Who said anything about them being the "brainchild" of Obama? You're stuck in that fallacious bipartisan thinking. Just because I've got a beef with Obama doesn't mean I an absolving Bush of his atrocities. But he's not "in charge" anymore, so to insinuate that these porno-scanners are in place now because of Bush's Administration is a fallacious and disingenuous argument. Let's go over the finer points:

First, the TSA today is under the purview of the Obama Administration, so anything it does is the fault of that administration. Period. The chain of command works like this: TSA > Department of Homeland Security (DHS) > Janet Napolitano > Obama. When Obama is no longer the president, then the TSA will be the responsibility of the new Administration... and so on.

Second, more porno-scanners are being added under Obama.

Third, the "enhanced security procedures" are being added under Obama. This includes touching of groins and the added frequency of the porno-scanners.

Fourth, Obama even admits the buck stops with him.

Lastly, Obama ran on a platform of "change". That change was meant to "correct" the ills of the previous administration, including the Bush Doctrine, FISA, the Patriot Act, and domestically the DHS. It hasn't been corrected. It's gotten worse.

Sorry if you confused my unapologetic charges against Obama as something else, but he's a terrible, terrible, terrible President, and I'm not about to cower into submission when discussing his political failures. Throwing corporations and "markets" into the mix is a straw man of epic proportions.

In reply to this comment by dystopianfuturetoday:
These things were not the brainchild of Obama, and for you to imply they were is dishonest. If you want to talk about corruption, and Obama getting cozy with scanner CEO's, I'm down with that. My big problem with you is that you are either unwilling or unable to see these same corrupting market forces in your own ideology. Over the last few decades of deregulation and increased market influence over our politics, things have only gotten worse. Markets have proven that they are neither efficient or just, and they have zero to do with liberty.

The tea-party started out as a decent movement. Then all of the private interests saw a way to pay less in taxes. I live in Wisconsin, and I'm terrified that my favorite senator Feingold (who earned my lifetime vote when he alone had the sense to vote against the patriot act) is trailing in the polls to a tea-party business owner who is backed by the Catholic church. The ironic thing to me is that this guy might win on the premise of cutting taxes, and appealing to the religious voters. I relate more to democrats, but don't vote the line. I was disillusioned with Obama after he made it clear he lied about raising the tax on incomes over 250k (most of the reason he had my support, and yes I'm slightly socialist). However I will be truly crushed if a politician who is actually credible loses to a guy because people vote on their religious beliefs, and false promises of tax breaks for the middle class. When really I think it will be aimed more at the upper class. Oh and this video is mostly bullshit. Either party would have probably done just as bad a job in most of these situations. Vote for people not parties.

America should go back to the old system of taxing income of over 2-3 million at 50-80%. That is the only realistic way of recovering the insane amount of money we've spent. If we cut services to do it instead there would be even more problems.

The funny part is that those that hate something tend to have a correlation (this means not may, not will) in actually doing the same thing, but hiding it due to shame (or some other psychological barrier and under such terms as: Frenemy, love-hate, ambivalence, cognitive dissonance, etc... ).

In an environment like the Internet this message can be more powerful that it ever would be elsewhere. Anonymity allows users to break out of their ethos, the people that see swearing as "not a big deal" i.e.: they use it when in company of a select group -- they are the target for this video. The videos swearing and comedy are hooks. Hence the tag: viral.

The swearing is fine and I don't develop worry from words easily unless they are things like: patriot (act), religion(s), God(s), ghosts, all supernatural, tea party, insurgents, Limbaugh, Bill'O, Fox, Glenn B, etc...

/News Corp. employs the very same tactics in case you've missed it.

>> ^blankfist:

Your vote for Nader was very important for a number of reasons.

Indeed:

1. Iraq War
   
2. Torture
   
3. Guantanamo
   
4. PATRIOT Act
   
5. Warrantless Wiretapping
   
6. John Roberts
   
7. Samuel Alito
   
8. Dick Cheney
   

Had 100% of the Nader voters been able to switch their votes to Gore when it turned out Nader didn't have the votes to win, we would've had President Gore.

