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I’ve been hearing the more radical conservatives complaining about a new “Obama internet kill switch” that is being concocted to destroy our freedoms. For instance, here’s what Norman E. Hooben (“Stormin’ Norman”) says about it:
There has been some publicity lately about the Dictator and his Czars taking over the control of the Internet…and believe it people, if he could, he would! One of the main reasons [Obama] would like to control the Internet would be to stifle the truth about him and his henchman. The other objective is that which is not too highly publicized, and that is the United Nations.
Another blogger said, “Yet another unconstitutional assault on our liberty is being passed around the senate” and tagged his post under communism, corruption and socialism.
This is a pretty typical response from these kinds of conservatives. Notice the loaded language they use — “Dictator,” “Czars,” “henchman” — they aren’t really talking about issues, but using an issue superficially understood to make their constant point about how evil Obama is. The more radical liberals used the same kind of tactics when referring to Bush, which was equally ineffective at promoting intelligent discourse.
So what is this internet kill switch? Let’s get the facts from a fair and balanced news source, FOX News (did I hear snickering?):
A Senate bill would offer President Obama emergency control of the Internet and may give him a “kill switch” to shut down online traffic by seizing private networks — a move cybersecurity experts worry will choke off industry and civil liberties.
That’s the first sentence, and the first thing I notice is they use the phrase “seizing private networks” which sounds pretty bad and that “experts” are afraid it will hurt civil liberties. Yikes!
The new legislation allows the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and make a plan to respond to the danger, according to an excerpt published online — a broad license that rights experts worry would give the president “amorphous powers” over private users….
A Senate source familiar with the bill likened the new power to take control of portions of the Internet to what President Bush did when he grounded all aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001, CNET News reported….
But Rockefeller, who introduced the bill in April with bipartisan support, said the legislation was critical to protecting everything from water and electricity to banking, traffic lights and electronic health records.
“I know the threats we face,” Rockefeller said in a prepared statement when the legislation was introduced. “Our enemies are real. They are sophisticated, they are determined and they will not rest.”
I very concerned with civil liberties, but it’s absurd to point to this as evidence Obama is trying to silence freedom of speech. Obama has been very vocal in his support of all kinds of freedom — which is one reason why conservatives hate him so, because he even supports reproductive freedom. This isn’t about squelching presidential criticism — it’s about protecting ourselves in a crisis.
The government uses the internet for a lot of things. During a crisis, if traffic was sabotaged and/or overloaded, and the government couldn’t communicate effectively, they would need something like this — and without systems in place, it would be too late. Hopefully that will never happen, but let’s face it — it’s more important for the government to use the internet if a large disaster strikes, than for your Uncle Ted to be streaming HD porn videos.
The bill was introduced in April, and is just now getting attention. It has been reworked and will continue to be. I agree it’s a bill that needs to be carefully worded so that the government cannot turn off private networks unless there was a real crisis, and only for a short period of time.
But seriously folks, don’t make this into a free speech issue or about Obama’s supposed corruption. It’s a bill designed to protect people by keeping government communication open during a crisis. By all means, let’s protect civil liberties and keep government restrictions off the internet as much as possible. But let’s also not jump to conclusions and bray fanatically about corruption and communism. It just makes you look like a jackass.
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69 Comments
Even if the bill was exactly like what Fox News said it was, I wouldn’t be too worried about it until there’s another president. Obama, like Dan said, is for freedoms, rather than against them. It’s the unknown future president(Who may well be a republican) that I’d be worried over having that kind power.
But once a law its passed its there for anyone to use so we should hope that this bill will be properly worded so the next president if it happen to be someone who isn’t that keen on personal freedom won’t have a tool he can abuse. The problem is that looking at how the healthcare debate is going is that congress seem to be incapable of having an inteligent discussion on the issues which increase the danger that we will end up with some half baked law that will come back and bite us in the ass someday.
I object generally to the notion that Democrats in general and Obama in particular is “for freedom”. Both parties have a certain set of freedoms they like, and a certain set of freedoms they couldn’t care less about. Both sets overlap, though the second more than the first.
*Both* parties suck when it comes to free speech, police powers, privacy, drugs, digital freedoms, and economic freedoms.
Democrats suck specifically on guns, school choice, and lifestyle freedoms.
Republicans suck specifically on religious freedom/separation, reproductive/sexual issues, and preservation of the commons.
