@Confucius

thank you so very much for taking the time to clarify your position.
but i think we are in a fundamental disagreement.
and here is why:

1.manning approached wikileaks.not the other way around.
2.is manning a traitor or patriot? i guess it depends on the perspective.
but manning was quite clear his reasons behind revealing those documents and none of those reasons were of being naive' or subverted by a third party.

when you consider the oath of military responsibility,an i oath i took over 25 years ago,the line that stands out is "to protect from enemies both foreign and domestic".
could those documents be seen as subverting the american people?
and if so,would that not make revealing those documents a patriotic act?

again,perspective and i guess we disagree.

conversely, if we use your premise then we would have to view this man:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg
as a traitor.
now the 70,000 plus documents HE revealed exposed the gulf of tonkin AND extremely sensitive data concerning the vietnam war.i would go as far to say that without this mans courage (yes..courage) to expose the lies of our government,vietnam may have lasted for a much longer time.ellisberg fascillitated the beginning of the end of the vietnam war

the documents manning revealed just left the american government red faced and embarrassed but nothing of strategic value.ellisberg on the other hand revealed much MUCH more.

traitor or patriot? by your definition:traitor and a far worse one than manning.

and on that we disagree.

what we agree on is that governments lie.
we are in unison on this point but we diverge on how to deal with the situation.

you suggest to work within the bounds of journalism or becoming a politician.
now who is being the naive one?
this implies that the 4th estate is in perfect functioning order and that politicians are informed on all matters.

i submit that neither is the case.
a corporate run new media which engages mainly in sensationalism and hyperbolic opinion rhetoric and a legislature that is mostly subserviant to their financial backers( basically wall street) are not the institutions to tackle and uncover government malfeasance and outright lies.

they have been corrupted.see:iraq war

so i find it disturbing when the government hi-jacks 200 ap reporters emails and phone records.

or when a low level private reveals low level ambassador documents.

or my government's justice department prosecutes SIX people under the espionage act but not ONE indictment concerning wall street.

the message is clear:we are the US government.fuck with us and we will fuck you up.citizen or non-citizen.
there will be no journalism.
there will be no leaking of anything.
sit down and shut up.

or we will ruin you.

government by the people for the people right?

@NetRunner Would you have given LBJ a pass on the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution? Is the escalation of war/violence somehow different now than it was then?

I've explained my position about as clearly as I can. I'm asking you to do the same. You claim that 1) invading Iran would be "without cause", and 2) that Obama would not do so despite his willingness to continue another war which he didn't initiate. Please provide evidence or reasoning to suggest that either of those statements could be true.

>> ^NetRunner:
I say that temporarily increasing troops in Afghanistan is very different from launching an invasion on Iran without cause, and that Obama's willingness to do the former doesn't imply he's likely to do the latter.

conflations.
deflections..
and false equivalencies are all the dissenting arguments i am seeing.
and this is not due to me being a "leftist' and therefore not owning the ability to critically digest historical information and come to a conclusion.

someone spent 20 minutes to refute some of the data in this video only to find out the numbers were accurate BUT they did not reveal the specifics and hence the argument was invalid.
kinda like: "the yellow honda ran over a man today crushing his skull"
"HA! the car was GREEN"
"so it was but how does that change the fact the car crushed a mans skull?"

some have suggested that american interventionism is sometimes messy but usually a necessity.so while it may be complicated,sometimes america has had to do what the rest of the world would not.
this (falsely) implies that their is a thread of moral good when america attempts to straighten out an ugly situation in a foreign country and that sometimes,sadly,this leads to unintended consequences that may lead to blowback.
this is pure propaganda and i say this not because i hate my country but because if it were a true statement then america would be where ALL human rights,oppression and suffering under the hands of despotic governments resided worldwide.

see:rwanda,east timor,bangledesh there is a massive amount of places where america had a strict non-interventionist attitude.
and the reason is simple.those countries had nothing to offer,but our government seems to REALLY like working with dictators.easier to deal with one person who is friendly to american interests than a whole population that might (gasp/horror) have the ability to vote your interests down.so not only does america not give two shits about a country with no resources to exploit,they prefer despotic dictators and have installed them when necessary in the name of american interests.

war is always for the same things:resources,land and labor.now for thousands of years it was religion that was the driving force to get the average person to go out and slaughter but for the past 100 years it has been nationalism.

