Nearly 50,000 People Ask Why The Government Is Seizing Their Digital Files
techdirt.com
techdirt.com
The Megaupload case is one example: Unceremoniously grab people's property (in the form of their data) and offer no mechanism to get it back. Furthermore, look through and examine all said data without a search warrant. Everyone is assumed to be a criminal without any proof or due process.
Yes, these were MU servers and, yes, they probably had a bunch of pirated stuff on there. Yet, I am sure that lots and lots of people had legitimate files and data of their own on MU. Today these people have to face the very real prospect of loosing it forever thanks to our now-totalitarian government.
Then there's the whole healthcare business. Don't get me wrong, I want everyone to have access to healthcare --not just here, all over the world. We can't evolve as a society when such a fundamental need is not accessible to millions of people.
That said, the way we've done it is, well, nothing short of disgusting and, yes, scary. I don't know about you, but I didn't sign-up for my representatives to vote and pass laws without reading them. And that is certainly true of something this complex. Something that affects so many people for potentially more than one generation. In my book something this important ought to have a very public extended debate period in order to ensure that everyone involved has a chance to understand, contribute and know what we are walking into.
This week's Supreme Court decision is also scary. Now, I'll admit that, as an engineer, I am not well versed on the finer points of constitutional law.
This is what I understood: The Federal Government has the option to apply a tax penalty to every citizen if they don't behave in a certain way. And the Supreme Court just said that this is perfectly legal per the US Constitution.
If I am correct in my interpretation of the precedent they just set, this is truly a scary moment in history.
Now, let's take a moment and leave the healthcare law out of the discussion. Some emotionally connect with the "for" and "against" camps. I just want to look at this issue of tax-if-you-don't-do-as-you-are-told issue.
This is scary and dangerous and not one US Citizen should tolerate it. If it requires a constitutional amendment to fix, we probably need to fast-track in that direction.
Why?
Per this ruling the Federal government could penalize you with a tax if:
- You don't buy an electric car
- You don't install solar panels on your roof
- You don't buy government-approved "healthy" foods
- You don't use mass transportation
- You don't share all of your financial data with the government
- In general, you don't do what they want you to do
Back to MU. The government is now holding people's valuable data hostage to a process that is probably illegal in some form. Being that lots of these politicians are lawyers, they probably got us by the balls. They know very well what they are doing and can have their way with us.
Pirates using MU should be hit hard. But, how about trampling all over everyone else --without recourse-- while trying to get the few bad guys? It's as if the cops decided to shoot everyone in sight in hopes of getting a few bad guys hiding at a shopping center and, for good measure, they shoot the shopping center ownership and management at the same time. Bullshit.
Regardless of your position on these issues, you should be horrified by what is happening to our country. Your rights are being eroded one step at a time. Very soon we will not be able to recognize where we are living.
We had this. Remember hearing about death panels and socialism? That was the public debate. I hear what you're saying but Washington is so hyper partisan it's impossible to have a reasonable discussion about almost anything. Both parties realize that creating fear and stirring up anger leads to getting those critical ground troops necessary for get out the vote efforts and of course, more $$$ for their reelection coffers.
As for your taxing comments, if you feel this is "scary and dangerous", then you've read or heard something to cause that. I for one, haven't heard anything about the health care ruling opening the door to tax people for not buying government approved healthy foods, not using mass transportation, etc. But, I imagine we get our media from different sources. In any case, I understand those weren't meant to be literal examples. Point is, government uses the power to tax or assess penalties to drive the behavior it wants. This isn't new. But, for the party not in power trying to stir up fear and donations it's, "The end of freedom as we know it!"
Yes! Yes! Yes! It's a horrible mess. Politicians --all sides and ideology-- are solely engaged in pandering to those who will vote for them. Reason be damned. They want to keep their jobs and continue to enjoy the ride. Almost nothing else matters to these people.
Sometimes I feel that it would be very wise to modify the system such that politics truly becomes serving the country rather than a life-long career. A senator would have to go back to work in the real world every so many years if he/she wants to have the right to come back to government. Equal time. Serve six years and then do six years in private life, or some variant thereof.
