1st. The state is us, the citizens.
2nd. The government is the state government, an employee of the state, established by the state and for the state. The state government owns no property and has no authority, it only manages our public assets, and acts in our authority.

Those things you mention were changed by protest.
People exercising their 1st amendment right to assemble and petition the government, assembled, and were a royal PITA to a lot of other people.
In time, that forced the hand of those who had been elected to placate those that protested, to get rid of the nuisance.

Since then, the right to assemble has been 'interpreted' as a secondary right, and the right to petition the government is the primary.
This empowered the government to require permits for protests, and subsequently just remove protesters.
Now you can only write a letter asking for change. The right to petition has basically been neutered, by removing the one effective method of coercion that the state [common man] had over the government.

Elections are not democracy.
How you come up with your representative is irrelevant.
Elected, appointed, born, whatever. It's absolutely irrelevant.

Democracy = People's rule.
Representative democracy = People's rule by a representative 3rd party.

The representative is not a leader.
He is an agent obligated to represent (i.e. listen to and obey) his constituents.

So long as a representative is actively representing, then he is executing his office, then the state has democracy.

If the representative goes off and does what he wants, and ignores what the state wants, then the state has no democracy.

We in the U.S. have no "leaders".
We the people are the leaders.
The people we elect are employed by us to represent us, in a government of our creation.

Whether or not the people in government care to do their jobs or not, is a separate issue.

Right now, someone will get elected. Even if they only voted for themselves.
There is no requirement to have a positive rating from the people, in order to get elected.
Regardless who gets elected, they all get paid by the same lobbyists, and pander to the same financial interests.
The only way you get change for the common man, is when it incidentally aligns with what's good for the entrenched interests.

eg. If Obamacare works out in the end. Great. If not, oh well, another 'meh' program that in the end just provides state unemployment labor. Whatever.
Either way, it didn't happen for a love of the common man and his health. It happened because insurance companies were lobbying for it.





I would like to add that "the other" is generally a really poor propaganda based impression.
Every country on earth, it's not as great their media says it is, and it's not as bad as other's media says it is.

Here a cop will shoot a little old lady half a dozen times for picking a fight with a random other person (this just happened locally).
In a crap ton of ex-soviet countries that people love to grimace about 'how bad it is', you can argue with the cops till they let you go. And you don't have to assume they will beat you to a pulp for it.

People's impression of "police state" is what they imagine from movies. A 1984 caricature. But that's not what a police state look like in reality.
It's a place that's generally normal, unimposing, and only time to time when you step on the wrong person's toes, you end up 'going away for a while'.

Here in the U.S., 1 in 18 men is in jail or on parole.
Good luck finding another country that even comes close.
The policing is out of control. Way too much 'getting tough' on irrelevant things that shouldn't even be a bother, let alone be considered crimes.

-scheherazade

I'd still like to understand how you believe diplomacy to be a more workable solution. If diplomacy is to be the solution to extremism in Pakistan, I presume you look to the moderate leaders in Pakistan for the answers? When I go through the list of such leaders, a disturbing trend is observable.

Shahbaz Bhatti was an elected member of the National Assembly lobbying for repealing Pakistan's death penalty for blasphemy. He was assassinated on March 2, 2011.

Salman Taseer was a governor in Pakistan, lobbying for repealing Pakistan's death penalty for blasphemy. He was assassinated by one of his own bodyguards on January 4, 2011.

Benazir Bhutto, the nations first female Prime Minister had returned after being chased off by the nations military to run in the 2008 elections. She was assassinated on December 27, 2007.

This list is just highlights, countless more moderate leaders keep ending up dead in Pakistan. Meanwhile, elected figures like those from parties like the JUI-F survive, and give speeches in Pakistan's National Assembly declaring Osama Bin Laden an Islamic hero, and the assassins that killed those in the prior list as heroes as well.

I don't mean to be rude about it, but I just don't understand why you believe that diplomacy alone can be expected to succeed in such circumstances?

