@VoodooV
your argument is flawed on sooo many levels.

1.you imply that our government is still "for the people by the people".while i admire the idealism i just dont see it manifested in reality.

2.you state you can vote out surveillance.
this "may" be possible but only due to the diligence of people like manning and snowden who brought these facts to light,and look at how doggedly our government is going after them?

would it be a stretch to assume that maybe,just maybe,the pursuit of manning and snowden had little to do with legality and EVERYTHING to do with sending a message to other potential conscientious government employees and respectable journalists that you dont fuck with the US government.

3.you state that anybody who has an issue with government spying on its own citizens but not with corporations who participate in similar activities is a hypocrite.

no they are not.
a corporation wont show up at your front door in full riot gear and drag you by the feet to club gitmo.

they just use your information to manipulate and control the way you feel and think about certain subjects in order to better control your responses.

and i find both reprehensible on a moral level but...again.the corporation does not have power over my freedom.the government does.

corporate america has purchased our government.
so while pretty and flowery rhetoric may sound delightful,when we actual LOOK how our government enacts policy it is almost ALWAYS,without exception,against what the public actually wants but everything corporate america wants.

the mechanisms that used to combat this are long gone,crushed into non-existence by the powerful elite who own this country.

my country has turned into a flock of infantile weeping pansies.
but it was not by accident but rather design.
they fear for their job.
they fear for their home.
they fear brown people in foreign countries.
hell..half the time they fear their own neighbor.
easy picking for those who wish to exploit that fear.

as someone on this thread stated "it has become a culture of fear".

we..the american people..have become the enemy.

Found a video that may interest you:



>> ^Ryjkyj:
>> ^Doc_M:
Yeah, but that's a bit of a cop-out. "Nobody's got a fucking clue" is kinda lame and certainly offers no hope. Come on. I mean, what do you look forward to?

I look forward to watching my son grow up. And I look forward to a beer with my friends every once in a while. Sometimes I even imagine myself contributing something positive to society, and that people might look back at my life and say: there was a cool fellow. But the jury's still way out on that.
But as to the afterlife, I do have hope. I hope there will be something, that we are all eternal. And I abhor the Buddhist idea of reincarnation because if I am reincarnated, but I don't remember myself, then what's the point? Some people tell me "oh, but you sort of remember parts of yourself." Well, that's not good enough for me. I need to remember most of myself if I'm going to consider that I'm still me. One percent just doesn't cut it.
And I've talked to past-life regression folks who say they can remind you of who you were through hypnosis, but you know the problem with those guys?: Everyone is always Marie Antoinette or the fucking King of England. Nobody is ever Pavle the shit-boy, who was an asshole to everyone they met, who's life was totally uninteresting and who died from unchecked walnut-sliver poisoning. I guarantee you that as many people as you talk to who remember their past lives, not one of them was ever a child with fetal alcohol syndrome who's favorite thing to do was eat butt-crack lint.
But at least those people are somewhat creative. I was raised in the Lutheran church. There was a lot of encouragement to think for myself and very little pressure to just say I believed. And I did believe, for a long time. But the more I went to church, the more I kept thinking to myself that everyone is afraid of dying. Even the people who say that they're going to heaven are afraid of dying. I think if the amount of people who say they believe in heaven actually believed they were going there, the world would be a much nicer place.
But it's not a very nice place is it? No. And I think that one of the reasons it's not is that a long time ago, people figured out a way to exploit the fears of others through religion. It's nice that we can all agree on something that makes us a little happier. But when all is said and done, it doesn't really work too well does it? Everyone is still scared of dying, and every religion thinks that somebody else's religion is the cause of earthquakes, etc, etc... So if you're still going to be scared of things that aren't God, what the hell is the point?
And I think a lot of great things came from religion. Early on, the priests of various groups were often the sole repository of knowledge and the leaders of the advancements in science. But all that is long gone. These days it's all about controlling people.
I don't believe that there's nothing, because that would mean I knew something about what happens after you die; but I'm also not an agnostic who believes that "god is nature" or "god is the universe", and even though sometimes I wish there was an answer to the questions that I ask the sky when I have nowhere else to turn, I am forced to come to the conclusion that I am completely and totally ignorant in the ways of the universe and our purpose here on Earth.
But I certainly hope that this isn't it. And I certainly hope that if there is a god, that it will respect the conclusions that I've come to through the faculties it's granted me.
Maybe Shiny is right. But if I agreed to his terms simply to play it safe, god would know I was lying. And I just can't believe in a god who would encourage me to lie to save my soul.

>> ^Doc_M:

Yeah, but that's a bit of a cop-out. "Nobody's got a fucking clue" is kinda lame and certainly offers no hope. Come on. I mean, what do you look forward to?


I look forward to watching my son grow up. And I look forward to a beer with my friends every once in a while. Sometimes I even imagine myself contributing something positive to society, and that people might look back at my life and say: there was a cool fellow. But the jury's still way out on that.

