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Saturday, July 23, 20051122162900
Slashdot's Leftist Hatefest
"Chapter 26," by King Solomon, Proverbs, http://bible.gospelcom.net/passage/?book_id=24&chapte....
"TSA Violated Privacy Act," by CowboyNeal, Slashdot, 23 July 2005, http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/23/1339252&a....
"Terror Is as Terror Does," by Doc Ruby, Slashdot, 23 July 2005, http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=156799&cid=13....
"Brilliant Strategy," by Anonymous Coward, Slashdot, 23 July 2005, http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=156799&cid=13....
"This makes me mad...," by tdaxp, Slashdot, 23 July 2005, http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=156799&cid=13144940.
"it pains me..." by Anonymous Coward, Slashdot, 23 July 2005, http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=156799&cid=13145286.
Recently, Slashdot had an article on possible wrongdoing by the Transportation Safety Administration
pin_gween writes "Remember when the TSA said they wanted info on travelers last year? They said they were only using names to test new software. Apparently, they lied. The Guardian has an AP wire about a Congressional report on the TSA. From the article: 'The agency actually took 43,000 names of passengers and used about 200,000 variations of those names - who turned out to be real people who may not have flown that month, the GAO said. A TSA contractor collected 100 million records on those names.' They also 'published a second notice indicating that it would do the things it had earlier said it wouldn't do.' A TSA spokesman said the info will be destroyed when the test is over. My question -- will the test actually end?"
Serious indeed. However, most comments where like this was, which was labeled "5, Insightful" -- the highest possible rating on Slashdot
The TSA will, of course, lie whenever possible. Because they have no accountability. And lying gives them power. Not just "to take over the world", but to do a lousy job. To be lazy, incompetent, and still get paid.
Really, it's completely obvious that, except for the Qaeda and the Taliban, that slogan about "the post-9/11 world" everyone on TV chants, "everything changed", is total BS. Nothing changed, except the ability to scare people into submission went off the charts. People who wanted war in Iraq, no matter what, got their war. People who wanted giant defense budgets got them. People who wanted to discard habeas corpus protections got rid of them. People who wanted Republicans to control all the branches of government got them. People who wanted an excuse for a broken economy, to cover up offshoring, inadequate education, failed confidence from Enron, WorldCom, ArthurAndersen, and a generation of Wall Street snake oil salesmen, got their excuse. People who wanted tax shirking got it. People who wanted racial profiling and massive privacy invasion got it. People who wanted government handouts to their welfare states, at the cost of $trillions in debt, got all that. And all the oil profiteers got $60:barrel oil, which costs little more to extract and sell than when it was $25. And of course they got federal tax credits for buying SUVs that get <15MPG, rather than 50MPG alternative energy vehicles.
But only if you embraced terror: became a terrorist. People who didn't, like the Democrats, didn't get what they wanted
And the following is rated "4, Funny"
I'm so sick and tired of all the stupid libertarians/liberals here always misunderestimating the President, whose only goal is to keep us all safe from harm.
Terrorists hate America because they hate our freedom, right? By taking away Americans' freedom, you effectively remove the terrorist threat. Take that Osama Hussein!
My comment was "0, Flamebait" -- the lowest possible rating
This makes me mad... almost as mad as the fact that Muslim terrorists use passenger jets to crash into tall buildings and kill thousands of people .
I do not like the TSA's deception/incompetence/whatever. But please put this story in perspective. Evil terrorists want to kill us. TSA was created to try to thwart them. If the TSA is erring on the side of caution, it's too bad they are making mistakes. But if those mistakes stop evil murderers from blowing things up with jets with my family on them, I'm not going to be too upset.
To put it in comparison, this reply is rated higher than that:
But if those mistakes stop evil murderers from blowing things up with jets with my family on them, I'm not going to be too upset.
But what if they don't ? What if they just serve to increase government control over its citizens instead, while doing little about terrorism ?
Do you blindly trust a government that is, by and large, corporation- and church-controlled ? Actually - do you honestly believe that this is about terrorism ?
Well, watching a once grand community be swarmed by anti-American Leftists, at least I can take comfort in the cool, coherent, easy-to-understand words of the Bible
Do not answer a fool according to his folly,
or you will be like him yourself.Answer a fool according to his folly,
or he will be wise in his own eyes
Darn it!!!
18:55 Posted by Dan tdaxp (Webmaster) in Blogosphere, Democrats | Permalink | Comments (8) | Email this | Tags: slashdot
Comments
I do think the reply makes a good point, that draconian and invasive legislation may in fact not do anything to protect us, while creating a "cure" far worse than the disease. Stripsearching old ladies for fingernail clippers isn't doing a jot about the underlying problem, which is the fact that there is an adaptible and agile transnational group bent on destroying the United States.
It's only creating fertile ground for a police state. Without freedom, we're a third world nation.
Posted by: jeremiah | Sunday, July 24, 2005
Jeremaih, on the slashdot's remarks:
The last concept has four major components, none worthwhile.
