Patriot Act Game Pokes Fun at Government 350
The Miami Herald is reporting that a new game based on Monopoly is taking a crack at Patriot Act and what creator Michael Kabbash describes as the curtailed freedom that has resulted. From the article: "The object of the game is not to amass the most money or real estate, but to be the last player to retain civil liberties. 'I've had people complain to me that when they play, nobody wins. They say "We're all in Guantanamo and nobody has any civil liberties left," he said. 'I'm like "Yeah, that's the point."'"
Re:Yay for wasting time... (Score:0, Insightful)
How about Yay for raising public awareness? (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the most troubling things about the current situation is that your average Joe Sixpack has no idea how far the current administration has gone in their efforts to decieve them and strip away their inalienable rights. Once they're properly appraised of the situation, they're usually pretty damned mad about it.
Getting the word out is one of the most important ways we can fight this assault on our liberty. The people in power thrive on ignorance. Anything that deprives them of that is positive.
Not a waste (Score:5, Insightful)
What's more beneficial to the bottom line of a popular movement -- one individual sending a letter, or one individual getting two people to send a letter? Or how about one individual making 1,000 people 0.2% more likely to write a letter?
Few people want to talk about civil liberties at the water cooler during their afternoon break. This game is interesting enough to be water-cooler fodder, which is a good thing -- raise awareness of the issue.
Re:Yay for wasting time... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd like to add one more thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the "sound bite" media that's really doing us in. And "they", the media, are doing it because that's where the money is. There's no profit in being rational, careful, insightful, and just using common sense. Sensationalism has overtaken the media. Trying to get the issues past that, well, is impossible. Let's face it, folks want the sensationlized version. They want to feel superior to the "stupid" people who have a different opinion from theirs.
Your line of reasoning rang a bell (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, we're losing all our civil liberties but some guy is still free to openly criticize the government without fear of the FBI showing up on his doorstep.
Your line of reasoning rang a bell. Where did I hear it before? Oh yeah, I remember:
You are confusing "going away" with "gone"; just because at sunset there is still more than enough light to read by, you can not conclude that daylight is not going away, and should not draw comfort from the fact that it isn't as dark as it is somewhere else on the planet.--MarkusQ
Re:I'd like to add one more thing... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yay for wasting time... (Score:3, Insightful)
That you are aware of. It's hard to realize you are having an effect when there is no tangible evidence handed to you.
Just as important as educating the voting public is attempting to affect the decisions of our lawmakers. It does no good to educate the public if none of the public is telling the lawmakers how we want them to vote.
Removing someone from office because we didn't like their decisions is too late -- it's just a form of censure. You've got to get them before they pass laws you don't like.
Re:Yay for wasting time... (Score:5, Insightful)
Brooks responded that you can't fight a dictator by getting up on a soap box. Dictators are, by nature, natural spell-binders, and you'll never outdebate them. But what you can do and what works is to make them look ridiculous.
So, in this case you paint the administration as a bunch of goose stepping blockheads who are besotted with fascism. It's not the way our system is supposed to work, but it's the way politics works.
Re:Yay for wasting time... (Score:4, Insightful)
Those representatives are in gerrymandered "safe districts." They don't have to care, they're the government.
Re:We're doomed! (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh! Got a law passed. Haha, no you can't criticize us! Good job paying attention to China.
An old idiom goes, you don't have to be better than someone else to make it, you have to be the best. So no, what's going on in China is important, but you have to ALWAYS look and see what is going on here.
And there are far more civil liberties than "The right to free speech"
Good. (Score:4, Insightful)
I always give a great deal of respect and support and love to people who try to keep an eye on the government, and even more when they have a sense of humour about it. The reality of the situation, for all citizens, is kinda like a parent trying to keep an eye on a really mischevious kid who likes to steal your stuff and money and beat up other kids, but instead of an unruly pubescent child, you have an army of secret agents and powermongers to try and keep from running amok.
Re:We're doomed! (Score:5, Insightful)
Moderate, or respond? RESPOND!
You do know that american idol was taken directly from a EUROPEAN TV SHOW called pop idol?
