In regards to natural responses... do the windows of people that live in bad neighborhoods have bars on them?

Yes they do.

Why is that?

Natural response.

People respond to threats.

Action leads to reaction. Invade people's privacy, show that you unbound by due process, that you'll do whatever you can do, and that the limits of your power are literally whatever anyone allows you to do... then you have created a situation where everyone does what they can to limit your capabilities by locking down the encryption and otherwise increasing the security.

The NSA will continue to do whatever it "can" but what it can do will shrink over time because it simply won't be possible for them to gain access without consent.

That will continue until such time as the NSA starts abiding by some rules. Until that happens, the security is going to ramp up until everyone is pretty sure the NSA can't get in.

This has happened before. Apple makes a product that is a little too much upscale and pricey for average joe, and fails miserably.
Apple may be the Cadillac Of technology... However when they try to push out the Rolls Royce type of technology, it goes too far.

I can't see myself getting one for the price.
1. The next year or 2 it will be thinner, more powerful, and easier to use. For a watch I want something timeless.
2. How long can you have such a device until it is not supported by you other device.
3. I am not getting any real good features from it. The iPhone has became todays pocket watch. the Apple watch, only adds a minor convenience.

If it does success the apple watch 2 or 3 may be much more affordable under the $100 range where I can justify the expense.

The federal tax system long ago ceased to be a way to simply fund the necessary government services and turned into a vehicle for large scale social engineering. Give tax breaks for things "we" want people to do, put more taxes on things "we" don't want them doing. When you look at the things "we" have decided to tax and not tax, you don't get a clear indication that "we" have everyone's improved standard of living in mind.

Yep. But as long as it prevents the successful from having an unhindered better standard of living than everyone else, it's a win. We have a president who admitted on national broadcast TV that he wanted to tax the rich not because it would increase the revenues to pay for government services -- in fact he admitted he knew it would decrease revenues overall -- but because it would be "fair". I.e., it would accomplish the social engineering goal he had for it while it was a step backwards for funding the government operations.

I'm not suggesting they'll surrender anything. I'm saying they'll be too weak to hold it.

Their population is declining, their economy is declining, their neighbors are becoming wealthier and more technologically sophisticated...

Russia is the sick man of Asia. It is headed for the same crack up that the Ottoman empire went through.

We offered them a way out of that. A way to keep everything they have and become wealthier and more powerful than they've ever been. And they spat in our faces...

They're idiots.

Russia must ally with the west. It cannot survive another cold war with the west. The last one crushed Stalin's empire... What Putin has is a remnant... the end game is unavoidable.

This is a game of attrition. We will grab them by the throat economically and squeeze. And in 30 years... what is left will either be ignorable or more pliable.

The Russians have asked the west a very dangerous question "oh yeah, what will you do to make me, huh?"... We are not without resources. If the Russians were wise, they'd stop this stupidity, sue for peace, and try to patch relations. Then the isolation might only last 5 or 10 years. If they don't stop... the isolation could last 30 years or more.

Which Americans would you say have committed war crimes?

And in what court would you try them?

The underlying fallacy of your position is these two concepts:

1. World court.
2. International law.

Neither one exists. There is no such thing.

For there to be a world court, you'd need a supreme international authority was above every nation.

No such entity exists.

For there to be international law, you'd need an international senate or law making body that every nation on earth was responsible to and then you'd need to empower that law making body with an executive capable of overwhelming any nation on earth. No such senate or executive exists.

You are basically presuming that there is a world government when there clearly isn't one.

That there is international law at all is due to nations like the US enforcing treaties and punishing people it feels need to be punished. Absent the US's military might... exactly who is gong to enforce your rules, little one? No one.

You're spitting into the wind. Every little bit of phlegm you tried to speckle on my face is rust running down your own stupid cheeks.

You mean the article that has the headline "One shot dead at Fort Meade after trying to enter NSA gate" and the second paragraph describing what happened says ""Shortly before 9:00 AM today, a vehicle containing two individuals attempted an unauthorized entry at a National Security Agency gate," (emphasis mine). That article?

While it may have been true that they were overall trying to get off the base, their attempt at entry to the NSA area is what got them shot at. It was "NSA police on the scene fired on the vehicle when it accelerated toward a police car,", i.e., using their vehicle as a weapon, that got them shot.