Actually a heavy duty metal bar assembly that the trailer backs up against holds it in place (usually). There's one of these places near where I live.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KE45pV3B90

So, he thought it was a computer system problem when in actuality (very end of video) something basically blew off the back end of the jet nozzle assembly and by implication damaged the tail assembly? Gutsy. And if they figured why and could fix it in the other production planes, heroism worth the title.
*promote

I never argued that one side was "good" but then again, I despise moral abstracts such as good and evil because they simply are not accurate, quantifiable descriptions, and are often used to manipulate emotions.

One side is harmful...the other side is less harmful.

If you can come up with a better system, more power to you, but when you have a situation like this, you don't throw out the whole system, you get rid of the part of it that is causing the most harm and re-evaluate

Even though I think parties should be abolished, you can't stop people from peaceably assembling and picking people that they support. All you can do is stop officially recognizing them and disband any organization like the DNC/RNC or any lobbying group as lobbying needs to be abolished as well. with the advent of the internet and email, ANYONE can communicate with their congressperson easily and get their point across. Lobbying is obsolete as well as corrupt.

We've got to get rid of the private money in our political system

1st amendment says the government shall make no law abridging people's right to peaceably assemble. That's a supreme law, that no lower laws can supersede.

There is no 'lawful' order to make that particular woman leave that particular spot.

Police commands are not obligatory simply because they are given by police.
They could command you to strip naked, bend over and present yourself for an a$$ F'ing.

-scheherazade

Yep, worked at an event center. Sound guy was a complete pain in the ass when it came to coiling up cables. Don't know how many times I got to hear "Your doing it wrong"
Went off on him one night. "I just assembled 3 stages and moved 18 floor units. I'm tired. If your that f$#$ worried about the cables get off your fat ass and do them yourself."
Got fired the next day because "We hired him away from So and So and he said your hard to work with...."
hehe A few days later they call back going "He just quit and stormed out! can you.." "Nope" click

Your video, Right of Assembly. A Real Discussion., has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

Some good articles on the subject:

Curfews, loitering & freedom of association
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/curfews-loitering-freedom-of-association

Assembly Explained
http://constitution.laws.com/the-supreme-court/assembly

A Brief Lesson Plan on Assembly:
http://documents.mccormickfoundation.org/Civics/programs/files/pdf/FASI-Sum2011/AssemblyLesson.pdf

@blankfist

Right. I try to illuminate the discussion with a detailed understanding and interpretation of what the right to assemble means and you label me a statist?

Bravo.

Except that nothing I have said indicates that I believe the state should have a role in economic or social policy. Your label is completely non sequitur.

Read up on the strict scrutiny test. The state doesn't have the right to stop you from protesting based on the CONTENT of your protest. However, local and state governments may pass ordinances or require permits for certain areas or times of day etc.

This is what allows the Klu Klux Klan to assemble and protest - even though the general public and those in government dislike their message.

Furthermore, the false analogy you maintain between the USA and Soviet Russia is even more of a joke. You know what would happen to all the protesters, you, and any bystander who didn't flee immediately in old Soviet Russia? Siberia.

The title of this video is a joke, right?

These people don't really understand the Bill of Rights and First Amendment or what their right of assembly really means. It does not mean nor has it ever meant that you can show up on any public property and do whatever you want.

Some good articles on the subject:

Curfews, loitering & freedom of association
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/curfews-loitering-freedom-of-association

Assembly Explained
http://constitution.laws.com/the-supreme-court/assembly

A Brief Lesson Plan on Assembly:
http://documents.mccormickfoundation.org/Civics/programs/files/pdf/FASI-Sum2011/AssemblyLesson.pdf

Many of the illegal "protesters" here are just standing their silently, but guess what.. that isn't protected.

If the police politely ask you to move along at a crime scene - you do so.

The kind of behavior this group is indulging in is comical to me. What was their message? I missed that. Furthermore, they purposely set up a situation where they are going to have problems with police and then pretend to be surprised when they are asked to disperse.

1. Read the First Amendment and tell me where it is granting you any right:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The operative phrase is a restriction on the power of Congress, not the endowment of a right upon individuals.

Also, the Declaration of Independence backs me up:

"that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights"

As does the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

"Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,"

These rights are yours simply because you are human, and they are inalienable - you can't give them away even if you want to.