Trying to call the american public 'stupid', along with saying that somehow the abuse of power commited by certain individuals in the US governemnt is to be blamed on the general public shows me all I need to know about your line of reasoning. Otherwise, can you support your argument with something other than straw? Using the phrase 'some people say', or 'some believe', and then countering with your own statement, is a horribly wrongly overused style of debate. You may have heard of it, its called setting up a 'straw man'. The only purpose of which is to knock down, making you look like you are actually debating something.
You believe leaders to be god like figures who are destined to rule over the 'unwashed masses' who dont know any better.
Blowing things out of proportion? warrantless wiretaps, detainment wihtout legal representation, arrest without being informed of your crimes, media used for propaganda, and now PHYSICAL warantless searches as well. Exactly at what point do you think it would be appropriate to stand up for yourself? When the boot is already on your neck?
I hate to tell you, but you ARE necessarily defending what the government is doing. Saying you are 'not necessarily' defending it is to soften your language to fool yourself into believing your own words. Unfortunately, subjective thought matters little to objective reality. Looks like you fooled someone else beside yourself though, as you were marked as 'insightful'. I wonder if it was one of those guilty, stupid, uncaring americans who modded you as such? Maybe it was one of those 'enlightened' Europeans who are smarter because they made 'pop idol' a smash hit in europe first?
Believe it or not, you are advocating fascism. Stop trying to put makeup on a pig and telling me it is beautiful.
Re:For the love of Pete... (Score:2, Insightful)
The rights to privacy and due process, for example, are directly threatened. The PA circumvents many of the traditional checks against government, especially in the so-called "sneak and peek" provisions. Politicians and pundits who support the PA frame it as if law enforcement already knows who's guilty and who's innocent, and the guilty clearly deserve no civil liberties. Skeptics believe (like the majority here on slashdot) that the dangers posed by terrorism do not exceed the dangers posed by a corrupt government.
Re:This is America... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ahem. [wikipedia.org]
Or did you just mean not recently?
Re:We're doomed! (Score:1, Insightful)
Making fun of people for pointing out that since the electoral college votes are based on the popular vote, a successful challenge to the Florida vote would have changed the electoral votes cast by their college members and thus the election (while telling them that they should study government)? Making the same old tired claim that having sticks shoved up your ass and having your balls electrocuted is just "humiliating" (If gay sex is "only" humiliating then why is the President so gung-ho about banning it)? Making the most pathetic attempt to link Iraqis to 9/11 that I've seen (insert stats about Saudi participants, and the fact that until we kicked him out, Saddam was busy gassing bin Laden's Kurdish friends)?
reporting on Japanese balloon bombs during WWII also.
Funny you should mention the last war America ever declared.
Please get with reality.
Reality? The reality is that our administration held an American citizen without trial for years (and don't give me some "terrorists have no rights" bullshit, since even the government has quit calling Padilla a terrorist). The reality is that we have a secret no-fly list that prevents those awful terrorist infants from ever setting foot on a plane. The reality is that our government freezes citizens' accounts for paying down credit card debt on the chance that Mastercard is secretly a front for a terrorist organization or drug cartel.
Do you have a real rebuttal?
Re:Obligatory Grammar Post (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:We're doomed! (Score:2, Insightful)
Also, The Ninth and Tenth Amendments. Every power the government claims for itself that is not mentioned in the Constitution is one that has been stripped from the States and the People respectively.
Others mentioned the no-fly list. People claim that I have no right to fly (see also: 9th Amendment), I claim that the United States has no right to prevent me from flying. If you find this in the Constitution, let me know. "Interstate commerce" doesn't count, as the no-fly list applies even on intrastate flights.
Others mentioned elections. Elections are specifically delegated to the states, with the exception that Congress can choose the election date. Someone (you?) claimed that the Florida election was "lost", however, the SCOTUS cancelled the recount before a statement could have been made as to who "won" or "lost".
Re:I'd like to add one more thing... (Score:3, Insightful)
You sound like a Democrat [google.com], then.
Seriously, if a conservative says that, and doesn't act that way, then he is not a conservative. Hence, Bush, and much of the GOP Congress, is not conservative. They do some conservative things, but a conservative would never be in favor of No Child Left Behind, for example.