But as to the afterlife, I do have hope. I hope there will be something, that we are all eternal. And I abhor the Buddhist idea of reincarnation because if I am reincarnated, but I don't remember myself, then what's the point? Some people tell me "oh, but you sort of remember parts of yourself." Well, that's not good enough for me. I need to remember most of myself if I'm going to consider that I'm still me. One percent just doesn't cut it.

And I've talked to past-life regression folks who say they can remind you of who you were through hypnosis, but you know the problem with those guys?: Everyone is always Marie Antoinette or the fucking King of England. Nobody is ever Pavle the shit-boy, who was an asshole to everyone they met, who's life was totally uninteresting and who died from unchecked walnut-sliver poisoning. I guarantee you that as many people as you talk to who remember their past lives, not one of them was ever a child with fetal alcohol syndrome who's favorite thing to do was eat butt-crack lint.

But at least those people are somewhat creative. I was raised in the Lutheran church. There was a lot of encouragement to think for myself and very little pressure to just say I believed. And I did believe, for a long time. But the more I went to church, the more I kept thinking to myself that everyone is afraid of dying. Even the people who say that they're going to heaven are afraid of dying. I think if the amount of people who say they believe in heaven actually believed they were going there, the world would be a much nicer place.

But it's not a very nice place is it? No. And I think that one of the reasons it's not is that a long time ago, people figured out a way to exploit the fears of others through religion. It's nice that we can all agree on something that makes us a little happier. But when all is said and done, it doesn't really work too well does it? Everyone is still scared of dying, and every religion thinks that somebody else's religion is the cause of earthquakes, etc, etc... So if you're still going to be scared of things that aren't God, what the hell is the point?

And I think a lot of great things came from religion. Early on, the priests of various groups were often the sole repository of knowledge and the leaders of the advancements in science. But all that is long gone. These days it's all about controlling people.

I don't believe that there's nothing, because that would mean I knew something about what happens after you die; but I'm also not an agnostic who believes that "god is nature" or "god is the universe", and even though sometimes I wish there was an answer to the questions that I ask the sky when I have nowhere else to turn, I am forced to come to the conclusion that I am completely and totally ignorant in the ways of the universe and our purpose here on Earth.

But I certainly hope that this isn't it. And I certainly hope that if there is a god, that it will respect the conclusions that I've come to through the faculties it's granted me.

Maybe Shiny is right. But if I agreed to his terms simply to play it safe, god would know I was lying. And I just can't believe in a god who would encourage me to lie to save my soul.

>> ^xxovercastxx:

As I've said before...
>> ^xxovercastxx:
If the government wanted to destroy WTC and blame it on Muslims, why not just blatantly use explosives? It's not like the place hasn't been bombed before. Why bother with the hijacked planes and all the other shit? Blow the lower floors out and let the thing come crashing down. Dozens of terrorist orgs would have been thrilled to take credit for it.



You do realize it usually takes weeks of planning and setting up to rig a demolition, right? No way people are going to believe that foreign agents would be able to set up a demolition without being noticed. And using jihadi elements helps exploit the fear factor.
And, you're right, it has happened before. The FBI helped stage a bombing on the WTC in 1993 but it didn't terrorize the public enough for the power elite to implement everything they wanted to do. They needed a "new Pearl Harbor" to do that.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'faith healing, peter popoff, expose, charlatans, exploiting the fearful' to 'faith healing, peter popoff, expose, charlatans, exploiting the fearful, derren brown' - edited by berticus

There are a few differences, the Iraq war was originally billed as taking out Saddam's WMDs and Terrorist training camps. When these things didn't materialize the dialogue morphed into 'liberating' the Iraqis. This time the dialogue is solely about stopping A dictator from actively killing civilians. Its also a UN action, as opposed to US and Pals.

Some liberals love the save the oppressed angle, while some conservatives are wringing their hands over getting the US a foot hold in an oil rich nation who's leader has embarrassed us several times in the past with his open defiance of our will.

As a liberal I would normally be in support of such an action if I could actually believe
A.)We're actually doing what the vast majority of Libya's 6 million+ population wants and not just handing control of the country over to a thousand or so militants because they're more friendly to us (for the moment).
B.)There won't actually be any ground troops, therefor greatly reducing cost and possibility of US casualties. And that instead of spear heading the effort, we're just helping to level the playing field for the militants.
C.)This was actually about helping the civilians of Libya rather than spending billions if not trillions of taxpayer dollars so some corporations can make billions off exploiting Libya's resources and our military and then have the gall to bitch about how high taxes are.

I suppose the problem is we've been lied to so often by both sides, exploiting our fears or noble intentions, nobody believes them. When was the last time our involvement in a conflict actually went as planned? WWII?

Oh here we go again...it's a conspiracy of the scientists to get rich by exploiting our fears!

I have put up with this shit long enough. From what I can see, there's really only three choices when it comes to explaining the stance of AGW deniers. They're either delusional, lying, or just plain stupid.

So...which is it?

My vote is lying, but they -could- just be a bunch of stupid fucks...I -know- a few of them are.