The Arab-Israeli conflict started 30 years before Israel existed as a state?

"Terrorism" has been turned into a convenient buzzword. It's only applied to those the person using it disagrees with. The Syrian insurgency most certainly does have terrorist aspects. The American Revolution had terrorist aspects as well. If I were fighting as an insurgent, you can bet your ass I'd target civilian installations supportive of the regime against which I was fighting. It's eminently practical on a strategic level, and is one of the most effective tactics in a lop-sided conflict.

Exactly. There are really no realistic military threats to the US. The real threats are economic, and the US is becoming increasingly likely to fall under those economic threats due to the outsourcing of pretty much everything but services which absolutely require domestic workers.

It's good to make the data interception as expensive as possible though.

A lot.

I trust Facebook with my financial information just as far as I can throw the combined weight of every asset (both human and non) of the corporation combined.

Giving someone free will is the equivalent of making them imperfect, unless you also couple the free will with an innate pre-understanding of the consequences of every action they make.

Write-ins are counted the same way third-party votes are: a lower percentage of votes for Republicrats.

Yeah, I misread the source article on which I was relying. Even though they are not legally common carrier for information services (which I would still argue ISPs should be legally categorized for any non-content services), they are still generally treated as though they are.

After all, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear. </sarcasm>

Like many things, it's all about government convenience. Medical care is necessary according to DHHS, and voluntary according to the DEA. You have to pay for it or you are penalized, and if you pay for it you give up your right to privacy. They've managed to legislate a method to force everyone in the USA to give up their rights to medical privacy.

Exactly. Their time means more money for them, and every penny they spend comes from someone else. Why in the hell would they care a whit about cost?

You actually believe those who wrote the Constitution intended it to allow the Federal government the general power to ban absolutely anything under the taxing authority? That's what the Supreme Court rulings on the Constitutionality of Federal bans have laid out. Just because the power is not used more broadly does not mean it doesn't exist as a result of bad rulings. Hell, as a result of the ACA ruling, the taxing authority now allows both general bans and general mandatory purchases. The Federal government now has the "legitimized" ability to police every aspect of every transaction made.

They're both tasked with creating as many criminals as possible.

And the most dangerous bureaucracies are those composed primarily of armed agents. Instead of ending up with a tax penalty for non-compliance, you are more likely to end up dead.