The problem is that most people think social conservatives -- of which Bush is one -- is the same thing as a Reagan conservative, or a Republican Revolution conservative. Just spouting the anti-abortion and anti-gay-rights shibboleths are enough to get you "in." The Republican Revolution was a conservative one, but it died awhile ago.
Re:This is America... (Score:5, Insightful)
They haven't come for the Jews.
No. But they've come for the Muslims [masnet.org]
They haven't come for the Communists.
No. Because it's profitable to ignore them. [bbc.co.uk]
They haven't come for the trade unionists.
No. Because they no longer matter. [lostamericanjobs.com]
And they haven't come for you.
They won't bother because we don't matter. [blackboxvoting.com]
Re:Not a waste (Score:2, Insightful)
I did. Didn't work. Don't see that changing.
I must've missed the memo... (Score:5, Insightful)
When they become Civil Priviledges, I'm running for the hills.
Re:Priceless (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Your line of reasoning rang a bell (Score:5, Insightful)
Translation: people respond drastically to sudden changes, but it's very easy to make those same changes over a longer period of time and have little reaction. Now I'd hope most world citizens are smarter than the abovementioned frog, but it still works in principle. Consider Sony: they moved in way too aggressively with the rootkit, and it massively backfired. If they'd attempted a much more subtle approach, they'd have probably gotten away with it.
"We've still got more rights than China" (etc) just doesn't cut it for me. I don't care whether we're the best or the worst. I couldn't care less about our relative position. Guess what, my cafeteria food is better than it was at middle school, but it still sucks. Likewise, I may be a bit free-er to blog than the Chinese, but that doesn't mean me saying the wrong thing isn't going to result on a rather unpleasant knock on the door.
Maybe non-slashdotters don't care about the Constitution being shat upon by the administrations (not just Bush is to blame here, though he's definately worse than most, though IMO the last couple elections were lesser-of-two-evils even if the stronger may have won, and further IMO the two-party political system is the worst thing in the history of democracy), but every non-techie friend I've talked to on the matter is totally clueless, whereas /. and forums seem to be much more aware of what's going on. Maybe it's the international input, rather than just the biased local media. So many fail to realize that while Fox is obviously hardcore right-wing, all American news sources - however poilitically 'fair' they are - have a pro-America bias. I don't mean to bring up a touchy subject, but stop griping over American deaths in the War on Iraq while we're going 50:1. Forgot about that part, didn't you, American media?
I've gone a bit OT I suppose. My original point remains, though - slowly removing rights doesn't get noticed by the masses, even if removing exactly the same rights overnight would cause rioting. Go back to just before the '01 elections and see if Bush would have been elected knowing he'd be wiretapping citizens and using terrorism as a reason. I don't want to throw too much bias into this post, but it seems strange to me that people who are predominantly more religious appear to be more concerned by terrorism - I'd figure they'd be a lot less freaked out by potential death (be it from terrorism or being run over by a steamroller).
Nobody Seems to Mind! (Score:3, Insightful)
Predictable. (Score:2, Insightful)
1. This story has been out for a while, but
2. This story trashes the Patriot Act, thus it gets an automatic berth.
Here's an idea: instead of making board games, why don't you vote out your Senators and Congressmen? While you were busy making funny little downloadable games, they re-authorized it.
I'm not a fan of the Patriot Act myself, but for christ's sake - quit acting like little bitches and do something productive with your discontent!
Re:Yay for wasting time... (Score:1, Insightful)
True enough, when you're fighting a dictator.
So, in this case you paint the administration as a bunch of goose stepping blockheads who are besotted with fascism.
It seems to me that if the administration really were dictatorial in nature, you'd have to wait until they were out of power and their regime had failed, in order to begin with the ridicule.
The fact that all this ridicule is going on in public, by free citizens, with no reprisals, strongly suggests that the administration has not actually established any kind of dictatorship at all.
Which leads pretty much instantly to the reasonable conclusion that you're not ridiculing Bush because he's a dictator, but rather because you have neither evidence of a dictatorship nor any other reasonable argument against him, and are therefore reduced to cheap and unsubstantiated smears.
But please, don't be ashamed. I totally understand: "It's not the way our system is supposed to work, but it's the way politics works."
