and long since have been, ignoring and breaking countless laws--and nobody's doing anything.
Naturally, there are weaknesses in any design for a government and ours is no exception. We do seem to have a particular problem--one that only shows when faced with exactly the unfortunate situation we are facing. That is, when all three branches are suffering a majority from the same party, and when that party abandons all sense of normal, traditional, honest political behavior and acts as a cohesive "faction" interested only in "total power" and complete "domination" of the minority, and when we also have a radical, insane, unethical, corrupt and power-mad Executive. This is a very small weakness or flaw and the for the necessary conditions would presumably be extremely unlikely to ever occur naturally (hence this is pretty obviously the end result of some very powerful elements all conspiring to bring just such a situation to fruition--it's obvious that Republicans have been slowly making just the right changes over the last two or three decades to accomplish this--and one, just one of many, but one of the most important of the key items was to have the FCC deregulate and discard the Fairness Doctrine...). Still, when one has a packed Supreme Court, and a Congress that's relenquished their "Duty" in favor of "Partisanship" so as to rubber-stamp everything the Executive wants (wanted), it's no wonder that our government has ceased to function as designed.
Really, it works when everybody does their part; alas, Congress and the Courts aren't doing anything. The weakness was twofold. First, emboldened by the "pretense" of a "War on Terror" (which is not real, one cannot have a war against a 'tactic') which was enabled by a suspiciously "convenient" (coincidentally happening just when it did; "There is no such thing as Coincidence"~Author Unknown) catastrophic "Terrorist Attack", the Executive has leaped far beyond it's Constitutional bounds and regularly shows it's disregard/disrespect (and resentment of?) for "The Rule of Law". Second, if the Congress/Supreme Court happen to be of the same political faction and if they also abandon their "duty** to uphold the Constitution and the imagined concept of faithfully representing the people, in favor of partisan political power, they will therefore fail to bring the necessary investigations and likewise fail to diligently pursue the subsequently necessary Articles of Impeachment... We have a virtual dictator ruling us, while his totalitarian regime keeps up appearances to be able to pretend it's still a "Democracy" (why it's not a Democracy involves (a) the people's will matters not, (b) our agreed upon means by which new leaders are selected no longer functions honestly, and (c) our internal separation of powers intended to prevent any single individual from obtaining such power as needed to become a dictator (not so different from "decider" either), has more or less collapsed or is collapsing).
Thus our system fails. We no longer live in a real Democratic Republic or "Democracy" as it is popularly termed. Our leaders do not answer to us, and the President can have as much power as he can take with no one to stop him. If the two other branches did decide to do their job, we'd be facing a crisis of government that would necessitate Constitutional scholars in concert with Congress to attempt to resolve the apparent "holes" in the Constitution being exploited by Bush (actually removing him from office via Impeachment could help, but we'd still be faced with potentially the same situation depending only upon the values of the Republican replacement President who could easily just continue Bush Jr's destructive course). One such 'hole' is that the responsibility for determining what is, and what is not Constitutional is not actually formally defined... Traditionally, we've turned to the Supreme Court, but actually, each of the three branches has a right and responsibility to determine what is Constitutional.
That allows Bush to sneakily avoid having to comply with new Bills and Laws made by Congress, all he has to do is just scribbles in margin "this does not apply to me, the God-appointed President (and my Administration)" (of course, to be PC or Politically Correct, he omits the words "God-appointed", but he intends that meaning anyway). Thus it is, he has an 'excuse' or a 'way out' if he's caught breaking the Law or otherwise disregarding the will of Congress. Tricky George (Tricky Dick is more catchy but no more prolific).
So, yes, George W. Bush is doing everything in his power to bring a true Crisis upon America... (and I didn't even mention the foreign entanglements and threats, the impending collapse of the Dollar and our economy, the vast and rapidly growing public debt supported by his spending and tax-cuts for the wealthy, or the fantastic and increasing astronomical gap between Rich and Poor, or, for that matter the disintegration of the middle class, or the loss of citizens rights to sue (even for the most proper reasons) or file bankruptcy (or have it actually help) and worker's rights to, well, anything (safety, security, collective bargaining, access to retirement, or even the right to fight to receive benefits that were guaranteed but unfairly denied, decent wages, etc.), or the rapid increase in pollution in our environment, or ... hell, the list contains more items than I'm even aware of--it's almost endless, they've truly been busy in their pernicious and destructive activities).
**Congressional Oath Of Office "I, Loyal Citizen of the Republic, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.
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