At some level these people (again, any side) are so polarized that even basic arithmetic escapes them. And, in the end, we are the ones that have to pay for their moronic decisions. From unnecessary wars and bases all over the world to down-right criminal pension systems and benefits for government workers. Examples abound with the current extremes being physically located at places like Iraq + Afganistan and Stockton and (soon to come to a boil) California.
> I for one, haven't heard anything about the health care ruling opening the door to tax people for not buying government approved healthy foods, not using mass transportation, etc. But, I imagine we get our media from different sources.
No, that part was my extrapolation of the Supreme Court ruling on the matter.
As for where I got the news, well, I took the time to read the Supreme Court decision here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/98542275/Scotus-opinion
It's an interesting read. I've never done this before. The first page gets down to the meat and potatoes of the matter:
<quote> One key provision isthe individual mandate, which requires most Americans to maintain "minimum essential" health insurance coverage. 26 U. S. C. §5000A.For individuals who are not exempt, and who do not receive health insurance through an employer or government program, the means of satisfying the requirement is to purchase insurance from a private company. Beginning in 2014, those who do not comply with themandate must make a "[s]hared responsibility payment" to the Federal Government. §5000A(b)(1). The Act provides that this "penalty" will be paid to the Internal Revenue Service with an individual's taxes, and "shall be assessed and collected in the same manner" as tax penalties. </quote>
The simplification of this idea is what I was after: Buy this (or do this) or we will impose a tax penalty for failing to comply.
The Supreme Court just told all of us that this is perfectly legal and legitimate. And that might very well be absolutely true. Now, I am not a student of these things at all, but I am having trouble finding another example of the government penalizing citizens for not buying something through taxation. I can't point to one thing in my household that would result in a penalty tax if I did not fall-in and get it.
I argue --as an non-lawyer-- that this precedent opens the doors for a slippery slope where government can force you to do things through tax penalties as devised in the healthcare law. This is the part that I am concerned about.
And no, I am not right-wing or left. I am and independent thinker with a strong preference for non-creative arithmetic, individual freedom, free markets, low taxation, and the government staying the hell away from my life as much as possible.
Government can tax/fine/penalize you for not engaging in the behavior they want, whether that's forcing you to buy car insurance, or fining you for not complying with the speed limit or wearing a seat belt. As for your examples, one day those might be true. Maybe fifty years from now the government will provide a credit for solar panels and if they aren't installed you'll be fined (or taxed).
Also, slippery slope fallacy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slippery_slope#As_a_fallacy
In this particular case, I agree it's possibly a bad idea, they should just have free basic healthcare for everyone, and use taxes to fund it. But perhaps the US public is too stubborn and stupid to recognize that's a good idea, so this sort of bill is the best you can get away with and still provide healthcare for more people.
I mean, if you're not going to do the work to run your own fucking country, how can you complain when someone else does it for you?
You mention health care, and I completely agree with you on the ruling, but what you have to realize is that this is the best America can do. You had a President who made it a centerpiece of his campaign, who came into office with commanding leads for his party in both houses of Congress, with strong public support in favor of reforming the system up to and including total nationalization. All of this, and after 18 months of hyperventilating over death panels, of talk about mass importing of drugs from Canada - a country 1/10th your size by population - as a matter of national policy (because apparently just implementing the same price controls that Canada has is out of the question), and my personal favorite "you can't legislate health insurance companies out of existence, they'll all lose their jobs!" non-argument, this is the best you idiots could come up with. You don't think there was "a very public extended debate period" over health care? I suppose it depends on what you mean by "debate", but in America, where not knowing what the fuck you're talking about doesn't mean your opinion is any less important than that of an expert, I'd say you got it.
So as for your supposition that you don't have a say in your government, yes you are right that you basically don't and that sucks. It's not really something that's instituted from the top down but rather the laziness, indecisiveness, incuriousness, and acrimoniousness of the average American. I'd say your government has shown considerable restraint, considering what it has to work with. If a charismatic right-wing figure were able to seize control of your government, put his political enemies to death, and rule with an iron first, about 30-35% of your population would welcome him with open arms. (These people are called Republicans.) Most of the brutal fascisms of the twentieth century did more with less.
We are not a democracy. We are a representative democracy, which is very different.
I don't know about a single modern country that has a pure democratic political system.