” Democrats suck specifically on guns, school choice, and lifestyle freedoms. ”
mark: False equivalency Enope. People want to sensible gun regulation because the amount of people killed by guns in this country is retarded. Also as far as the school choice things go republicans want to established charter schools by taking money out of the public school system which I believe would hurt the public school system.
The freedom to choose a school a parent wants their children in, is limited to those who can get funding for their children to go to charter or other alternatives to the public.
Giving freedoms to a few public school children to go to charter schools takes freedoms aways from the overwhelming majority of students who have no choice but to use the public school system.
Having said that I am still for school choice if the money is not taking out of the general school fund.
Out of curiosity, how are Dems against “lifestyle freedoms”? Which lifestyle freedoms, at that?
I’m not American, so… I wouldn’t know.
I think he means “Nanny State” issues. Seatbelt and motorcycle helmet laws are the ones that come to me off the top of my head.
It’s not a false equivalency. For whatever reason you may want to limit people’s ability to acquire guns, You can’t argue that doing so reduces their freedom. You may not like the outcome of someone’s free decision’s but that IS the point of freedom. You don’t get to tell others what to do, any more than they get to tell you.
Is there a greater good? maybe, maybe not. I personally don’t think gun laws are very effective, simply because the people most likely to commit a violent crime with them aren’t likely to acquire their guns legally.
Correction
…that doing so *doesn’t reduce* their freedom.
” Is there a greater good? maybe, maybe not. I personally don’t think gun laws are very effective, simply because the people most likely to commit a violent crime with them aren’t likely to acquire their guns legally. ”
mark: OK so now we have to come up with a meaning of ” freedom that we both agree. For instance is it a restriction of freedom to.
1) Arrest people who commit rape or murder
2) Require people to get insurance if they purchase and drive a car.
3) to have a license to own a gun
4) Fine industrial chemical companies when they violate pollution laws
5) Require people to have leash on their dogs including pit bulls and rottweilers
The state/federal government restricts laws for the greater good of all of us all of the time. Politicians Dems/repubs/independents are always writing laws that expand and limit our freedoms.
Try again buddy.
I don’t have to try again, you didn’t prove it was a false equivalency, which was the core of your argument. You have yet to prove that restricting people from purchasing guns is not a reduction of their free choices. As I implied there maybe a net gain for society, but that gain is independent of the freedoms sacrificed.
1) Rape and murder are severe personal violations, I do not see how simply owning a gun could be considered an equivalent issue.
2) and yet millions of Americans are driving without licenses or insurance. The practicality/enforceability of law is something that must always be taken into consideration. Would further restricting gun laws actually reduce violent gun crimes?
3) Most states you don’t need a license to buy a bolt action rifle or 12-gauge or smaller shotgun. Concealed carry permits are only required for handguns if they are kept out of a locked box. Again the rules vary wildly from state to state, It is not as cut and dry, all or nothing, that so many people want it to be. I’m mostly happy with laws we have now, you can buy just about anything for a decent compromise. A few days waiting period for handguns, and a scaled reduction of freedom depending on whether you choose to purchase semi-automatics. Again states vary in their laws so don’t take that to mean I approve of everything everywhere.
4) Sure, if a private entity endangers or destroys public property then of course they should be held accountable for their negligence or damages.
5) This is another odd one, leash laws vary by counties, not just states. Breed restrictions are next worthless in preventing attacks, as a dogs behavior is mostly dependent on how it is treated. But loose dogs can endanger traffic and property so its a matter of necessity, in cities leash laws have a place, in the country not so much.
Finally how do laws expand freedom? The only laws that expand freedom are ones that undue old laws. The 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, and 21st amendments are the only major ones that come to mind, each of which undid hundreds if not thousands of laws in various states. But in general writing a law creates a new set of punitive restrictions on behavior, therefor the very act of writing law is mostly a freedom reducing one. You don’t increase freedom by continually making new rules. For example when the country was founded we had exactly 3 Federal crimes. Now legal scholars estimate we have somewhere in the neighborhood 40,000. I say estimate because no one actually knows how many laws the federal government has. Think about that for a second, we have so many laws its impossible for the law enforcement to actually know what they are. That’s terrifying and ridiculous all at the same time. Its impossible for you as a citizen of this country to know if you are breaking the law right now.
- Sorry about the long post everybody.
I think it’s fairly obvious that the Republicans are far worse in terms of lifestyle choices. If they had your way, you could not be gay or transsexual, or if you were, you could not have sex, marry, adopt children, teach, or basically interact with people in any way. You could not abort unwanted fetuses. You generally would have to conform to a set of conservative Christian laws.
