"My sole motive is to inform the public as to that which is done in their name and that which is done against them." - Edward Snowden.

It's that "done in our name" portion. We run this gin-joint. Our spies have performed illegal operations.

That's actually quite a lot of effort that entire news corporations are STILL shuffling through. Years later. And what if he slipped up while censoring the data? You'd trust one man without a budget and a limited time-frame rather than an organization with a QA department? Or I supposed you'd rather he enter Russia with all of the NSA's as-of-yet unreleased secrets.

And do you honestly believe that anyone at the NSA could have influenced ISIS's surge to power? Really? Do you honestly believe that IF ONLY Snowden hadn't blown that whistle, then somehow the NSA would have prevented the clusterfuck in Iraq right now?

You think that 1 out 2 protesting hippies in the 1960's went on to start a management career or entered politics?

I think your memory is about as good as your sense of statistics.

Long story short, the hippies were right. There really WERE communist spies infiltrating our government and society. But it didn't matter, because our system was better than the communist one. We didn't have to go off on pointless wars and trod on the necks of foreigners because, given time, our system won out, their collapsed, and all the satellite nations that they held sway over converted to our system. We didn't have to keep black and whites from marrying. We didn't have to dissolve Turing's nuts. We didn't have to hand guns to the contras just because the leader wanted to think about socialism. And we didn't have to have rebels invade Cuba. These are things that, with 20/20 hindsight, were bloody fucking stupid to support at the time. And the people protesting them, the hippies getting tear-gassed, were right. They had a more accurate world-view.

Sadly, the allure of being authoritarian jackboot-thugs never really went away, and it's coming back. Cops are decked out in military gear, our leaders are defending torture and assassinations, and widespread dragnets aren't being shot down.

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. I think we need another wave of hippies. Unfortunately, their tent-camp was dispersed.

This is the sort of rational and realistic responses with pertenant historical insight sans the common snide, cynical, partisian, or whack-job comments. It is on-topic, concise, and detailed. It answers a common question that would be raised by the uninformed about the topic at hand.

And it's not upvoted at all. Come on mods, do the hard-work of setting that slider all the way to zero and look for things that deserve mod points.
And you, coward, get a name so this sort of thing is easier to spot.

We do that?

Let me guess, you haven't spent much time in the states, have you?

Maybe it's different on the coasts, but in the midwest, it's often a chore to figure out people's stances on religion. Sometimes the religion jokes fall flat and it's pretty awkward, which is why you avoid those sort of things in mixed or unknown company. I've got to force myself to remember that Ben at the makerspace is a devout catholic.

But yeah dude, what you describe is pretty much how it happens here in the states. There are a couple of "atheist-pride" types and they're gigantic assholes. But they're rarer than the "christian-pride" types who still have an entire industry selling to them and encouraging them. Does the UK not have assholes? Sounds lovely.

Wait.... if you acknowledge that the NSA is a serious internal threat that is out of control.... Why don't you think that Edward Snowden (and all the other whistle-blowers) are doing it in an effort to... you know... exert some control on the organization?

I mean, if you're wise to the NSA, then why are you believing the tale their spinning about him being a spy?

Can you name one instance of someone dying because of Snowden's leaks?
Or even an official citing that someone ACTUALLY died? (as opposed to your exact complain of vague worrying about potential repercussions).

Oh, David David David... Let me try to explain this one to you: You're trusting the people in charge of the system to tell you if they tampered with the system. You can't trust them. Which is why you fired 90% of that group a little while ago.

Also, they're using tape for their email backup? I mean, I know that for bulk data, tape actually becomes cost effective at some point. But email? Is that odd?

AYE! Iffin they were a TRUE scotchmen, ey'd have HAGGIS fer breakfast!

A highly regulated state capitalism in a communist state. Run by communist. Elected by the communist party.

Go figure that the communist have a highly regulated economy. Who would have thought?

But you know what? That a pretty good question: What's communist about communist China? Because right now they just kinda look pragmatic (ie, whatever works) instead of adhereing to any sort of ideological dogma. If you take that route, what was capitalist about capitalist America during the 2007 econopocalypse?

Perhaps it's time to step away from the ideological labels and focus on reality.

"Fascism is another form of socialism".... modded plus 5 insightful...

Ugh... first off, the definitions of ALL of these terms isn't exactly nailed down. You'll get a scewed description depending if the describer self-identifies as part of said group or if they view said group as opposition. Which means everyone bitching about the definitions of communism, fascism, left, right, liberal, conservative, whig, green, libertarian, etc etc are either:

A) Full of bullshit

B) Ignorant

C) Ludicrously out of touch

All usuallylost's post tells us is that he doesn't like Fascism or socialism, so he lumps the two together.

Who is the tyrant of communist China right now?

Really, these labels almost do more harm than good. How about we stop bitching about vague ethereal terms and say that Cuba has suffered for their ties to Russia and that if they severed said ties we'd be cool with stopping the embargo. But hey, that sort of detail is boring, so let's bitch about groups of people we don't like and how they fuck everything up completely unlike how our perfect ideological group operates.

Uh.... why are both of you conveniently ignoring China? I mean, sure, Mao was pretty bad. Ok, REALLY bad. So were the robber barons and slavers of the south.

But communist China hasn't had that tyrannical, personality cult, swaths of dead and rampant starvation sort of leader since Mao. And the communist party votes on their leader. It's not a general vote, for sure, but they keep on switching out leaders in a more or less peaceful way. Personally, our two-party system doesn't feel all that democratic at times.

Elon Musk, with SpaceX and Tesla Motors.

I understand some people work really hard to be depressed and ignore all the good things about life, but you probably shouldn't bring the rest of us down into your mire.

But hey, you're right, fuck the military industrial complex and.... that other stuff about being better people.

Like who? Got any examples?

On the flip-side, the early adopters will make bank in a similar way to those who really embraced personal computing back in the 80's, or the internet in the 90's. Even if the law comes down or the market cornered by big business, you'll have a valuable in-demand skillset. Or you'll be the inventor the next big thing. Let's see: bio-OS, YouGene, NANthrax, fat'be'gone, OracleOcculars, hmmmm....

And that's the sort of statement made with an intent to kickstart another gold-rush into new exciting territory where most of the poor schlubs won't make a dime and will complain bitterly for decades about what could have been. But hey, society will be better for it.

Why "at once"? Your body normally REMAKES most of the cells in your body every 16 years. Some parts faster than others. Some parts stick with you till you die.
Patience.

Yeah, I kinda would be. I mean, they're pretty much bound to ask to come in and fuel up eventually. It's not like they have a blue-water navy. Yet.
So really that would just be a neighbor bringing his white elephant out to play, and you just happen to sell peanuts.

Who cares about the ring, when the HMS She's One Of Ours, Sir! can easily get a round or two off before the confusion is sorted out on the opponent's deck?

Wait, what? You actually modded him "Troll"? Why would you do that? It's hilarious. Didn't you catch the part where he went PAST trolldom, going further, into enlightenment? Come on people, have a laugh. I mean really, "chromed moon"? How can you not love that?

Maybe Poe's law is in full effect. When the stance of the opposition is so weird that you can't tell them apart from the people parodying them for a laugh.