Re:For the love of Pete... (Score:3, Insightful)
I am a counter example (Score:5, Insightful)
But honestly, how many people griping about Bush/Ashcroft today thought that Clinton/Reno were A-OK?
I for one, dislike them both (see here [slashdot.org] and here [slashdot.org] for just a few recent posts predating this thread, to substantiate my claim...google should turn up more, back to the Clinton years, when Marc Rich and the Gubernatorial pardons of attractive women roused my ire). But whenever you attempt to level a rational criticism of a politician you discover that you will be instantly labeled a partisan, and the substance of your point dismissed.
Which leads me to a conclusion: attacks on politicians are frequently non-partisan (especially during primaries, when the parties eat their own to impress the masses) but defenses of them are almost always partisan. This includes the sort of "why don't you criticize this guy instead" defense going on here. It's my firm belief that reasonable people of both parties (for what it's worth, I happen to be a Republican) are appalled at the sort of shenanigans that get pulled by the leaders of both parties, but that the highly partisan yahoos always jump to the defense when their side's in power.
What Bush is doing is wrong, and frankly he should be in jail. The fact that Clinton may well deserve the next cell over is not an excuse, it's an example of how bad the problem realy is.
--MarkusQ
Re:We're doomed! (Score:3, Insightful)
I was with you until you pulled out the not-really-quotes. Dude's a loser, but close-enough-to-half of us voted for him. Just cause your side lost doesn't mean the other guys cheated. Sometimes, stupid people hold the majority. Hell, MOST times.
Re:Yay for wasting time... (Score:2, Insightful)
Dictatorships don't typically happen overnight. You are correct: the current administration is not a dictatorship, but it's trying to head in that direction. It's trying to circumvent the checks and balances, it's doing things without Congress' permission, and it's not being held accountable for anything it has done wrong, legally or ethically.
The Bush administration hasn't succeeded yet in eliminating free speech, but it's trying. When Bush was running for his first presidential election in 2000, he said on TV, "there ought to be limits to freedom" in response to a political site aimed at him. I agree, there should be limits on freedom, but within reason. For example, you shouldn't be able to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theatre when there isn't one, and for the most part, you can't, it's been made illegal (IANAL). But to say that you shouldn't be able to satirize a political candidate is pure idiocy.
Which leads pretty much instantly to the reasonable conclusion that you're not ridiculing Bush because he's a dictator, but rather because you have neither evidence of a dictatorship nor any other reasonable argument against him...
He's not a dicator, he's President of the Executive branch of the United States of America, and he has a strong desire to be a dictator. He has said in an interview that "This job would be easier if it was a dictatorship--and I was the dictator." No man who has a desire to be the leader of this country should be saying these things nor even thinking these things.
and are therefore reduced to cheap and unsubstantiated smears.
The things I have said are neither cheap nor unsubstantiated, and one could hardly call them smears. These are legitimate concerns about the words and actions of our President, which, by such words and actions, appears to want to be a dictator, and who has made significant headway towards that goal, more than any other person in America's past.
Re:Priceless (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, I thought Clinton bad enough that I wanted Bush to win in 2000. Horrible mistake. I ever bought his lies about the war enough tat I tepidly supported it.
But by 2004, I was volunterring for Kerry.
Why? Mostly because of Ashcroft and Gauntanamo and Abu Ghraib.
Let me state that again: in 2000 I was disgusted with Clinton and happy to see a Republican President. Never again.
In the five years Bush has been in office, I've seen our Constitution shredded, Madison's checks-and-balances blown away, a disastrous war and obscene war profiteering, growth of the Police State eclipsed only by massive deficits and new entitlement programs and corporate welfare and corruption, the destruction of an American city while Bush literally strummed a guitar, and the dismantling of government-funded science in favor of corporations and religious nuts.
Maybe you still don't get it: I shared most of your so-called conservative values: I was for small government, against nation-building, for lower taxes (during the Clinton years I had a good job, you see), against Washington corruption. I saw Dubya as a breath of fresh air.
It's not me who has changed. It's the Republican Party. They control all three branches of government, and yes taxes are lower, but the deficit is now nine billion dollars, government's gotten bigger and more corrupt, and it's listening into phone calls without getting warrants.