one last thing to address those who have mentioned alqaeda and what they post.
firstly:this has nothing to do with this video and is a false equivalency.
secondly:look up where alqaeda was on the FBI's most wanted list in 1999.look at who trained alqaeda,even funded them.notice anything?

so we can say vietnam was complicated.
ok..i can agree with that but lets remember it would have never even been issue if not for our government creating a false situation in which to enter vietnam in the first place.see:gulf of tonkin.
and again,has nothing to do with the premise of this video.

we can say muslims dont hate our freedom but rather they perceive us as immoral and decadent.
i would agree with that also if we were in the 1950's and the conversation was sayyid qutb and the muslim brotherhood but we are talking alqaeda which is the creation of the american intelligence CIA.
so it is america which created the complications we are speaking of.so whatever propaganda alqaeda uses now to recruit besides just pointing to us bombing the shit out of them is still indirectly a result of american interventionism.

neo-conservative ideology has nothing to do with being conseravtive but everything to do with using the massive might of the military to secure american interests globally.
might makes right.

lets also remember traditionally republicanism tended to be isolationist and faaar less hawkish.so ron paul is just being a traditional republican.of course now we live in bizzarro universe where everything is opposite so we have self-proclaimed republicans admonishing ron paul for ..what exactly? being a republican?
thats just weird.

and please understand that my points are not just some rage against america.i am not,by my commentary,ignoring the vast amount of good and noble things my country has done over the past 100 years or so but i also will not shut my eyes to what my countries foreign policy has done to so many small countries who happen to coincidently all be populated by brown people.

might i suggest:
chalmers johnson "blowback"
bryzenski's "the grand chessboard"
or the stellar book by john perkins "economic hitman"

maybe you will understand ron pauls position on these things.
/rant off

@JiggaJonson
really?
so a man makes a video pertaining to the republican debates in where ron paul tells the audience the real reason certain middle eastern countries have a problem with american foreign policy and your criticism is that it was too "over-generalized"?
the video is four minutes long!
should he have made it a documentary?
i guess i dont understand your position my friend because you dont seem to have a problem with the information just that it was over-generalized leading to distorted facts.which i am assuming you mean context.
that would be a mighty long video.
which leads me to @quantumushroom and his comment.
what bullshit?
were you aware that there are some estimates reaching as high as 5 million? and some as low as 700,000?
should this man have included the gulf of tonkin?
cambodia? east timor?
and what does fundamentalist islam have to do with what ron paul is stating?
i am not denying the horrors of radical islam and neither is this video and has nothing to do with the conversation.that is a wholly different discussion.you are free to be afraid of brown people and their mysterious "allah" character but you are NOT free to ignore historical facts.to do so is the epitome of 'willful ignorance".

the main reason i dont understand either of your positions is that ron pauls premise is quite simple:
they dont hate us for our freedom or because we are just chock full of awesome.
they hate us because we have been fucking with their shit for over 50 years.
bin laden was pretty upfront the reasons why and the defense department agrees.
this is where ron paul got his information.
he didnt just pull it out of his ass.
this video highlights some of the dire effects of american foreign policy over the last 50 years.
we may not like that information nor be proud of what our government did in our name but not liking something does not make it less true.

could either of you explain your position a bit further please?
maybe i am just misunderstanding.

>> ^NetRunner:

>> ^ponceleon:
Actually I have no problem with motive. I heard Ron Paul say at the debates that we are spending 20bil to air-condition tents for soldiers in Afghanistan... that 20bil is making SOMEONE really rich, so there is definitely a LOT of profit to be made in war.
I guess I should've been more clear. I agree that there's a full array of means, motive, and opportunity for Bushclan/Templars/Majestic 12, etc. to conspire to make the whole 9/11 attack happen in the first place.
What I don't understand is the way that suspicion has transformed into a decade-long attempt to prove that demolitions brought down the various WTC building. I simply can't fathom why anyone would do that, especially if you were a super-capable secret cabal concocting the entire scenario to manipulate people.
If it was an evil organization who could secretly wire the building with explosives, then why wouldn't they just pop the explosives and blame Al Qaeda for it? Why would they hire/manipulate Al Qaeda into flying airplanes into the building, and then demo the building Hollywood style? It seems like it'd be a huge risk (what if someone found the explosives early or evidence of them after?) for no apparent reward.
The buildings fell because of the planes that got flown into them. The real questions to be asking if you're looking for a conspiracy would be "did anyone seem to know about it in advance who shouldn't have?" or more damningly, "did anyone seem to disregard advance information about it who shouldn't have?"
You know, like someone who ignored intelligence briefings with titles like "bin Laden determined to strike in the US"...