Admittedly, Democrats support more federal interventionism in terms of, e.g., seat belt laws, but I have to think those are all pretty minor.
I tend to agree with DDM — even if Obama has good intentions, every new power he gains is a potential point of abuse for future presidents. I am reminded of this quote by Daniel Webster:
“There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters.”
“The more radical liberals used the same kind of tactics when referring to Bush, which was equally ineffective at promoting intelligent discourse.”
Yes, but it was so fun. :P
I knew I shouldn’t have voted for the guy. Well, that means when I can’t get on anymore it’ll be my own fault.
Seriously, though,
“…it’s more important for the government to use the internet if a large disaster strikes, than for your Uncle Ted to be streaming HD porn videos.”
Absolutely. Frankly, I’m surprised the government needs any special laws to have that power.
It certainly should require special laws as powers given to government need to be ‘ring fenced’ to ensure that they are used correctly not just by the current government but also by future governments. Trust us we’ll only use the law in the way it was intended it a bad way to make law …
I just meant that I would have expected there were already broader laws over communications in general that would have sufficed.
I’d be surprised if the US didn’t have some sort of powers under ‘emergence’ conditions – here in the UK we certainly do. I would assume that this proposal comes out of the recently conducted Cyber-Review which has at last highlighted how unprotected much of the electronic infrastructure (both government and commercial) is to outside attack. As a simple example think of the economic damage that could be caused by removing the ability of large banks to transfer money. This doesn’t even need to be say a DoS attack but can also be achieved by undermining the trust currently placed in electronic transfers. Saying all of this I still wonder what this proposal is actually for – it has already been talked about (here in the UK at least) of the government taking a more active role in protecting ‘The Internet’ i.e. move to a more attack minded stance than the current defensive stance. Is this what the US is aiming for?
Has there ever been a better Rorschach test for partisanship than this proposed bill?
Liberals that support this but opposed expanded wire-tapping powers under Bush are probably reflexively partisan, as are conservatives that defended the Patriot Act but attack the current bill.
Or they could have different answers to “What kind of threat justifies invading citizens privacy?” and “What kind of threat justifies shutting down a major pathway for free speech?”
Well, I certainly opposed federal wiretapping, and I support this bill. Not every issue is black and white. Wiretapping was not only illegal, but unnecessary. At the same time, it was a huge invasion of privacy. And it was clearly abused–the stories are endless of soldiers listening in to pillow talk for their own amusement.
This bill is not a proposal to use these powers right away, but merely to have them in the case of a concerted internet attack, a completely different scenario. Moreover, there is no invasion of privacy, and assuming the fed doesn’t actually _damage_ the internet, and I don’t see how they could do that, it could quickly recover, which merely means some domains or IPs would be shut down for a brief period of time. This could be problematic for some business transactions, but hardly fatal.
But the ideas behind the two bills are also completely different. The wiretapping was all about catching terrorists, and this paranoia that the terrorists were all out there, plotting our demise, and the only way to catch them was to listen in to their conversations. With this mentality, the wiretapping will never end. It also justifies greater and more ridiculous action in a world that, as much as I hate to sound cliche, really does resemble Big Bother. This bill is just a defensive measure, a contingency plan used to respond to ACTUAL threats when they ACTUALLY happen. It’s not about catching terrorists or preemptively avoiding attacks, it’s about responding properly to any such attacks.
All that said, it is still vitally important that the bill demand a real, significant, and pressing threat before that power is used, and I admit I might not have trusted the government under the Bush administration and a 50/50 Congress to make that happen. I don’t find that hypocritical.
Reminds me of this article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/14/AR2009081401495_pf.html “In America, crazy is a pre-existing condition.”
All I can say is, you haven’t met my Uncle Ted. You never know what he might do if his HD porn stream were interrupted. :P
But seriously, I wish the “socialist” lexicon of terms could be given a rest. If Obama was a crazo, the only people he’d be shutting up are those calling him a nut-job socialist, and not us, the people who voted for him and are happy to see him in office.
And sure, the internet would be a better place without uber-conservative watchdogs, but then who would we rubberneck at as we searched for real news?
The issue in certain camps is certainly mis-used to attack Obama; the problem is behind that wall of hate is a genuine point. The bill is dangerous and I think others commenting before me have the right point: it’s not about whether Obama would use it, but would a future president? Once the powers are there they can be used without the publics total knowledge and that is the dangerous part. Right now the bill is poorly constructed, allowing for “open” interpretation in the future, and it’s this issue that needs to be addressed.