People who get lost trying to leave a military base (dressed in drag for some reason, it seems) should not ignore security when they approach a gate that has armed guards. That is, as another poster puts it, monumental stupid. And people who are just "lost" won't try to ram a police car just for fun.

It should be quite obvious to you what happens when we tax people on what they own. We already have this: it's called property (or school) tax. It's what causes people to sell their homes and move, because they can't afford to live there anymore. These are usually people in or near retirement. If you think it's OK to kick old people out of their homes-- because we all know, they're such drags on society-- then you can have your draconian property tax.

You still won't eat the rich, which is what you obviously really want.

None of my questions were "hard". 3 were the street, city, and county and somewhere i had lived - and the correct options where all for one address. And the other question was what bank did you open a credit card with in 2005. So anywhere I had something shipped from that I paid via a credit card had all the answers in that one transaction.

If you think that Saddam or Bennito or Idi or Fidel thought they were doing the best for their people, you are sadly mistaken. They knew what they were doing, and they knew who the intended beneficiaries were.

I'm starting to think that having private citizens pay any tax directly to the federal government is a problem. It completely overrides their right to govern themselves at the state and local level. Because the federal government is entitled to so much of the people's wealth, it is given de facto power over everything. Disagree? Then ask why every state's drinking age is 21.

The government will happily give you an estimate. The real answer will come from the auctioneer when he sells off your house that the government has confiscated to pay off whatever taxes they think you owe on it. If he's good at his job and the right people show up, boy is your tax bill going to be huge. And if the government estimate of what it is worth is a bit too high, well, you'll get a bit of the money from the sale. Enough to rent someplace nice down by the tracks, probably. Enjoy what we let you have, Citizen.

Yes, the People through their elected representatives who write and pass the tax legislation. It's not like Joe Smith gets to decide that this year's salary is "not an earning" all on his own.

Except people who plan ahead for the future and save their money so they have something to live on when they retire. You screw over people who work hard and provide a good house and nice things for their family. When you tax what people own, you tax it this year, and then you tax it again next year, and then again next year... which pretty much screws EVERYONE -- except those who save nothing and live hand to mouth. And creates more of those as the guy who owns the nice house has to scrape up yet another federal tax to keep it, even if he's lost his job and has zero income.

Taxing ownership is a ruse to cover class envy, nothing more. Just how much of what people own should the government take away from them every year (in addition to the effects of inflation and depreciation that reduce the actual values)? Ten percent? Twelve? Just five?

Do you tax retirement plans that people haven't yet vested in, or haven't yet received? Who "owns" that money?

Do you target family farms for enforcement, so they have to come up with ten percent of the value of the farm every year in taxes? Do you care if that shuts them down because they've had to sell it off to pay the taxes?

Another voice telling people what they should and shouldn't buy. That house you bought ten years ago when you had that good job, and now you're unemployed and cannot afford the yearly federal "gurps" tax on it? You shouldn't have bought it. You don't deserve it if you can't afford to pay the taxes on it today. We know, you worked hard all your life and saved up to buy it, but we simply don't care. The fact that local property taxes can do that to someone is bad enough, you want to add a federal tax on top to make it happen sooner and more often?

And you want the IRS to have a record of every exchange of payment for goods or services? Every one? Not even the states currently have that, they get aggregate data from the sellers. Do you realize the size of the federal government system necessary to track and gather and manage all that data?

the American flag was little different than a slogan saying "deport anchor babies."

So are you suggesting that t-shirts bearing that slogan should be censored by the government? I find that offensive. This is a matter of free speech, nothing more. Teenagers should enjoy the same free-speech protections that the rest of us enjoy, even if it offends some people. I saw plenty of teenagers in my high school wearing religious t-shirts; those, to me, are offensive (and even moreso today considering how extremist American Christianity has become). Why should they be allowed to wear those, but not anti-immigration t-shirts?

If a school wants to avoid this stuff, maybe they should just have a blanket policy, in effect on *all* school days, that explicitly describes the allowed dress code. Then they could just forbid all clothing with slogans or flags of any kind.

Finally, I have to disagree that a US flag is somehow like making a political statement about immigration. It's the flag of this nation; if wearing it is offensive to someone, regardless of the day, that seems rather ridiculous.

It is quite relevant. For example, Europe could adopt the two-crewmember rule current in the USA. It's likely that even a flight attendant could have unlocked the door and let the pilot back in.