Netrunner, what's your thoughts on Operation Northwoods?

Northwoods was a false-flag operation plan by the CIA in 1962. It called for terrorist attacks like hijacking planes, disguising US fighter jets as Cuban MIG fighters, and killing US citizens.

Journalist James Bamford summarized Operation Northwoods in his April 24, 2001 book Body of Secrets:
"Operation Northwoods, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war."


The plan was on the desk of JFK and he refused. JFK was later assassinated. The following year LBJ used the staged Gulf of Tonkin incident to go to war in Vietnam. The people that questioned that incident were called conspiracy nuts. But the truth eventually came out, and it will for 9/11 also.

The point is false-flag attacks and government manipulation of evidence is nothing new. And is certainly nothing our government hasn't done before.

I never was satisfied with the NTSB's report on the super pancaking explanation for the speed of the towers collapse. Perhaps it is emotional, but it is less convincing than many other of their findings from plane crashes and the like. What always puzzled me is why the building was so quick to be disposed of instead of what they do on planes; reconstruct it and examine. Perhaps the scale was to great or the fall and subsequent stack of it made reconstruction impossible, but it always left a bad taste in my mouth. Perhaps all the misgivings that I have they share as well, and instead of letting that foster a share of doubt and mystery, they have gone the other direction and made positive assertions of conspiracy. My guess is people don't like doubt, at all. It drives the theist to make claims of a God, it drives some atheists to make the claim of no God. People can't say, "I don't know and I don't know that the truth is ever knowable" doesn't sit well with the bulk of humanity, even those who would consider themselves the elite of intellectuals, perhaps even them the most.

At any rate, I would watch this once. Depending on the tone of the first 20 mins would determine if I watched it the whole way through. I was forced to watch that Ben Stine movie about creationism, and I hated it, but not nearly as much as I hated the show by Bill Maher (see elite of intellectuals above) about how dumb people that don't think like him are.

Will this be our generations Gulf of Tonkin, doubtful. Will it contain some meaningful doubts on a hasty and politically mired investigation, hopefully. Will there be more crazies than you can tolerate in one sitting, time will tell.

@bcglorf
conspiracy theories have a tendency to grow exponentially in order to keep itself viable in a persons desire to keep it alive.
so i will let you and duckman continue your discussion concerning the reasons/logic/science behind the fall of the towers.i am no structural engineer and do not hold a doctorate in physics but i think it a worthy debate,it's just not one i am that interested in.i tend to be of the school of "though they may have prepared for a jet to hit...they fell anyways".
however...
i see you have posted..multiple times..that noone has answered the question of "whats to gain"?
now THIS is the area i do have great interest in and i did (among others) answer that question you stated nobody answered.
lets remember that the version that the american government gave to us was..in itself..a conspiracy theory and it is a flimsy one at that.
but ...for the sake of argument..lets put that aside and begin with the assertion that the american government version is correct and not riddled with fallacies.
whats to gain?
the power to capitalize on the collective fear and rage of a country to push through unpleasant and unpopular legislation.
do i need to hold you hand and walk you through the shitstorm of half truths and blatant lies beginning in sept 2001 to march 2003?
i do not expect you to know about:
the lusitania
reichstchag
gulf of tonkin
(though you should)
but you were THERE for those years where our own government looked us all in the face and bold faced LIED.
and we are still there.
over 1,000,000 dead.
tens of thousands disfigured and maimed.
millions more displaced.
we even moved it into another country and are planning on a third.
iran is next (read the grand chessboard.bryzenski called this in 1999 to the letter).
what is to GAIN?
is that question even serious?
if so you have not been paying attention my friend.
billions...possibly TRILLIONS..is what is to gain.
not for you of course..nor i..but for those who would subjugate and pervert the grief of a nation in order to expand its control over resources on other shores.
why?
because governments lie..THATS why!
so i dont accept my governments version of the "why".it does not hold up to scrutiny and as evidenced by the last 8 years makes their version even more suspect.
did the towers fall?
yes.
by planes crashing into them?
looks like but there are those who disagree and many of them have compelling arguments.so i say keep arguing.keep debating and asking the questions.
so go right ahead duckman and keep asking those questions my friend.
did terrorists enact the most elaborate attack ever?
possibly they did.
was it because they "hate us for our freedom"?
using volumptuous's terminology:no..thats fucking retarded.
the reasons are diverse as they are far more understandable than that inane statement of "they hate is for our freedom".
while we can learn the "why" fairly easily,the HOW is where i get skeptical and is where my incredulity comes in because our governments version is just....weak.
too many variables and supposed professionals having a collective and simultaneous "duh" moment.
still possible, though unlikely.