That's why people should support electoral reform, so they can do stuff like that and make it so voting on principle doesn't empower people whose beliefs are diametrically opposed to their own.

You have been awarded 1 Power Point for fixing the embed code for Dead Pool video Biden: paying higher taxes is a patriotic act. Thank you for helping maintain VideoSift's reliability.

If only there were a significant party on the side of Liberty, maybe we could make some progress, but first I guess we need a significant slice of the population to be interested in Liberty.

The American people do not want Liberty. Not the Democrats, the Republicans, the left, the right, the conservatives, the progressives or any other label you can come up with. Our aversion to Liberty is only to be outdone by the commercial sector and corporate interests.

American Government, state or federal, regardless who has been in control, has been aggressively increasing its size and power particularly in the last 30 years. The War on Drugs and general drug law, DMCA, PATRIOT Act, anything to do with Dept of Homeland Security, War on Terror, Free Speech Zones, Same-sex Marriage bans, AZ's Guilty-Until-Proven-Innocent immigration law, ban on Gays in the Military, Communications Decency Act, sodomy laws, prostitution laws... and I could go on but I want to go to bed soon.

By and large we're happy to surrender our liberties so that the government can "protect" us from terrorists, gays, Mexicans, Muslims, drugs, and any and all forms of responsibility.

Anyone who thinks it's only the "other party" that's the problem is lying to themselves or terribly uninformed.

>> ^quantumushroom:
Today the battle is between Statism and Liberty.

Congratulations! Your comment has just received enough votes from the community to earn you 1 Power Point. Thank you for your quality contribution to VideoSift.

>> ^mtadd:

What are the measures of the U.S. shirking our most recent descent into paranoia? My bets are the following conditions:
1) Repeal PATRIOT act.
2) Reasonable search by TSA at airports (not requiring shoes to be taken off....liquid limitations revoked, etc.)
3) Revocation of passport requirement for travel to Canada.
4) End "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan.


I second the motion and move for a Vote.

What are the measures of the U.S. shirking our most recent descent into paranoia? My bets are the following conditions:

1) Repeal PATRIOT act.
2) Reasonable search by TSA at airports (not requiring shoes to be taken off....liquid limitations revoked, etc.)
3) Revocation of passport requirement for travel to Canada.
4) End "wars" in Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan.

Haha, way to go statist idiots.

But seriously, the thing we should all fear the most about this is once legislation like this is proposed it never goes away until its passed. It may not happen this year or the next, but eventually it becomes a war of attrition where the voters become less verbal against it and then the legislators get it passed.

Once it's passed the people will be angry, but soon they'll lay another red herring at the collective feet of the people and we'll all forget that it passed. It's like what health care reform did to the Patriot Act. Or hell, even the war in Iraq. When's the last time you heard someone from either party wanting to end either of the war or the Patriot Act? Not since Bush was in office.

So let me get this straight, yall think the ends justify the means. In that, the president, who is not the justice system, can demand sums of money with out due process of law? While no doubt this person stinks of oil money, it does, indeed set very crazy precedent. I could see an argument for this, being that he is our chief diplomat, he has sole rights to negotiate on our/congress's behalf. Are you saying that corporations should be treated as foreign nations? Would it of not been more customary for a class action law suit do something like this?

In short, I agree with this dirty politicians sentiment. If we let the ends of such things justify the means, we get an even more crazy version of the Patriot Act. I am not trying to be contrary, and I fully support that BP be "made liable" to the fullest extant that is possible (no amount of liability will fix my broken coast line). But this seems more like a political move that frightens me than a move that makes me happy. I would of loved to see it come from the courts or from the legislature. Giving the president even MORE power after the HUGE expanses of power he has already taken over the past 30 years is enough to make me get my tin foil hat.