OMG! Shut down the blogg-o-sphere before some one reads this!!!
“It’s a bill designed to protect people by keeping government communication open during a crisis.”
I almost died laughing when I read that one although most of Florien’s rambling had me in thigh slapping mode.
“Government communication” for any kind of “crisis” would run on a completely different backbone than highly technical secure bulletproof ones used by the twitterati, farcebookers, and the yoo-tooberz.
And if we will depend on the digital for “government communication” during a “crisis” then we are in for trouble for sure.
The truth is that some want total control over the kinds of freedom we saw just recently during the crisis in Iran. We can’t have any of that.
Experience shows us that any random dipshit can make a botnet that can interfere with government communications in or out of a time of crisis. Its OK though, you can still go back to NewRepublic and complain about how your rights are being infringed on for whatever lame excuse you can think up.
This is a bad idea. The whole premise is that the internet is “a series of tubes” and that the government may need to shut everyone else down to get their supper important government emails through. They’re already powers in place giving various government agencies control over water, power, and variety of other public resources if an emergency arises. But those are all physical entities that might need to be taken over in an emergency (like grounding planes after a national attack). What situation could possibly justify shutting down the internet in part or in whole?
This seems to me to be a lot like the terror alert crap. It was put in place for ‘our protection’ but it is now apparent that it existed solely to manipulate the public for political gain. By the way Rockefeller is the same asshole that worked so hard to get the telecoms immunity. He has no concern for the freedoms and rights of other Americans. I mean if hes so knowledgeable about what our ‘enemies’ are going to do to us, why not try stopping them instead of making an unnecessary and dubious piece of legislature. Oh, maybe its because these particular enemies are fictional and this is nothing more than a blatant power grab.
Nobody (nobody who has been paying attention and isn’t a complete paranoid wacko) thinks this legislation would allow the president to take over or shut down the entire internet. Shutting down one website is shutting down part of the internet. Shouldn’t that be allowed in extreme situations? Shutting down a private computer network which is taking part in an attack on a nation should be perfectly acceptable… to a rational person. Fear in these issues is generally tied to lack of information. Don’t let the paranoid wacko’s be the source of your information.
Shutting down one website is shutting down part of the internet. Shouldn’t that be allowed in extreme situations?
Sure, as the outcome of a judicial action consummate with due process.
Shutting down a private computer network which is taking part in an attack on a nation should be perfectly acceptable… to a rational person.
Ditto above.
Fear in these issues is generally tied to lack of information.
We have strong protections in the the US against prior restraint, and strong notions of due judicial process. It is not “crazy” or “ignorance” to be concerned about executive meddling into what should be a judicial milieu, especially about an area of law closely tied to dearly-held freedoms (e.g. speech and expression).
What is most annoying about the paranoid crazies is when they complain about something which, in sane and rational measures, may and perhaps ought to be criticized or at least scrutinized. Their wacky attentions destroy the ability to hold rational discourse on the subject.
Is this your way of saying you agree but want to pretend that you disagree?
No.
So you believe that while the physical infrastructure of a nation can and should be protected without the need to go to a judge (aka security guards or police), some random kid from some random country pushing a few buttons that can inject effluent into the drinking water of a major city and cause deaths and disease shouldn’t have his botnet shut down until an old white man in a black robe (who may actually believe the internet is a series of tubes) is informed of it. Understood.
Understood.
Clearly not.
So you believe that while the physical infrastructure of a nation can and should be protected without the need to go to a judge (aka security guards or police)
Unless they run to a judge for a warrant, these individuals are already constrained by the Constitution to act within a quite narrow range of discretion, governed by the “reasonable suspicion” and “probable cause” standards. Even if that were not the case, there is no free expression issues with protecting physical infrastructure. There is no “rivalrous intersection of rights and interests”, in the term of art. The laws which empower agents of the state to protect physical infrastructure are narrowly tailored to protect against vandalism and sabotage, i.e. physical property destruction.
The case of the Internet is more complicated because of the nature of the medium at issue (primarily a communications medium). The measure at issue would broaden the discretion of agents of the state to act without judicial intercession; not generally a smart thing to do when balancing such an important right against the various state interests in play.
some random kid from some random country pushing a few buttons that can inject effluent into the drinking water of a major city and cause deaths and disease shouldn’t have his botnet shut down until an old white man in a black robe (who may actually believe the internet is a series of tubes) is informed of it.