i guess it comes down to trusting the government.
maybe you do and if thats the case we will not come to an understanding nor an agreement concerning this because i do NOT trust my government.
power only wished to consolidate its power and to garner even MORE power,be they king,tyrant or dictator and yes..a government can be grouped in the same category.
i state this again:this is not opinion but historical patterns over the centuries.

there ya go bcglorf.
your question has been answered.

>> ^MarineGunrock:

I want the dumb-fuck truthers to answer a couple of "simple" questions for me, or to STFU:
1)What is there to gain from it?
2)Where are the signature multi-level explosions used to fell a building?
3)How the fuck do you sneak all the explosives in with no one noticing?
4)Why would they bother making them fall straight down? Wouldn't sideways be better if you're going to kill a bunch of people?


I enjoy the dissenting viewpoints for 9/11. Most of them are probably wild accusations, but that doesn't make the official 9/11 commission's report the open-and-shut gospel. What I find interesting is the amount of varying opinions from that day, and I think that deserves our attention. I'm not sure I buy the official story, but that doesn't mean I believe Bush was the mastermind behind 9/11.

It's not like government hasn't ever lied to us. Gulf of Tonkin incident took the US into Vietnam, remember?

1. War? Which means profits. Investing in improbable insurance to cover the buildings? I simply do not know, but smarter men than me probably could come up with some reasons.
2. Some physicists claim the explosions are visible during the collapse, as concrete is blown outwardly and reduced to dust.
3. Exactly the kind of question that should be asked. I did watch some people interviewed who work in the building say the security was on hiatus for that month while a construction crew moved in a week or so before the incident.
4. Meh. Not sure even if this was an "inside job" if they'd want that to happen.

I find the whole debate fascinating!

Wow, I admit that I also didn't expect this with the name "Joe Rogan" on the title.

But that was a pretty concise representation of the truly salient, and inherent problems with US Foreign policy, and with some good editing and clips to boot.

I can't say I'm in love with the building seven bit at the end though.

Operation Northwoods clearly shows it's not beyond question for nefarious plans against our own citizens to reach the highest offices of the Pentagon and even meet with approval.

But I just find it nearly impossible to believe that the same minds who could conceive and carry out a plan like this would not realize that they could've gotten away with whatever they want for far, far less than anything approaching the scale of nearly destroying downtown Manhattan.

I mean the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was some destroyer out somewhere in a sea most Americans couldn't find on a map if their lives depended on it. And that was enough of an excuse to invade south east asia!

Keep in mind that the Gulf of Tonkin Bullshit story was drafted AFTER operation Northwoods was rejected by Kennedy. They already knew that a justification to gear up the military required nearly nothing. So why would they stage this elaborate hoax to accomplish what they could do anyway? Hell, even the first Gulf War showed the American appetite for war was a lot different then what they dealt with in the late 60's and 70's.

Americans these days only need a short empty speech with zero content, a flag waving fireworks extravaganza, a country music song or two and we'd be willing to invade fucking Canada.

It wasn't needed.

Also, and probably more importantly, if building seven can only be explained by controlled demolition then where are all the engineers on this topic? Why does it only seem to be people without a professional background in such things the ones saying it couldn't have happened when the boilers exploded or whatever the official claim states.

And if destroying some sort of unique treasure trove of financial documents was the goal then it seems an awfully elaborate way to torch a building, but what do I know I guess.

I'm just typing too much.

@quantumushroom, I'm sure the truth behind the Gulf of Tonkin Incident was classified. So were the Pentagon Papers which exposed the lies of four presidential Administrations. Maybe we should round up 79 year old Daniel Ellsberg and hang him in Time Square for high treason?