>> ^blankfist:

true! But you seem to welcome a solid statism that emboldens this kind of shit. Why is that? I understand that being part of a union in the US typically warrants a desire for government involvement, but it's the dwindling of our rights, freedoms and liberty that makes me question why any of us would honor a system of government that puts such atrocious tyranny upon our shoulders.


Your problem is that you can't differentiate the good from the bad when it comes to government. When you lump health care and teachers right in there with the patriot act and the Iraq war and then call it "statism", it makes your point of view seem simplistic, inflexible, insecure, partisan and very petty. I know the term was designed to be used as a scary political epithet, but though over use it's become a word of levity on this site. You've even got gwiz using it as a neutral term in this thread.

If you want to influence people, you need to understand them a bit, have some empathy and know where they're coming from. You can't just say 'Hey kronos, why are you such a tyrannical, union loving, fascist? Why do you reject the pure love, light and liberty of my political perspective?" That kind of rhetoric is really no different from your 'with us or against us' George Bushisms; just as insular and narrow minded, though grammatically far superior.

Part of the problem lies in the word 'libertarian' itself. Liberty means many things to many people, and when you use that term to define your own subjective political ideology, you've left the realm of political discourse and entered the realm of religious dogma.

How would you feel if I claimed that progressivism were the true ideology of freedom and liberty, and that by opposing me you also oppose liberty and freedom? Would that influence you? Would that make you want to join me? Or would you think I was just deluding myself by invoking a beloved term as a shield to hide my own selfish beliefs and desires behind?

For argument's sake, what if I could convince you that your concept of liberty was subjective? Would that change your thinking? Would it make your ideology less meaningful? I'd love an answer to that last question.

I think us liberals are all still feeling a bit pissed about being called traitors for (take your pick): saying the Iraq war was a bad idea, saying there were no WMD's in Iraq, saying that we shouldn't torture people, saying we shouldn't wiretap American citizens without warrants, saying the PATRIOT act is unconstitutional, saying that we should give terror suspects trials, saying that our soldiers have killed civilians, saying that Iraqis have died in much larger numbers than US citizens, talking about timetables for withdrawal from Iraq, talking about getting better body armor for troops, saying that Muslims for the most part are civil and even friendly people, mentioning the ever increasing cost of the war, pointing out the ineptitude, corruption, and violently criminal acts of our "independent contractors", questioning the President's motives for starting the Iraq war, and on, and on, and on.

I think when people literally start talking about secession (in a time of war! ), it's fair to toss back accusations of treason, especially when it's done in a fairly tongue-in-cheek fashion.

Obama is a complete failure.

- Gitmo, Iraq, Afghan, patriot act, DADT, economy, offshore drilling, banking corruption, .. just fucking everything is even worse or the same as Bush.

What a complete failure.

Bush had 8 years to fuck everything up big time and you expect obama whose only been in office for 2 to get it all right immediately? Wake the fuck up this aint a computer game, fixing the shit that bush left behind is going to take years.
>> ^quantumushroom:

"Processed foods?" Now Joe, we are no longer in the Bush years, when unemployment was 4%, not almost 16%. W the half-liberal is long gone and we're two years into the illegitimate failbama regime. The results of ultra-liberalism running amok speak for themselves.
November can't get here fast enough.
>> ^joedirt:
The war on the Constitution ---BUSH JR
The war on prosperity -- BUSH ECONOMY & MILITARY SPENDING & CORPORATE WELFARE
The war on employment -- BUSH DEREGULATION, TAX FAVORS TO MOVE JOBS OFFSHORE
The war on health care -- GOP OBSTRUCTIONISM, CORPORATE GREED
The war on low taxes -- huh? It's the lowest it has ever been
The war on the middle class -- PATRIOT ACT, ECONOMIC RAPE BY BUSH CRONIES
The war on fat kids -- CORPORATE GREED AND PROCESSED FOODS