First off, after 9/11, all critical infrastructure computers are not supposed to have telnet access, at least not on the main Internet. It would have been good policy before that, but it is a mandate now in any case. If “some kid” has broken into a utilities intranet, he or she has already broken several laws, and countermeasures are indicated. No need for more laws (or more countermeasures). Certainly no need to lower the evidential standard for defensive action.
But beyond that, given that the state agents in charge of deciding whether or not said kid is a threat don’t in fact have a great track record of separating protective/defensive duties from more politicized activities (see, e.g. COINTELPRO, abuse of wire surveillance, etc.), and the potential for abuse in this milieu is *far* higher (given that most people are fuzzy beyond the tubes metaphor about how the guts of the Internet actually works, combined with what it is usually used for), it is in fact not the best plan to hand extrajudicial power to police agencies beyond what they already have.
@Elemenope
“… all critical infrastructure computers are not supposed to have telnet access, …”
Removing telnet access doesn’t somehow make computer systems secure. If you want to make a computer secure a) don’t switch it on and b) if you do switch it on don’t connect it to the internet!
Any system that is connected to the internet is open to attack and protecting those systems is very, very difficult (and not something that has yet been solved) as the internet was never designed with security in mind and so this is generally bolted on — attacks on for example DNS and BGP demonstrate this. In addition even protocols designed with security in mind have problems and the devices that implement “security” are shown to have weaknesses – just have at look at the NVD to see how many problems we currently have. The US government is putting systems in place to achieve greater security (the FISMA projects for example) but there is still a lot of work to do.
Saying all of the above I still agree that it may not be required for a new law (I freely admit that I’m unclear as to what the current US law is) to be in place and if it is then it needs to be constrained to ensure that it is only used in “appropriate” circumstances. As you state law may end up being used in ways that are never intended or may even be covered by existing laws. Badly draft and hurried laws just make this worse. A secondary problem is that if laws are used for purposes they we never designed for then how could that have been properly (by government) considered in the first place?
*d’oh!*
Removing telnet access doesn’t somehow make computer systems secure. If you want to make a computer secure a) don’t switch it on and b) if you do switch it on don’t connect it to the internet!
You’re right. I meant ‘b’. They are not supposed to be hooked up to teh Internetz at all. Just local intranets.
@Elemenope
What definition are you using for critical infrastructure as I’m relatively sure that from my understanding of the term (utilities, banks, health etc.) they are connected to public networks?
Some are, some are not. IIRC, power stations and distribution nodes are no longer allowed to be on public networks, and IDK if they included waste and water management as well. If not, they *should*. Banks are private entities; their security is their own business, though most of their critical stuff is not hooked up. IIRC, even ATM to bank communications are done through dedicated lines.
Even if I’m remembering wrong and these places are still allowed to stupidly hook up through the Internet, the better approach is to mandate that they do not, rather then trying to patch the problem backwards by giving the government plenary power to shut down sites and monitor traffic.
@Elemenope
Do you really think this is about art and free expression, or are you just scrambling?
Our laws are far behind our technology. The laws must be changed to catch up to the rapid advances in technology and the abilities it gives people who wish to harm others. Nobody really thinks this is about art or free expression. Nobody other than those who want to misrepresent it for political purposes, that is. This law won’t stop someone from having art on their website. This law will not stop someone from expressing themselves.. unless their chosen form of self expression is harming others.
The kid who uses a botnet to inject effluent into a water supply has indeed broken laws.. but what can be done to him when he could be in Ghana or Swaziland? What law gives those who monitor the water supply the right to not simply defend themselves from this attack should they be capable of that, but to contact law enforcement in order to directly and immediately shut down the botnet performing the attack in time to save lives? Why should such a law not exist? I understand that you want no laws infringing on freedoms, but the freedom not to die because of some punk on the far side of the world decides he wants you dead is quite important also.
Its not art. Its not free expression. Its protecting citizens from danger.
Why infringe personal freedoms (even potentially) when a far easier technical fix is readily available (i.e. don’t hook up your computers controlling critical systems to the Internet)?
The problem with your argument is that the bugaboo against which we are defending (which, all cliche’s aside, is *not* some kid in Europe, but is much more likely to be some foreign intelligence agency or military) does not respond to criminal law at all, anyway. You don’t (can’t) defend against such attacks by increasing police power, you defend against them by hardening the likely targets. If you don’t want your infrastructure to be vulnerable to cyberattack, give it a dedicated intranet and/or heavily encrypt all data traffic, if it must be online at all.