It's just too easy for the government to say something is classified in order to hide it from the public. This is supposed to be a "representational" government not a secret one.

>> ^volumptuous:

^ The Gulf of Tonkin, and making sure all citizens (kids!) get a decent education and health services, and the promise of not being poisoned by their food, air and water, are a bit different.


Precisely.

And you don't need to be a Libertarian to see the difference between national defense and carpet bombing Cambodia into the stone ages and support for the Khmer Rouge's campaign of brutality on those left alive.

^ The Gulf of Tonkin, and making sure all citizens (kids!) get a decent education and health services, and the promise of not being poisoned by their food, air and water, are a bit different.

>> ^bcglorf:

How do you pay for policing and a judicial system to arrest thieves, rapists and murders? How do you pay for an army to stop the dictator next door from walking in and shooting all your policemen and taking over?

The truth is we just don't like aggression, violence and our money being stolen to pay for wars and bad government policy.
Nobody does. But people disagree on what bad government policy is, and even in many cases on the difference between war and national self defense. That's why we need more than a blanket 'do away with income taxes'. We need to additionally agree on the services to cut which that money pays for.


Do you mean the dictator that we had installed after inciting the last coup or just some random dictator?

The thing is National Defense is one thing, while unjustified wars where we've been lied to from black flag operations is another (i.e.: gulf of tonkin incident). How many of our men and women died for that great cause? How much money did it cost us? How many family units were torn apart? How many more of these must we endure and funnel more money into when we could have been beefing up our actual real National Defense?

>> ^thinker247:
While I am one to never believe anything my government tells me, I find it highly improbable that anybody but the 19 hijackers caused the events of September 11th. But to play devil's advocate, let me for a minute suspend my belief and agree with the "truthers" that my government perpetrated an act of terrorism against itself.
Why?
In order to invade Afghanistan to plunder its oil? We already had bin Laden on the FBI's Most Wanted List for the bombings of U.S. Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. We easily could have invaded under the pretense of finding and extracting bin Laden (and the Taliban and al-Qaeda), because that's exactly what we did after September 11th.
In order to invade Iraq under the banner of anti-terrorism? Hussein had already defied U.N. weapons inspectors for over a decade and Bush was never the type to ask permission, so we didn't need September 11th to justify illegally invading a sovereign nation. We did it anyway.
In order to enact greater restrictions upon the citizens by inducing their fear response? Hell, as a general populace we're lemmings. The Bush administration certainly did not need to kill 3000 people in order to take away our liberties. We gladly give them up whenever anybody in authority asks.
I have yet to hear a rational answer to the question of "Why?" But I'm all ears.


niiiice.
ask a question and then propose possible hypothesis which of course you then dismantle.
let me preface this by stating i am not a "truther" and am not as convinced as my friend rougy is concerning 9/11.
that being said,the US government has never,in my opinion,given this a proper investigation.
let me give you an example:
lewinsky and the impeachment of bill clinton =168 million dollars.
9/11 investigation=6 million dollars
and lets be clear here.the governments version of what happened on 9/11 is itself a conspiracy theory and one that does not hold up well under closer scrutiny.
who is responsible? i do not know and neither do you but i think it prudent to not only ask questions but be allowed to ask those questions.
agree?
now...
as for YOUR question thinker247.
why?
i presume you are asking for motive.
ok.
1.lusitania
2.reichsthag
3.gulf of tonkin
these are all false flag operations and all preceded war.WW!,WW2 and vietnam respectively.i could mention the oil embargo on japan but that is a lengthy conversation.
what ARE the motives for war?
they have always been unequivocally about:
1.land/labor/resources/trade
how does a government,crown or ruling entity get its poorest,least educated and therefore most expendable to go fight and die for something the ruling class wishes?
1.propaganda.
which creates a "fighting spirit".
for thousands of years religion was the impetus to create this spirit but for the last hundred years it has been nationalism but it is ALWAYS the F>E>A>R that is the true driving force.
now that we have established a basis for war let us get to the heart of your question.
since i am not privy to secret documents i must make my answer based on conjecture.i shall do my best.
why would the US government use 9/11 (by action or by proxy) to change 200 years of national defensive posturing to one of "pre-emptive" and declare a war,not on any person or nation but one against an ephemeral opponent?the "war on terror".
1.war is HUGE business and the DOD has been one of the top 10 lobbyists since 1962.
2.saddam hussein,having been bombed for over 10 years straight(fact,look it up) along with sanctions and that ridiculous "oil for food" threatened to change iraq's oil transactions from the american dollar to the euro(fact,look it up)which would have cost the US billions if not trillions.seeing that every oil transaction is done in american dollars.it is the world reserve currency (not for much longer).
3.uzbekisthan has one the last and richest oil and natural gas left in the world.a pipeline which was denied by turkey (that has since changed,but for europes benefit,not america) is being built right now...
where?
ill give ya a guess.
iraq.
and do you know where it will lead into?
want to try another guess?
afghanistan.

