You realize Hitler literally wasn't a fascist. Hitler was a National Socialist and an Authoritarian. The term fascist comes from an Italian root word meaning a bundle of rods tied together. It was originally used by unions and trade associations in Italy to represent strength in numbers. Mussolini used the term and it's association with an ancient Roman symbol of rods tied around an axe in the founding of his Fascists party. All association of the word with authoritarianism and oppressive government come from him not Hitler. Mussolini is literally the archetypal fascist because he invented the term in it's current political connotation.

I was in third grade and we had a TV set up to watch the first teacher get launched into space. I had relatives working at NASA at the time and was obsessed with space so seeing it happen live in class was just that much more traumatic.

The two arguments couldn't be farther apart. The OP's statement is an action plan for dealing with the consequences of a potential leak of personal information, not an excuse of the perpetrators actions. The statement the "If you didn't do anything wrong you have nothing to worry about" is a justification of the state sponsored invasion of privacy. It is by definition an excuse of the perpetrators action.

"which is safe enough because rural populations are very sparse and small arms are really only dangerous with large numbers behind them" Last year there where 750,000 hunters in the state of PA alone. They constituted the 7th or 8th largest body of armed men in the world. If I remember correctly Wisconsin came in second with 650,000. My own state of WV had around 250,000. That's 1,650,000 hunters in three states. According to the all knowing Google there are currently 1,369,532 troops in the US army. That's right, taking into account the hunters in only three of the fifty states and leaving out the hobby shooters, gang bangers, and dedicated militia types leaves you with an armed body larger than the US Army. The number of functional firearms in the US is estimated to be close to the total population count. That means in theory the population of the US independent of it's government is capable of equipping an army of 300 million people. My point is only that you presume the armed populace to be smaller than it actually is.

First remember that the constitution does not grant or restrict any rights. It places defined limits on (originally just) Federal power. It's been clear since at least the Dread Scott case that the SCOTUS considered the 2nd to be a personal right. They determined that one of the effects of granting Scott's petition would be to grant the baring of arms to the "negro" races. As to state laws, until the 14th the constitution was in general assumed only to apply to the federal government. The recent change has been a strong "gun rights" movement int his country taking state laws that are in violation of the 2nd to the SCOTUS. I fully expect the 1986 Hughes amendment to be on the chopping block soon. It is a clear violation in the same vein as the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 creating a defacto ban for the common person by restricting access to otherwise legal products.

By and large HIPAA is followed because not doing so would open a person up to losing their jobs, their medical license, and possibly being sued. Just because there are way's someone can violate the law anonymously doesn't invalidate the law. The important thing is that the consequences be so harsh the majority of people would never dare. The fact that some people may get away with it doesn't mean we shouldn't make an example of any one who gets caught it means we should make a bigger example of them.

There absolutely is. We currently do this with medical records and PII for example in the form of HIPAA. You create a classification for such data, lets call it Sensitive Classifiable Law Enforcement Intelligence or SCLEI. Next you make it illegal for any one with access to SCLEI to share such data in any circumstances not explicitly allowed for in the law. Now you simply ensure the law only allows for sharing SCLEI in the context of an (?international?) terrorism investigation and possibly exclude sharing in domestic criminal cases explicitly. You should also ensure embedded mechanisms for external over site and increased penalties for coverups of collusion. This may not be 100% effective but it would be every bit as constitutional under the First Amendment as HIPAA.

I am in no way defending the industry. My point was the way you casually dismissed the workers as if they could just walk out the door and magically find other jobs. If the only people you've worked with who where desperate enough to work these jobs are college students then consider yourself lucky to live in a well off area, by comparison anyway. Around here no has illusions about what kind of job telemarketing is and no one loves it but many consider it good employment. At least they used too, outsourcing has hurt the companies who used to be big employers here. What you have to realize is the reason those folks in MO and GA are so desperate for your low paying unskilled jobs is because there is no "other low-paying exploitative industry looking for unskilled labor would fill the gap". I'm lucky to be a skilled IT worker with a good job in a reputable industry but I know many good and decent people who simply have no other options. The fact is in a lot of this country there are simply no jobs and people without training, skills, education, or money can't just pick up and move in hopes of finding work elsewhere.