1: It raises an issue in the form of two question with no proposition offered. To adress them
(a) "What if they don't?" Then we have erred on the same of safety. The other doesn't mention what his concern is, so it is impossible to address.
(b) "What if they just serve to increase government control over its citizens instead..." Ditto as before. The other has no proposition, no solution; literally, he has no idea. He has only a question floating in space. Great rhetoric, terrible logic.
2: Erring on the same of safety involves "blind trust." A (stupid) conclusion that he supports nowhere. Great rhetoric, terrible logic. Also, again it's just a question without its own idea.
3: "a government that is, by and large, corporation- and church-controlled" I assume he is arguing that our government is, by and large, corporation and church controlled. The last two concepts of his question ("church" and "controlled") aren't defined, and are commonly used extremely broadly, so he has written a question that cannot be directly addressed. Likewise, he provides no support for (what I assume are) his claims. Terrible.
4: Again, hiding behind a question: "Actually - do you honestly believe that this is about terrorism ?"
To respond with another question: ?!?
Posted by: Dan tdaxp | Sunday, July 24, 2005
Jeremiah, on your own remarks, which are honest and insightful
"Stripsearching old ladies for fingernail clippers isn't doing a jot about the underlying problem,"
It may not be, but it may be helping. al Qaeda is aware of profiling and wrestles against it. Young women, latinos, rich whites, etc, have all been used as agents in documented cases.
Now, there may be much better solutions. Arming all passengers with knives would probably do a lot more to stop hijacking. Such would be a substantive criticism -- the kind of critique the /.ers studiously avoided.
"[the underlying problem] which is the fact that there is an adaptible and agile transnational group bent on destroying the United States."
Think of al Qaeda like a disease. We must fight both the cause and the symptoms. Refusing to do both does a disservice to our patient.
"It's only creating fertile ground for a police state."
It depends on what you mean by "police state." If you mean such as Israel, a democracy at war with terrorism, then perhaps.
If you mean "A state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic, and political life of the people, especially by means of a secret police force," then what security measure wouldn't qualify under your standards?
"Without freedom, we're a third world nation."
Well, perhaps. Singapore is doing very well. But more substantively, this is a "misdirection." I never advocated the government taking any freedoms from anyone. I defended a lessening of privacy, which is not a freedom.
Privacy is not an act that can be banned. It is the ignorance of others.
Posted by: Dan tdaxp | Sunday, July 24, 2005
I've contended for some time that the response on the part of the United States after 9/11 have been part of the goal of the attacks. They can drive the country into spasmodic defensive action, paranoia and hand-wringing so easily. Al Qaeda is smaller, lighter and physically weaker. Therefore, they need to engage in jujitsu tricks designed to create a reflexive unbalancing response from the larger and stronger adversary.
I think that the TSA is a solution to problems having nothing to do with terrorism.
You may be familiar with the 2x2 matrix discussed by David Brin in "A Transparent Society."
On one axis, we have a scale going from individual privacy to individual transparency (ie no privacy.) On the other axis, the scale goes from institutional privacy to institutional transparency. So the state of affairs in a given country can fall into one of four quadrants on this graph:
* Individual privacy and institutional privacy
* Individual privacy and institutional transparency
* Individual transparency and institutional transparency
* Individual transparency and institutional privacy
We're nearing the fourth quadrant, meaning that data about individuals is commonly available to institutions, while legislation creating institutional transparency has been abrogated by the Administration in the name of personal security.
I don't think that such a model is very favorable to a true, informed democracy. In a situation where we need legislation such as the Patriot Act, the ultimate goal should be a rollback of intrusive security measures after the color-coded terrorism warning system has rolled back into green. Congress has just voted in favor of extending the Patriot Act in perpetuity. I don't think this is a good thing.
Posted by: jeremiah | Sunday, July 24, 2005
BRILLIANT point. I will try to address it in a blog post later today.
Posted by: Dan tdaxp | Sunday, July 24, 2005
A small technical note: -1 is the lowest possible score for a post, slashdot moderators do not post on the thread they are moderating and are selected randomly from the established population. Slashdot will always twist and shift depending on the general energy level of the right and the left. Technical competence and political alignment are independent variables.
Posted by: TM Lutas | Sunday, July 24, 2005
TM,
Thank you for the correction. I had forgotten that.
The degeneration of comment ability on Slashdot has been a slow rerun of the abandonment of USENET as a forum for reasonable debate.
Perhaps this is just the nature of swarms -- driving out non-swarmers out of an environment, whether the swarmers are commercial spammers, political activists, etc.
Posted by: Dan tdaxp | Monday, July 25, 2005
Larwyn,
Good point on the power of mantras in the global war on terrorism. The less literate the culture, the more important it is to repeat a point over-and-over. Both logic and our own mantras will be needed in a wide-spectrum verbal assault on terrorism.
Posted by: Dan tdaxp | Monday, July 25, 2005