Also, the notion that law enforcement could “shut down the botnet” is fairly silly, especially in the timescales that you are talking about. Generally, botnets are distributed attack platforms across hundreds of thousands or millions of computers, most of which are unaware they are participating (botnet “zombies”), across hundreds of jurisdictions.
When a solution has:
1. more effective competitors
2. high potential for abuse
3. low effectiveness
…it is logical to eschew it in favor of others.
“… give it a dedicated intranet and/or heavily encrypt all data traffic”
Well the first part is actually very difficult to achieve — exactly what network do you think that banks should use to communicate with each other — and the second, well I’m not sure how you think that “heavily encrypting” (what ever that actually means twofish, AES 256?) will some how magically protect systems from attack. Of course there is also the major problem of key management to consider.
Your statement of “when a far easier technical fix is readily available” is just not true. If it was this easy I would be out of a job.
Your statement of “when a far easier technical fix is readily available” is just not true. If it was this easy I would be out of a job.
Fair enough. I’ll bow to your superior technical expertise. :)
@Elemenope
Not a problem … it’s just one of those things that one someone states “secure = encryption” or “making systems secure is easy” I feel compelled to correct it. Oh and if you think security is hard now just wait until cloud computing takes of then there’s another big headache to to solve!
@Aor
The problem that I see is how any law may end up being used not the intention of how it is used — remember all those laws passed as anti-terror measures; then compare that (at least here in the UK) to what they have been used for. It’s possible to say that using these powers for minor offences (dog fouling, littering, benefit fraud etc.) is a good thing but that is not how the laws were proposed and debated on in goverment before being passed into law.
I agree completely. Any law can be misused, but that does not mean that those laws should not exist. The potential for misapplication or misuse is not justification for preventing a law from being created.
The potential for a law being mis-used is a justification for a law being not created. If a law cannot be created to minimise mis-use then it’s just a bad law and bad laws lead to bad outcomes.
Since all laws can be misused, that means that there should be no laws. I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t hold water.
Minimizing misuse is not the same as being impossible to misuse. Naturally lawmakers put a great deal of effort into minimizing misuse, but it can never ever be completely eliminated.
“Since all laws can be misused, that means that there should be no laws.”
Oh do come on Aor, you know that not at all want I meant.
isn’t that what the supreme court is for, to judge how and when a law may be used?
I wouldn’t know, I’m English ;-)
What I do know is that a crop of knee-jerk reaction anti-terror laws have been used in ways that they were never intented to be used and I doubt that would have got through parliment if this had been realised.
Decide in haste ;Repent at leisure and all that …
I think there’s a fairly gaping difference between radical liberals’ diatribe and that of the radical right. The most common claim was that Bush was a war criminal. The thing is that you could lay out a prosecution case, with evidence, that he was. You might not agree with it and you may even support the measures Bush used given the threat of terrorism (rendition, Guantanamo, etc.) but the case could still be made.
The claims that Barack is trying to control the internet, is a Marxist Kenyan anti-Christ etc. are just flat out lies. No evidence in sight. Indeed, the evidence goes the other way.
You cannot reason with unreasonable people.
Perhaps I can help explain this issue.
Barack Obama is black. Republicans are racists, it is their #1 party platform. A black president is driving them even more bonkers than usual.
Hope this helps.
I’m confused. What color skin does the GOP party chairman have?
Lest history go down the memory-hole, does anybody remember exactly how insane they acted during the Clinton years? And what color was he?
Elemenope wrote:
“I’m confused. What color skin does the GOP party chairman have?”
He is a black man who supports their white racist ideology. They’re cool with that, because it gives them an “out” to disingenuously go “See? We have black members, therefore we’re not racist”, as you just did.
“Lest history go down the memory-hole, does anybody remember exactly how insane they acted during the Clinton years?”
Sure. Remember now, we are talking about insane people.
“And what color was he?”
He was white, and represented an obstacle to pushing their racist dog whistle tribal ideology and endless wars.
They will spazz out on any Democratic president, but Obama drives them over the cliff.
You said:
Barack Obama is black. Republicans are racists, it is their #1 party platform. A black president is driving them even more bonkers than usual.
Some Republicans are racists, it is true. So are some Democrats. (Wander your way down south and meet plenty of both. Scoot your way up north and have difficulty finding either.) Either way, it is not a major part of the ideology of either party, and it certainly is not in their “party platform”.
