If they don't give you enough information, you have all the information you need in order to make an informed decision not to do business with them.

With organisations like the StaSi and GeStaPo in more recent German history, the protection of the individual's privacy is a serious issue in Germany.

Notice the "Sta" in those organizations, as in "state"? Privacy in Germany has always been a problem of state intrusion into individual lives, and that is still rampant in Germany and voters largely don't care.

All this beating up on Google and Apple is a smokescreen to deflect from the horrible state of privacy in Germany.

Now and then politicians try to create another surveillance state for example to fight "child pornography", but fortunately they haven't succeeded to enact their crazy laws so far.

The German state already intrudes deeply into people's personal lives. On the other hand, in the guise of protecting "privacy", it prevents private organizations from verifying or monitoring its data collection, and it refuses to disclose what it has, how it is using it, or how it is operating.

Why should it be on the people? If the company doesn't want to follow their laws, they shouldn't sell their stuff in that country.

It should be "on the people" because some people may not have a problem with policies and may want to do business with Apple anyway.

By choosing to operate in Germany, they have to follow German laws for products sold in that country. Don't like it, decide not to sell there.

The injustice here isn't to Apple, it's to other potential customers. One group of people is needlessly imposing their views of privacy on another group; instead of saying "I don't like Apple's privacy terms, so I don't use them", they say "I don't like Apple's privacy terms, so I am going to prevent you from using them as well".

And what's behind this? Most likely not any real concern about privacy, but attempts to kill business models that German publishers and their buddies in politics don't like.

Just don't use services whose "privacy policy" you don't like.

Looks like the toxic refinery to me.

when I didn't bring up the federal government, nor is there any implicit connection to this concept in the entire discussion.

I don't "hate" the federal government. What I "hate" is when people parrot political phrases (like those about "earning every dime") without understanding them and falsely accuse others of violating a social contract that doesn't exist.

Also, that's some extraordinary levels of paranoia that causes you to assume someone posting an opinion on the internet is somehow implicitly involved in some conspiracy.

There are two alternatives in that sentence, the conspiracy one obviously false, the other therefore obviously true. You just confirmed it.

Well, if you realize all that, what about realizing that imposing high tax rates on corporations just doesn't work? What about realizing that imposing high income tax rates doesn't work either?

We also like to pretend that we earn every dime that goes are way

Fact is that almost everything I care about is paid for local and state taxes. Those taxes pay for roads, education, health care, police, and administration. I have no problem paying those taxes.

What I have a problem with is paying large amounts of federal taxes so that Democrats, Republicans, and the various administrations that come and go can enrich themselves and their big industry buddies with that. And Obama in particular has been lying through his teeth, pretending that without him and the federal government everything I care about would disappear.

Now, tell me, are you simply too stupid to understand the difference between local, state and federal taxes, or are you a paid propagandist for the administration?

I think you need to either research or think a bit more carefully about how Hitler achieved totalitarian power. I will grant that what you say is factually correct, but you neglect to mention that it was only after he had manufactured crimes to charge his political enemies with.

I have no idea what you're trying to get at. The fact is that Hitler did not become dictator through a coup, but that large moderate parties voluntarily voted for him and justified their choice in their speeches to parliament.

That said, the US appears to be following a similar path in a more conservative way.

You're insane.

Neither Hitler nor Stalin were socialists, they were both ruthless totalitarian dictators,

Hitler was democratically elected and made dictator of Germany by the mainstream, moderate democratic parties in Germany. German parliament was willing to do so because of a terrorist attack on German parliament on 27 Feb 1933 that they believed necessitated suspension of constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties and democratic government. So, Hitler didn't start out as a ruthless totalitarian dictator, German parliament gave him that power, voluntarily and democratically. It is eminently reasonable for Americans to worry about who we put in power lest the same thing happen to us.

They didn't disarm their people they gave them "inhumane" enemies, weapons, and 20 million graves.

Oh, but they did. Gun registration and tracing was required both in the 1928 and 1938 laws. Nazis restricted gun ownership to political allies and members of the Nazi party. And suspicion of gun law violations were used as a pretext to search and confiscate Jewish property. Guns in Nazi Germany were given to those with the right political views to oppress the rest of the population.

I see two problems in the US, the first is the overt and shrill propoganda coming from certain sections of the media, in a just society their manevolent lies would be a source of embarrasment but many people do exactly the opposite and swallow the ludicrous comparison of Bush/Obama to Hitler/Stalin

The fact that media are free to make such comparisons in the US tells you that the US press is not a propaganda tool, but instead reflects a wide range of views, even if many of them are ludicrous. That's the hallmark of a free press. If most of the opinions expressed in your mainstream newspapers seem reasonable, it's probably not a free press.

The second problem is the willingness of the US to lock up it's own citizens, it has the highest incarceration rate in the world, higher than China and 7X that of the EU

The US gives its citizens a lot of liberties, and when you give people more liberties, they'll commit more crimes. Where is the problem? Places like Libya and Syria have very low incarceration rates, but that doesn't make them free societies.

Fully how that inconvenient word "militia" tends to get ignored every time the 2nd amendment comes up and people seem to instead see it as a reset button.

The Second Amendment doesn't say: "you may keep and bear arms only as part of a militia", it says "you may keep and bear arms, (among many other possible reasons) because it's useful for a militia". In addition, nothing in the Bill of Rights grants you any new rights, it merely clarifies rights you already have under the Constitution. Since the US government hasn't been granted an explicit right to restrict individual ownership of guns anywhere in the Constitution, it doesn't have that right, Second Amendment or not. If you want laws to restrict individual ownership of guns, it's not just sufficient to argue that the Second Amendment is restrictive, you need to make a case that the US government actually has been granted that right by the people under the Constitution.

The thing that will prevent tyranny is an educated populace,

Like it or not, a large part of STEM education is education related to the ability to manufacture weapons and explosives. If you keep that kind of knowledge and skill from the populace, it is pretty much by definition not educated. That knowledge and skill is necessary for the population to evaluate political claims and to figure out whether the military is operating reasonably and effectively.

and the political faction most associated with the NRA is the same faction that is trying to gut education in this country.

No, not "gutting education" but gutting our current educational system and replacing it with something better because it's not working well. We're spending far more money than other nations on primary and secondary education and getting at best mediocre results. And our public education system and its curriculum has become an ideological battleground over religion, sexuality, history, and race where both the left and the right try to win over the hearts and minds of the next generation of voters. That needs to change.