I was torn between responding to you and moderating you down. The idea that telemarketers don't care about their jobs is one of the most arrogant and classicists things I have read in a long time. My area is very poor and unless you both have a collage degree and are lucky enough for it to be in a field that's currently hiring your options around here are work fast food, work in the mines, or work for a telemarketer. While it does attract young people and college students a lot of those folks are single mothers trying to support their family. If you really believe that single mother doesn't care if her job exist you've been living in some sort of dream land.

Wait, you want to go back in time and fall in love with your Mom and then travel back to the future where you can make two female clones of yourself and fall in love with them. I'd be posting as an AC also if I was you! LOL

I'm not sure if I would vote for Rand Paul. There are certainly issues I disagree with him on. You on the other hand seem to have no grasp of nuance in complex issues. You try to flatten and simplify every quote into it's most meaningless talking point and then twist it to fit your narrative. You do realize most of those "flip flop" issues are just nuanced positions on complex issues, right? Just for brevity I've picked out two of the "flip flop" issues you alluded to. Lets address the "drone" statements first. Paul's first statement was in regards to the use of drones in anti-terror operations and the fear at that time they could begin being used against Americans on American soil without due process. Pauls second statement was addressing the use of drones by civilian police against active, direct, and immediate criminal threats. As to the third statement, drones are not inherently military equipment and the militarization of the police force is a wholly separate issue from their use of drones. Now lets look at the "Israel" issue. Paul is a supporter of eliminating all foreing aid. One of his ideas I don't support by the way. The followup question three years later is asked in the context of eliminating aid to Israel specifically. In this situation Paul is obviously pointing out that he has no desire to target Israel explicitly for removal of foreign aid. Unless your interviewing for a job with Fox News twisting these nuances to fit your predisposed ideas about what "The other side" is thinking only weakens political discourse in the long run.

You've made a basic error in your argument. Your are confusing social liberals with social progressives. Specifically right leaning social progressives. One can be fiscally conservative (believing that we should limit and control increases in spending) but socially liberal (believing that we should not limit individual liberty beyond the limits of absolute necessity). As one example moderate libertarians who don't go in for some of the more inane free market worship fit this bill. Remember left leaning indicates a dislike of governmental structure with the ultimate extreme being Anarchy while Right leaning indicates a desire for more, stronger government with the ultimate extreme being authoritarianism. Traditionally the term conservative only implies that one is opposed to change, or more often sudden and untested change while the term progressive indicates one wishes to encourage change in the pursuit of what they deem progress. In this day and age Republicans are in fact just as progressive as Democrats they simply have different ideas of what progress is. Dems are right wing social and moral progressives while Repubs are right wing religious and corporatist progressives. There are very few true conservatives in our government these days and perhaps fewer true liberals. Redefining these terms is one of the ways the two parties maintain control of there base. It allows them control the narrative with artificial divisions intended to alienate voters who may be allied on many other issues from each other. I suppose if any two ideologies are opposed to each other it's social liberalism and right wing social progressiveness. After all how can you believe in limited government interference in private affairs but also believe you have the right to force others to behave in a fashion consistent with your own moral beliefs. Let each live in accordance with there own conscience in so far as their actions do not unfairly infringe on the basic rights of others.

Not to argue your point but just to clarify. Radiation is one of the ways that coal plants do kill people. Burning coal releases radioactive isotopes directly into the atmosphere. Assuming of course that a containment and scribing system capable of removing it has not been installed. Even in that case you are left with the coal ash, which in and of it's self is radioactive. http://www.scientificamerican....

This strikes me as the same kind of compromise constantly suggested by gun regulation groups. You quietly compromise away one right after another for 100 years with absolutely no give from the opposition. Maybe you truly believed compromise was in everyone's best interest. Then when you say enough your the bad guy for refusing to compromise!

I put together an atom based (Jetway Board) PFSense firewall with four 1gig ports and wifi for under $400. It's fan less cpu and low power usage makes it an ideal replacement for the e2000 I had before. In addition to the firewall it's running snort updated daily. If power is your only concern it may not make sense to upgrade your hardware but if you want something quieter and not much larger than a consumer router then you should look into them. Don't let the realtek NICS on the cheaper boards scare you PFSense 2.1 can handle them just fine and I have yet to find any performance issues.