What’s driving them “more bonkers than usual” is losing, and badly, to a young upstart after having such a long, free run with the reigns of power. It was *exactly* the same as happened to Clinton after the Reagan/Bush years.
“What’s driving them “more bonkers than usual” is losing, and badly, to a young upstart after having such a long, free run with the reigns of power. It was *exactly* the same as happened to Clinton after the Reagan/Bush years. ”
mark: Enope I agree with you if your point is that repubs go bat shit when dems get power. But you have to be blind if you cannot see the blatant racism behind a lot of the protest against Obama. If you don’t think so then just go to you tube and take a look at the Palin rallies with all of the rednecks hollering kill em and terrorist.
During the campaign last year the republicans refused to speak out against the over the top and racist behavior until John McCain told one lady that Obama was a patriot and you she didn’t have to fear him. But this was only after many, many incidents that repubs refused to address.
Palin’s palling around with terrorist statements while ginning up mob hatred that influenced all kinds of redneckism during last years presidential campaign and even now. What Palin was doing was racist, I mean she and her husband have a right to join an Alaskan secessionist party and still be considered “real Americans ” by the right but because Obama was on education board with a former left wing radical he isn’t a real American.
Elemenope wrote:
“Some Republicans are racists, it is true. So are some Democrats. (Wander your way down south and meet plenty of both. Scoot your way up north and have difficulty finding either.) Either way, it is not a major part of the ideology of either party, and it certainly is not in their “party platform”.”
Unfortunately, this type of wishy-washy “everybody is the same” type of false equivalence is largely responsible for the sorry state of our politics.
Yes, there are “some” racist Democrats. But the Republican party, as a whole, exists to perpetuate institutionalized racism. They are not equivalent, and treating them as if they are, lends false legitimacy to the extreme right wing racist nutball ideology that has taken over the Republican party.
“What’s driving them “more bonkers than usual” is losing, and badly, to a young upstart after having such a long, free run with the reigns of power. It was *exactly* the same as happened to Clinton after the Reagan/Bush years.”
Yes. Everything is always “exactly the same” and all Republicans are free of racism — they just act bonkers in all other ways completely excluding racism.
And on a related note, through my window I see that a unicorn just galloped through my backyard.
This may help with that particular question:
http://www.counterpunch.org/wise08112009.html
Part of their insanity was branding him “the first black President”, right?
That was mostly self-inflicted, and in any case not particularly serious; IIRC, it was regarding an off-the-cuff remark by Toni Morrison regarding how he seemed to embody many prominent tropes of African-American life. It was a mark of cultural affection, and the Republicans didn’t much care or comment about it at the time.
If the best we can do is argue which is worse, Republicans or Democrats, then we’ve all missed the point and are doomed to failure. If you think or have said anything similar to “All Republicans are racists,” or “All Democrats are communists,” then you’re just as stupid as the others. Those kinds of generalizations are not only provably false, but they help the other side easily display how stupid their competition is. The truth from my point of view is that the Dems and Repubs are 99% identical. Bush mostly bombed Iraq, Obama is bombing Afghanistan and Pakistan. Neither party has discussed getting out of the middle east (or any of the 160 countries in which we have military bases for that matter). Neither party wants to reduce spending or reform monetary policy. Neither party is proposing any real changes to healthcare. All of the current bills in congress are simply massive expansions of what we already have.
The problem as I see it is mostly that government has massively overstepped its authority and now controls mostly anything it wants. When everything is controlled by legislation, the legislators will be bought and controlled by those who want that control. Just look at the recent law passed about lead testing [1]. While that law was being crafted, Mattel jumped its lobbying budget from ~$100,00 to over $650,000. It’s toys were the ones most involved in the lead problems, but through their efforts they got the law enacted in a more restrictive way than it would otherwise have been, and it got itself exempted from the requirement to have the testing done at a 3rd party lab. So they used their ownership of members of congress to enact incredibly expensive regulations on their competition, while eliminating themselves from those same requirements. This was all done in the Democratically controlled congress. So please, stop with the holier than thou attitude when it comes to one of the major parties, they are both corrupt and are both responsible for awful things in the US.
[1] http://www.theagitator.com/2009/08/30/wow-21/
Paul McLanahan wrote:
“If the best we can do is argue which is worse, Republicans or Democrats, then we’ve all missed the point and are doomed to failure. If you think or have said anything similar to “All Republicans are racists,” or “All Democrats are communists,” then you’re just as stupid as the others.”
Maybe you should read people’s comments carefully before calling them stupid. No one said “All Republicans are racists”.