those are just a few off the top of my head.i could take the time to be more concise and specific but this is a comment section.
maybe we have differing political philosophies thinker247.i do not trust government nor power because that power historically has ALWAYS attempted to garner more power for itself at the expense of liberty,freedom and the common good of society.
so while i dont think the US government attacked the twin towers,i believe they ALLOWED it.
what evidence do i have? none.and any evidence we could have gotten has been destroyed.
but i was military for a number of years and unless they have gotten lazy and stupid there is no way that would have happened.
could i be wrong?you betcha.
but unlike you i do not trust government and neither should you because historically,governments will abuse whatever powers they have and take your rights away as fast as they are allowed to.
might i recommend:
1.bryzinski "the grand chessboard"
2.naomi klein "the shock doctrine"
3.chalmers johnson "blowback"
hell...just go the PNAC website they practically lay it out for you and that minority controlled the government for 8 years.
history is the greatest teacher and it is your friend.
i have enjoyed this conversation thinker247.

I have questioned my belief in Capitalism. I've often said if there's a better system, I'd be for it. I'm not convinced Socialism or any variation thereof is a better system. One of my good friends, a Marxist, has petitioned to me about the greatness of such a society. But, for that system to work you cannot question it, because once you do the proverbial house of cards comes crashing down around him. It's not that he doesn't explain it well. No, the contrary he's one of the smartest men I know. Has a Masters in Business Administration from Cambridge and hates Capitalism, as well.

But, one thin we agree on is that when people bandy about the term Capitalism, they really mean Corporatism. This isn't me creating an idealistic view of Capitalism by removing it from the association of Corporatism and large Industrialists. My largest fears rest in them.

It comes down to who owns the means of production. You believe it should belong to the workers, while I believe it should belong to whoever puts up the capital and takes the risk. I want to know how that is to happen without violence? How can we make a peaceful transition to Socialism? Beyond that, I don't find it moral to steal, and by remove power from individuals who "own" a company and give it to many, it is stealing. It would be like us revolting on VideoSift and taking the ownership of the site away from dag. It wouldn't be moral.

You asked, "When was the last time Ron Paul made an effort to curb corporate power?" He always votes against Corporatist interests. He strongly opposed the bailouts. He doesn't agree with government giving in to Corporatists and excluding smaller businesses, and so far his plane hasn't crashed in the sea. The health industry is a complete morass thanks to government "restrictions" which excludes smaller businesses from competing and practically handed that entire industry over to the Corporations. You think if some public option was passed the Corporations wouldn't be the ones to benefit? Government is the problem; not the solution.

You said, "You use the term 'government' as a pejorative, and consider democracy tyranny." And, yes, I do believe Democracy, when direct, is tyrannical. If 51% of the Christian population wanted to put prayer back in school, do you think it would be fair for your children if they had to pray in school because of it? Or if 51% of white people decided the minority races should be made into slaves? Direct Democracy is dangerous. How can it not be? Please explain to me how Democracy isn't 51% of the population taking the rights away from 49%?

And, I'm absolutely cynical of my government. Why shouldn't I be? We know they lie to us (Waco, Gulf of Tonkin, Weapons of Mass Destruction, etc. etc. etc.), so why would I want them to have even more control over my life and my labor when they've proven to be beyond the capacity of trust? You Democrats are just like the Republicans. When your guy is in office, it's unpatriotic to go against government. But, when the other guy is in office, it's patriotic. You and NetRunner and KnivesOut and the other Social Dems on here didn't have a single problem with me when I was speaking against the Bush Administration, but let me say one cross word against Obama and I'm a heretic.

I ask for you to explain how Socialism would work. Give me an example how we could possibly make that transition.

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