Now I see Dubya and most of the rest of the Republican Party as a threat to the future of this country.
Damned right I thought Clinton and Reno were wrong. But your Dubya's a total and unmitigated disaster on all fronts. Now I'd welcome Clinton back in a heartbeat, and so would half of my conservative friends.
Re:Priceless (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit. I am not, and never have been a Democat. I was neutral and I didn't pay much attention to politics. I considered them all Republicrats and equally currupt. Back in the 2000 election I didn't see much difference between Bush and Gore and didn't vote and didn't much care who won. As for the Supreme COurt ruling on the election, I figured it may as well have been a damn coin toss, and didn't much care.
It is Bush that has had DRAWN my attaention and criticism. I would never have accepted Bush's crap from Clinton or anyone.
Bush's approval rating is about 36, with some major polls pegging it at 33% and 34%. You cannot hit the low to mid 30's based on partisan politics. You cannot hit that dismal level without losing virtually the entire middle PLUS pissing off and losing a signifigant percentage of your own party. The criticisms of Bush are coming from the Left, coming from the Middle, signifigantly and increasingly coming from the Right.
Anyone dismissing the criticism of Bush as partisan is themselves guilty of partisan bias.
-
Re:Priceless (Score:4, Insightful)
Because in the documentary [...], [Larry Silverstein] made the following statement: "'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.' And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse."
I'm not disputing that he said that (although I suspect he said "pull out," not "pull it"). But it is YOU and the website that are making the completely unsupported assumption that "pull it" means "demolish." In fact, when you read it in context, such an assumption doesn't even make sense. Why would he justify proactively demolishing it by saying "we've had such a terrible loss of life" already? Why not just evacuate to save lives, and wait and see if the building can be salvaged when the fire burns itself out? How would evacuating and then deliberately blowing it up save any lives? Don't you see? It makes no sense.
If that in fact is true, than it's the third steel-framed building to ever collapse from fire, the first two being WTC 1 and 2. The simple fact is: steel-framed buildings don't collapse from fire. Period.
You're illustrating my point for me exactly. This is exactly why the building architects were so surprised by the fact that they did collapse from fire. Everybody thought that was impossible. The steel frames of the buildings were coated with insulating foam to prevent exactly this scenario from playing out. But what they hadn't counted on was the fact that the buildings' ages and poor maintenance would effectively erase the safety built into the design. Again, I cite the documentary Why The Towers Fell [amazon.com] for a very thorough and insightful explanation of how things transpired on that fateful day.
And the reason that those 3 buildings were the first 3 steel-framed buildings ever to collapse from fire is because they were all designed the same flawed way (as have been many more since then that thankfully haven't had massive fires to test them).
The towers were designed to constantly withstand wind pressures equal to 30 times the energy of the airliner impacts.
Quit with the red herring. The "energy of the airliner impacts" had nothing to do with it. It was the heat from the fire that brought down the buildings. The buildings did withstand the impact of the airliners, just as they should have.
In July of 1945 a B-52 bomber, lost in heavy fog, crashed into the Empire State Building.
First of all, it was a B-25, not a B-52. The B-52 hadn't even been invented yet, and is a MUCH bigger airplane. The B-25 that crashed into the Empire State Building was 53 feet long with a wingspan of 67 feet. The airliners that crashed into the twin towers were roughly 3 times as long with double the wingspan. Plus, the airliners were fully loaded with fuel for a cross-continent journey, whereas the little B-25 bomber was on its way home, and thus had relatively little fuel on board.
Oops. Guess you forgot about that part, eh? But let's not get bogged down in facts. Please, continue on.
[Where are all the people who were supposedly on the non-existent AA flight 77?]
I just love it when people throw this up as an 'argument'. Their bodies have not been found, and they never will be.
That's your answer? They existed, but they've simply vanished? All at the same time? Without anybody noticing? They were secretly diverted somewhere else and killed off in the name of freedom? I'm going to need a little more explanation than that, please. Who ordered this? Who were the people who carried it out? Why would American Airlines pilots and US military service men and women kidnap and murder innocent American citizens? A conspiracy this big would requi