Their party supports racist ideology and uses racist dog whistle code to get subhuman morons to, among other things, come out to rallies with shotguns. Not every single person who votes Republican is a racist, but the ones who aren’t, tend not to follow politics very closely or don’t understand what the party is about.
“Those kinds of generalizations are not only provably false, but they help the other side easily display how stupid their competition is. The truth from my point of view is that the Dems and Repubs are 99% identical.”
And this is the problem with American politics — that false equivalence that so many lame-ass reporters and news commentators have adopted over the past few decades.
Both parties have problems, but they’re far from identical. When you run the line of ‘oh, they’re all corrupt so who cares’ you legitimize the right-wing cranks, who have a much more firm foothold in American discourse and keep pushing the “center” over the cliff to the right.
When you spread the blame around to both parties equally, irrespective of the facts, you create an atmosphere where the radical right wing nuts are emboldened and legitimized.
As a result, most prominent Democrats would be considered right-leaning corporate-friendly centrists anywhere but the US, but here, because we legitimize crazy religious nuts and Hitler appeasers as if they are rational freethinkers, those centrist Democrats appear to be on the far left of the spectrum. Which, in acceptable US discourse, they are.
What the US needs is for the Republican party to be received for what it is — a sick joke — and for it to be held in the same contempt that other fringe parties are held in. Then a new party should emerge, to fill the vacuum and challenge the Democratic party from the left, in order to challenge the frauds and the bad actors and the corporate- and lobbyist-friendly Democrats you referred to in your post. The Republicans aren’t going to do it, because their agenda is backwards, eliminationist bullshit.
Sounds like the usual NWO paranoia. Neither side is perfect therefore bitch bitch complain.
http://www.cracked.com/article_17142_5-ways-common-sense-lies-you-everyday.html
Check out the Nirvana fallacy.
There is no such thing possible as an Internet kill switch!
Yes, you can shut down Google, Facebook , DNS or other segments of the Internet but Internet is global not limited to the US only. Web sites located in the US might get disrupted but the Internet is still working in the rest of the world.
Again, more conspiracy theories that are bunk.
Hey why don’t all you who are advocating for this bill, just admit it. You’ve replaced God with The State.
I mean only a person who supports rhetoric like “It’s for our protection” and “The government can do no wrong” would advocate such a thing. You’re like a drug addict who replaces heroin with methadone and utterly ignores the fact that they’re same exact thing.
Oh and one question. If this bill is to protect the government from a “cyber-attack”, then wouldn’t that concern their own computers and not ours?
Or maybe they figure that “All you’re Computers Belong to Us”
If i may. Firstly, i am republican, and am actually happy to find a group of democrats (and im assuming some liberals too) who can actually sensibly debate, instead of throwing needless insults and hate out at people who dont agree with them. I mean that politely.
My things tho: drop the race issue. Novodys mad at obama for being black. Im not. We’re mad at his policies and beliefs. For example, is him travelling to denmark to fight for the 2016 olympics to be in chicago REALLY that important? One example of many.
Now, my biggest issue with the “internet killswitch” is this: it will shut off internet to “all non-governmental computers.” If there ever is some kind of attack like that, do you really think mine and yours computers will be attacked? Or do you think the perpetrators will go after FBI, Pentagon, White House etc computers? I dont know about you, but theres nothing on my computer that could be used against the country. It just makes no sense. I look at the big picture, and i suspect the bill will have something to do with cutting off our information gathering abilities. No internet, and our source of info will be the media, which will tell us only what the gov’t wants us to know. And i think the “private security force” Obama wants will be a part of it all. After all, we already have military, police, Secret Service, U.S. Marshalls, FBI, CIA, ATF, Border Patrol etc. Why do we need another security force?
Just my humble insights. Would love to debate, but i wont respond to insults and hatred.
My things tho: drop the race issue. Novodys mad at obama for being black. Im not. We’re mad at his policies and beliefs. For example, is him travelling to denmark to fight for the 2016 olympics to be in chicago REALLY that important? One example of many.
http://img.wonkette.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/racist_tea_party.jpg
News flash 3D: Obama is african (-american). Did it throw a racial slur? No. So now calling an african-american a african is racist?
News flash 3D: Obama is african (-american). Did it throw a racial slur? No. So now calling an african-american a african is racist?
http://ladylibertyslamp.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/obama-racist-latest.jpg
Yeah, that doesnt prove anything. For all we know you made that. That in no way shows racist rebulicans, or suggests hes hated for being black.