2. You can not bring a lawsuit in US court for a violation of rights based upon legislation unless you have standing. In effect, you must demonstrate that a law has actually caused you harm in some illegitimate, unfair, or unconstitutional manner. One of the easiest ways to gain standing is to violate the law and suffer the consequences of what you perceive to be an unjust law.

3. The Supreme Court has only recognized a right to privacy from government intrusion not from individual or corporate intrusion. Furthermore, there is no assumption to a right to privacy in a public place. The most logical reason for the need to get a permit to film there is that the Park Service recognizes the economic value of licensing something that is in high demand (filming in front of the White House) and could care less about the privacy of individuals (citizens and non-citizens alike).

What a complete and utter moron. Good detective work is more effective than starting wars and creating more hatred, giving terrorists more support around the world. Ya know how many people in Yemen hated us before we started to Drone the shit out of their tiny villages? Can you guess how easy it was to kill just a few dozen people and turn our allies and in rabid American Hating psychos?

Bush and Obama have hurt us around the world (and Obama got a fucking Nobel Fucking Prize). There's going to be more and more hate, more and more attacks on us and our children because of them. Because we supported them and we didn't wake up.

I don't care what people thought or were told to believe on Sept. 12th. I care what they do, and what we did was barely anything good. We started stupid wars, we threatened we cracked down.

We even commissioned a study on how to prevent future 9/11s and what did we do with the information? FUCK ALL. You can get a nuclear device from an increasingly destabilization Pakistan, which is Obamas fault with him surging the war to shit in Afghanistan. Get your Nuclear device, wrap it in a bale of fucking Marijuana, and put it in a fucking shipping container to the USofA. It'll get here, not be inspected, be taken to a fucking hotel room in lower Manhattan, assembled by a scientist who's fucking child was blown up by a fucking drone, and detonated.

We don't care, we don't THINK, we just keep going. They're not protecting us, they're not even trying. It's up to us to remove THEM so we can get in people who represent US.

Radium has a half-life of 1600 years and stops glowing after about 20-It's behind glass (watch crystal) so one was shielded from direct bombardment-The casualties from the process came with the paint girls in the preparation and assembly of the illuminated faces and hands, who used lippointing (brush-lickers) to straighten their brushes....that we're dipped in radioactive paint-Nasty bone cancer of the jaw in worst cases.

200 old watches in a display case isn't anything to worry your testicular function over, but you don't want your cat lying on a pile of em...

Aye, there's the rub. Who's at fault for successful candidates who become disappointing office-holders... candidates who make promises they, alone, don't have the power to deliver (thereby just saying whatever it takes to get elected), or people who vote for said candidate, actually believing he/she can/will do everything they promised to do? So many (all?) of our elected officials, including Obama, are simply best-of-a-bad-lot, emotional, or litmus test selections. "Hope" was a brilliant campaign slogan. What else can we do?

You want to impeach Obama, choggie? (@chingalera) Why? We probably dislike him for very different reasons, but he'd just be replaced by another pod-Pres, no assembly required (strings pre-attached). I could get behind a Grayson, Warren, or Kucinich, but the machine would never allow such a monstrosity to exist, as it's still trying to self-correct from the last two deviations. Like you said, nuke it from orbit, double-tap, start over, same docs. Only way to be sure. Hopefully it won't come to that, but I have little hope for a country more familiar with McDonald's dollar menu and Kanye's Twitter than said docs that started it all. Is our children learning? Nope.

@dystopianfuturetoday Lefties don't see this as a scandal. At least I don't. Scandal or not scandal is not the issue here, and I think the term diminishes just what has been more fully illuminated in the last week for many people. The way the government of/by/for the people/people relationship has devolved into warden/inmate; the way money has infected and rendered ineffective our political process; the complete dissociation of electorate and elected, the lie that is representative government; the treatment of those who risk everything to expose abuses of our privacy and other freedoms (all legal, as interpreted by the abusers); Patriot Act... greatest product name ever marketed. For me, this was the straw. I've had it.

"If we are going to fix it, it will require thought, discussion and hard choices.

Check. Check. Public will bears easy choices. Pen or sword? Now, there's a hard choice.