The NSA has repeatedly denied that they are doing this. But they are. Since it's a pretty safe bet that you have a cellphone, the NSA knows where you are and where you have been.
The NSA is also tracking everyone's use of social media because they want to know your personal relationships and who your friends are. They're collecting your browsing data (why are you still doing online banking).
This needs to be fixed.
Which brings me to the point of this post: How the Tea Party and the conservatives are wrapping themselves around the post on trivialities. They have shut down the Federal government over whether or not people who have not had heath insurance can have access to health insurance and medical care. Providing a national version of Romneycare is, according to them, the clearest and presentist danger to the Republic that has ever existed.*
Yet when clear evidence is presented to them of Federal government intrusion: Tracking what people do online, who they talk to on their phones and what they talk about, what they purchase with their credit/debit cards and where they are, well, all you hear from the Right is silence.
This is the Tea Party calculus:
- Government providing health insurance to millions more people- that's tyranny! Shut down the government!!
- Government actually spying on all Americans- meh. Nothing to worry about.
And they are holding our nation hostage to their delusions.
We are so screwed.
But fuck it, if they're going to try and wreck our country, let them do their worst. Let's have this fight, right here, right now. Let's get it over with.
We beat them in 1865. We can beat them now.
Let's do this thing.
______________________________
* Ignoring the British (18th-19th centuries), the German Third Reich, Imperial Japan and the Soviet Union, because they were minor threats.
We beat them in 1865. We can beat them now
ReplyDeleteWho are "we" and who are "them"?
"Them" are the people who believe in states' rights and nullification-- the theories that were dreamed up by the defenders of slavery. "Them" are the people who, for the last few years, have bleated that they would shut down the government if they didn't get their way.
ReplyDeleteThey need to be beaten like gongs.
Defending the liberal position makes even a smart person seem a little slow-witted.
ReplyDeleteHarry Reid(a.k.a. self-endorsed asshole) is responsible for the shutdown.
-Moe
Moe, sorry, you are wrong.
ReplyDeleteThe Tea Party caucus has been talking for months about shutting down the government unless the ACA was either defunded or delayed. In essence, they said: "Nice government you have here. Shame if anything were to happen to it, so do it our way."
The Democrats, for once, are showing some spine.
But hey, if you want to blame the store owner because an extortionist trashed his store, feel free.
"They need to be beaten like gongs."
ReplyDeleteHarder.
yep... bears repeating, and repeating and... hope you don't mind that I posted it verbatim to my blog and linked it to facebook cuz doing a straight link into facebook creates such a big header nobody ever gets past it to read the guts...
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of what motivates the Tea Party is a sense that the Fed.Gov has grown recklessly and dangerously. Obamacare is part of this, but only part.
ReplyDeleteThe NSA's "Eye of Sauron" program hasn't yet sunk in, partly because the Media is trying every way it can to shield Obama. Elect a Republican President, and you'll suddenly get NSA all over the headlines.
But to your global point that the GOP doesn't give a damn about it, yeah.
We'll leave the discussion of state's rights for another day. I do think that there's a case to be made for that, and I say that as a Yankee born and bread, with a great-great grandfather who was in Sherman's army.
BP, there have been news stories about the NSA for years. There were drips and drabs in 2006 and 2007. What Snowden did was pull it altogether.
ReplyDeleteSo where is the conservative media on this? As far as I know, Fox and the Murdoch empire are not pushing the story. It's being left to The Guardian and Der Spiegel, with the American press occasionally chiming in. (Part of that is because there is no bigger statist than Murdoch.)
But no. The conservatives are worried about Obamacare, not the NSA. Which is akin to being concerned about a facial pimple and ignoring a sucking chest wound.
BP, it just hit me that you pretty much said this: "Conservatives aren't upset about the NSA/FBI/DEA spying because the liberal media isn't covering it."
ReplyDeleteThat kind of boggles my mind.