Oh. Then I don't get it.

As a side note, I've always wanted to take an old mini fridge and turn it into a computer case.

Finally! I don't have to trust that ding-bat I picked up to remember to take her pill!

No Joke! I would love to see voters required to pass a basic test before being allowed to vote. And I mean something very basic like "Name one right protected by the Bill of Rights", or "True or False, The right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed""

I wonder if the polls would have the same result if they were asked if their information were used in a presidential campaign?

“Earlier this year, in an interview with TV One, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) praised President Barack Obama for putting together a campaign database that "will have information about everything on every individual."

“And that database will have information about everything on every individual in ways that it’s never been done before,” Waters told “Washington Watch” host Roland, referring to Obama’s “Organizing for America,” which was changed from a campaign organization to a 501(c)(4) called Organizing for Action. ...
Martin asked if Waters if she was referring to “Organizing for America.”

“That’s right, that’s right,” Waters said. “And that database will have information about everything on every individual in ways that it’s never been done before.”

Waters said the database would also serve future Democratic candidates seeking the presidency.

“He’s been very smart,” Waters said of Obama. “I mean it’s very powerful what he’s leaving in place.”

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/waters-obama-campaign-database-has-information-about-everything-every-individual

Remember, winning means everything. It's not about getting more voters. It's about getting more of YOUR voters to vote (or at least make it appear that way). The first step in getting your own voters out is to know who they are, where they live, what they are doing, etc. The other half of this is what is going to happen to use who do not vote for the (D) candidate?

No, if I see that all these problems have only gotten worse, I'm going to say, "Let me take care of it. You tried. You failed!" When your solution doesn't work, you don't double down on the "solution" that didn't work the first time. Maybe you should try something different.

Yes! SANE drug laws. As in, don't sell to minors and don't drive stupid. I don't see much need for anything else. Compare that to the "solutions" of the past 50 years where we just spend more and more money and make laws harsher and harsher. I don't recall drug cartels killing people when I was growing up. Now, it's rather common. You want to put the drug cartels out of business in about an hour? Legalize their product so we can grow it here and sell it with sensible regulations like we do alcohol, completely cutting them out of the equation.

The point is more government doesn't work. All we need is for the government to protect us from foreign invaders and from screwing each other over. Beyond that, it really doesn't serve much purpose other than to turn minor problems into major ones.

I'm not talking about civil rights. I'm a conservative libertarian. I'm talking about economic and personal freedom. Some of us just want to be left the hell alone while others demand that someone oversee what I do in my personal and financial life. It is how things used to be and the system worked quite well. For example, there are more people in poverty today than there was when Johnson declared a "War on Poverty". There are more people smoking marijuana today than there was before marijuana was made to be illegal. More people have a cocaine problem today than when cocaine was legal and could be purchased in a bottle of Coca Cola. the federal deficit was smaller before there was an income tax. The list goes on and on.

There are those of us who see that when government makes up a problem and declares war on it, that problem always gets worse. You would think that people would realize this and just stop it, but that hasn't happened. It has actually gotten worse. It seems that the more government fails, the more people demand that the government needs to grow to fix those problems. It's an endless cycle and the only end I see is absolute failure before we are allowed to restore what works.

Because we don't want your "improvement" and we don't have the option of moving as there is no place else in the world that has the economic opportunity and freedom that the US has.

I know! States rights must suck. I'd hate having to deal with the responsibility of knowing that my vote counts more towards the way my government works. Double that because of the effort I'd have to put into voting in state elections.

The horror!

A couple of points here. First, Snowden ironically fled to Hong Kong, which is China. I think the GP was making a joke. Here's your whoosh!

But in response to your post, there is some logic behind the "Love it or Leave it" argument. For example, there are many in America who want to make America like Europe, and work hard to transform it to that. It makes sense to ask these people, "Why don't you just move to Europe?" Here is why the logic works: If they were to move to Europe, they could line under a government that is exactly what they want. They'll be happy there. As a bonus, those of us who like things in America the way they are get to stay and live in under a government that is exactly what we want. It's a win-win! We all get what we want. On the other hand, when they stay and fight to transform America, they make themselves miserable living in a country they don't like and make the rest of us miserable fighting to keep them from changing America into a country we won't want.

Why try to change the place you live into someplace else when you could simply move to that someplace else?

