Russia collapsed under its own weight.

When i was growing up, it was always referred to as the paradigm of guns vs. butter. Russia was not able to both feed its nation and maintain the increasing size of the military and the military arsenal.

It isn't that we didn't put on a good show. We kept the competition fierce for a while on the amount of nuclear weapons. But Russia basically fell apart from the inside and not really from something that we did.

No, He actually read each one and only took documents which showed that the NSA and the intelligence community was doing things which were illegal, unethical or unconstitutional. He didn't just grab a bunch of random classified secrets and hand them off to a civilian organization with no thought or care at all.

You are thinking of Bradley/Chelsey Manning.

I don't want any of our people to get hurt or die in the process of doing their jobs. What's more important to me is that our people aren't asked to do illegal or unethical things in the first place. This way, we don't run into situations where we have to choose between a bad thing and a worse thing.

He did go through the proper channels. He did bring this to his supervisors.
This fact is left out a lot of the discussions.

It is only when he was ignored that he took it a step further. Maybe if more people knew that he actually did try to go through the proper channels first without success, they might have a better understanding of the situation and a better opinion of Snowden.

I don't recall voting for National Security Director.
I don't recall voting for domestic spying programs.
If you way these systems were put in place by people we elected to represent us in the government, then they are clearly failing to represent us and need to be removed. Since at least 7 or the last 8 presidents we have had have presided over governments where questionable spying has occurred, I'd say the fact that we actually vote for president has only a marginal effect on whether we can be blamed for unethical and unconstitutional domestic surveillance that is going on or has been going on for more than 40 years.

Also, not a millennial. Snowden is a hero to this country. I think when people actually understand what he did and why and the actions he took to get there, they usually agree. Its the people that believe the force fed propaganda from the intelligence agencies are the ones that tend to have an less that stellar view of Snowden.

Agriculture in California happens primarily in the central valley. That is an arid part of the state would pretty much be desert if the water wasn't piped in there. So yea, if they want to claim the groundwater before any other water is piped in then I expect that the central valley will dry up in the next few months and no one will have any water. The reason they have water now is that they are allotted water rights over a certain amount that is piped in from other places.

Free markets would mean that they would get no water and they would have been stupid to create a agricultural business in the desert.
Free market is not the answer to every business question.

Laid off workers sometimes get a severance package.

I've know people who opted for a severance package rather than staying with a company.
Id rather get some extra money on my way out the door than nothing at all.
I'd have to call bullshit on that.

It could be reasonably said that these are symptoms and signs of an encroaching government which in many many cases historically has been the beginnings of a movement of government to an authoritarian government. Do you want until the military is marching in the streets mandating a curfew before saying that maybe whats going on right now is starting to look like we are headed toward that. It may not end there but it can certainly and reasonably be argued that it might be headed in that direction.

You can argue all you want about whether it is a police state or not. I tend to think these are things that are indicative of a police state but not necessarily the definition of one. But the problem here really is that the NSA's charter explicitly forbids them from domestic surveillance. Explicitly. They are using loopholes, questionable workarounds and network routing tricks in order to bypass those explicit restrictions. If that isn't against the law, it is most certainly against the intent and the spirit of the law.

Wrong. His audience is everyone. The intellectual minority and the nerd ragegasm that has been going on since this first happened has had little to no affect on actual policy. The only way these things are going to change is if the public at large understands what is going on. A few intellectuals and a basket of pseudo-intellectuals can easily be ignored and/or silenced. People need to be able to identify with what is going on and understand in a personal way how it affects them personally.

For those of us who do get what is going on, we have already known most of this for the past year and half. In order to get others on board, you need to speak to them in a way they can understand.

LW-

Here is where I disagree:

If not enouh people understand this and get on board, then we ALL suffer the consequences. This nonsense isnt going to change from just bit of nerd rage that we have in the community. As any public speaker will tell you, you have to speak to people in a way that they can understand. The point of disseminating information to the public isnt to show them that you know the intricacies of it. It is to get them to understand what it is so they can make educated decisions about it.

You forget that the majority of the population and/or workforce is not involved in IT, computers or information security. they have little if nay understanding of surveillance and governing laws. They probably do not have much reason to ever think about what facebook is doing with their quips and baby pictures. But if you speak to them in a way that they can understand you, then they will more likely share your concern.

A hate crime doesn't prevent you from thinking anything. It prevents you from acting on it and hurting someone based on your own stupidity.
A hate crime isn't when you dont like someone and dont open the door for them going into a building. A hate crime is when you hate someone so much that you go and beat the crap out of them or kill them not because of something they did to you but because of things about themselves that they cannot control. like who their parents are, where they were born, or who they choose to love or associate with.

Its really sad when bigots play the victim. Attacking someone over race, sex, orientation only says something bad about you and not about them.

So what you are saying is that you think it is ok to discriminate against someone based on their ethnicity, race, sex, whatever but you dont do it because those are protected groups and it's against the law? Are you one of those people that thinks that anyone who is not religious and does not have gods law to protect them from going out and murdering and raping people at random?

Seriously? The only reason that you don't discriminate is because it's against the law. And then you wonder why we need these laws.

There are these things called fairness in lending laws. If that smelly dirty bum looking person can prove that they have the financial means to repay that loan, then the bank should and would make a loan to that person. If you are afraid of someone a little smelly, you probably have never come home after working a blue collar job.

You think KKK members would purposely choose to go to a bakery owned by a group they hate and ask them to make a cake depicting that hate?
I think your scenarios is pretty ridiculous.

Once again though. a business that serves the public must serve the public.
The only exception i can think of here might have to do with being asked to create something that depicts something illegal. an illegal act or an illegal organization.

Public business. serves the public.
No exceptions. If you want to make cakes only for your friends, then you can have a private club with membership fees.

YOU CAN NOT HAVE A BUSINESS THAT SERVES THE PUBLIC AND DISCRIMINATE AGAINST MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC!

They are providing labor to create something for someone elses celebration.
What is the celebration was for a divorce?
Or what if it was for the celebration of someones successful sex change operation?

Only one of these things is specifically mentioned in the bible and it is definitely a no-no in terms of those religions that we all know we are referring to here.
Yet for the idiots who hold these views, its the one cake in this list that they would not think twice before making.