Please forgive the off-topicness

Again, what crime has the TEA Party espoused? The TEA Party is for lower taxes, not tax fraud. What crime has pro-life groups or traditional marriage groups committed? The only "crime" these groups have committed is having an opinion and wanting to use their First Amendment rights. Remember, the First Amendment not only protects speech you disagree with, but it also protects speech that the government disagrees with specifically. Read the text itself:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances

Isn't that part in bold exactly what the TEA Party groups were trying to do? Opposing groups are allowed to take money and not pay taxes on them. Why can't the TEA Party. If anything, groups that call for higher taxes and then apply for tax exempt status for themselves are the ones who should be viewed with suspicion. There is nothing suspicious about the TEA Party trying to be tax exempt. That is exactly what you would expect them to do. But Organizing for America wants people taxed more. Why would they think that they should be exempt?

Also, this is not just about taxes and money. It is about protecting your donors from those who disagree with your group. For example, if a list of donors to an anti-gay-marriage group were leaked, the donors, their families, and their businesses could be targeted by groups that support gay marriage. It could happen and it did. The law was created to protect donors to civil rights groups in Alabama during the Civil Rights movement and is just as necessary today.

And if you don't think that these groups should be tax exempt, that's great. I agree. But that's not the point. The point is that as of right now, these groups are allowed to be tax exempt under the law. If you like, petition for the law to be changed, but until it is, it must be applied fairly. The IRS can not apply the law to one group and not another, especially when the deciding distinction is a groups political beliefs or support of or opposition to policy. Also, the IRS should not be able to give you extra scrutiny because you oppose the tax exempt status of 501c groups, just as they should not be allowed to scrutinize the TEA Party because they want the 10th Amendment followed.

That's not for the IRS to decide. If laws are being broken or public safety has been threatened as in your "kill people" example, then it's up the DOJ to investigate, not the IRS. The IRS deals with tax law and punishing those who have cheated on their taxes. None of these groups have been charged with cheating on their taxes. By applying for tax-exempt status, they were actually attempting to follow the law. It was their applications that were scrutinized, not their tax forms.

Also, there is nothing illegal about wanting lower taxes or protecting traditional marriage. For that matter, it is the traditional marriage groups who are trying to preserve the law as it stands now. Under your criteria, shouldn't pro-gay-marriage groups gain extra scrutiny? You said that the TEA Party groups should get extra attention because they are trying to change the law as it stands? If that is your criteria for extra scrutiny, than any group supporting changes in any policy should be scrutinized, including anti war groups, and anti corporate groups.

  The IRS is not supposed to base it's application of policy based on politics, PERIOD. IRS employees are not allowed to pick and choose which law-changing groups they investigate based on their personal opinions of which laws need to be changed.

And the retaliation in this case was the IRS delaying the status for years while approving those groups on the opposite end of the political spectrum. You may think it's OK for the IRS to decide the level of investigation groups receive based solely on their political beliefs, but even the President of the United States and the IRS itself disagrees with you. They have both feigned outrage and apologized for the targeting of conservative groups and have sworn investigations to prevent it from happening again (not that it matters as the goal of reelecting Obama has already been achieved).

Free speech is free. We are allowed to disagree with our government and say so out loud and publicly without fear of retaliation. That includes the right to speak out against tax policy without the IRS suppressing you.

But this goes beyond the TEA Party and their political stance for lower taxes and responsible government spending. Conservative groups that have nothing to do with taxes were also targeted. Pro Life and groups against gay marriage were also targeted. This proves that the targeting was not related to their tax policy, but their political views in general. That is an extreme violation of the First Amendment. The fact that "progressive" groups were given tax exempt status without the same scrutiny violates the 14th Amendment clause that guarantees equal protection under the law. Frankly, if all these groups were given the same scrutiny regardless of their political views, this would not be an issue. But since this scrutiny was only given to one side because of their political views, we have a problem.

I don't trust a government with everyone's phone records that will abuse power like that to silence the political opposition.

To be fair, this program is currently legal. I don't think it will pass Constitutional muster if it ever hit the courts, but that hasn't happened yet. The appropriate course of action would be to challenge this law in the courts rather than releasing classified data.

On the other hand, you can't challenge a law if you don't know about it. Without this release, the law could not be challenged until the program was to gather evidence used to prosecute a citizen.

I don't have a problem with the government gathering this data to fight terrorism. Unfortunately, this administration has shown that it has no problem abusing government agencies to punish political opponents.

Right wing movements don't use government power to seize industry.

You are mostly correct. Obama is in charge of the Executive Branch, which includes the IRS, EPA, NSA, FBI, CIA and so on. All it would have taken is a phone call to whoever is in charge of the NSA to say, "stop doing that", and it would be done.

He would need Congressional action to prevent the next president from doing it, however, but there is nothing in the PATRIOT act mandating that the NSA snoop on US Citizens.