reddit.comPosted Jul 15, 2014, 8:05 PM UTC
Holy fucking shit, what the hell are they going to blackmail these politicians with?
"Hey, GOP candidate, suck the NSA directors dick or we'll leak that you kissed a negro in college"
well.. that might cost a GOP candidate, but still wtf do these people think the representatives are doing?
Don't you know all politicians do drugs and pirate movies. They're all going to get blackmailed soon.
And what happens if they don't respond?
"Your honor, I have here Exhibit A, congressman has pirated this movie named 'Dawn of the planet of the apes', and here's Exhibit B proving that it is still out in theaters so he could not have had it. We'd like to impeach him from his office as soon as possible with this conviction." --- "but but I didn't know it was pirating. I thought it was free! I got confused! I'm an old man!" --- "You shoulda listened to us when you had the chance. We needed your vote on that New World Order Act of 2014. Now we're going to replace your seat with that hipster lawyer Bob owned by our corporate overlords."
Had a guy tell me, in all seriousness, that a plausible scenario would be a politician gets ousted after an anonymous source leaked the sex tape between him and his sister. Like, yeah ok.
Maybe he shouldn't have had sex with his sister... I think that might be a clue that you shouldn't be getting into politics. "I have strange fetishes... You know what, I could run for office though."
Wow you guys really live in a beautiful pink world don't you? I'm not an expert on American politics but im fairly certain your politicians are guilty of much more than just pirating a film. Corruption maybe?
And they wont be like hey guys this is NSA here and we'd like to tell you something about Mr. Blabla. Nope. They'll act like an intern or someone from the politician's office found some weird documents proving they're into corruption.
Now if you want to stay in your perfect little world, keep believing your brave politicians aren't guilty of anything more than film downloading and that the NSA doesn't have intel that could make a politician's reelection impossible, it's up to you.
Yes because 100s of them are corrupt right? Where is your evidence of this?
They'll act like an intern or someone from the politician's office found some weird documents proving they're into corruption.
Because people write their corruption into documents right? Then they allow any new intern to read all their files right?
politician's reelection impossible, it's up to you.
Where is your evidence that they do. It's like you are claiming there are ghosts and you strongly believe in ghosts but you can't prove it or provide any evidence of it. You ask "how could they not be guilty"--just imagine for a moment you said that about a religious group or a race...
Well one can imagine corruption is pretty well hidden but you know, we're talking about one of the biggest if not THE biggest surveillance organisation in the world. If some people have access to evidence of corruption or whatever an elected representative could do, it's the NSA. Of course an internet doesn't have access to any of that but im pretty sure the NSA can disguise the revelation. They're probably experts by now.
I'm on my phone right now so i can't dig up sources but comparing the whole situation to ghosts is completely ridiculous. Then again, stay in your perfect little world where your representatives are saint.
I can believe that there exist corrupt politicians, and that some people in the NSA have information regarding that corruption (but ignore it because it is irrelevant for the purpose of national security). That's not exactly a beautiful pink world, but it's also not conspiracy nuttery about blackmail by a government agency of our leaders.
Blackmail has a lot to do with national security too.
Petraeus was a famous general and director of CIA. Guess what? The FBI found out about his hidden relations. Guess what happened? no black mail. He was forced to resign.
People in such powerful positions in government cannot have such vulnerabilities. Having it means other countries can exploit you and use you. Thus, they are forced to resign in favor of clean people with nothing in their closet.
That one episode in American history should be a giant stone headstone to knock conspiracy theorists' nailed coffin into the grave once and for all. Yet the conspiracies keep coming.
These guys are lunatics. They think anyone pointing out anything even remotely problematic with American society are paranoiacs. CIA spying on the Senate? Not a problem, you're just a libertarian idiot if you have issues with it.
One guy (a sockpuppet of executex there, I've heard he/she has a large amount of them, possibly arguing with each other here) said that noted security expert Bruce Schneier was "a paranoid privacy nut. He says everything is disturbing. There's no limit to what he thinks should be private or what he thinks is disturbing or scary."
I don't know if they're trolling or just that stupid. It's real difficult to tell.
EDIT: I have multiple sockpuppets tagged in this thread taking turns attacking you. So there's that. It's pretty .... sad and pathetic, really. The style of writing is identical, it's an easy way to know.
Sometimes even little things can be damaging to a congressman's reputation. Just look at Ron Paul. He was hounded by Fox news for being a racist. They sourced news letters he didn't write.
Money scandals are much more common. Other possible blackmail items are items a congressman voted on, where there was an undisclosed conflict of interest.
Little things like this can be damaging, exactly because people like yourself. People who put forth that their congressman doesn't do anything wrong.
Sometimes even little things can be damaging to a congressman's reputation. Just look at Ron Paul. He was hounded by Fox news for being a racist. They sourced news letters he didn't write.
It was literally a newsletter that had his name on and that he endorsed.
His wife was as editor on the newsletter. Ron Paul approved it. It had his name over it. His best friend was the writer in the newsletter.
Ron Paul is a racist. That's why he made speeches in front of a confederate flag--you know the flag of traitors.
If you still aren't convinced then you will NEVER be convinced because you are so obsessed with the man that you can't see him for what he is.
Just look at Ron Paul
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n5E7feJHw0
you know, if politicians have something they can be blackmailed with, maybe it's good they get exposed? especially money scandals, journalists get lauded when they expose something like that! Not to mention that you have not a shred of evidence of anything remotely like blackmail is happening or has been attempted. Nor that checks and balances don't work on the NSA.
Not to mention that you have not a shred of evidence of anything remotely like blackmail is happening or has been attempted.
You are right, and I will not claim I have evidence either. This wasn't my argument.
I wasn't saying anything about the NSA, or anyone specific. My post was merely to point out that blackmail isn't always something big such as: "Politician X had politician Y assassinated.", or "Politician A took drugs while in office".
I wanted to point out that even 'little' things can be used as blackmail.
maybe it's good they get exposed? especially money scandals.
I agree. Exposure is great. Blackmail is the opposite of exposure. Blackmail promises to keep the scandal hidden, for something in return.
Bullshit, Ron Paul deserved the criticism he got. His wife, his former campaign manager , and his daughter were all involved with that newsletter.
Ron Paul deserved the criticism he got.
I would agree with you, except that the 'racist' articles are from 1992. The election was in 2012. That is a 20 year difference...
How long are we going to keep a grudge, and on top of it all, he disavows them.
So I have two questions for you:
They sourced news letters he didn't write.
He either agreed with them, or was incompetent for allowing them to be published in his own newsletter.
Either one indicates he is a fool.
Besides, you don't need the NSA to blackmail a candidate. You're opponent will be sure to do it for you. You can't even go for a drive without the opposition making it a talking point
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#### Mitt Romney dog incident:
During a 1983 family vacation, Mitt Romney drove twelve hours with his dog Seamus on top of the car in a windshield-equipped carrier. This incident became the subject of negative media attention and political attacks on Romney in both the 2008 and the 2012 presidential elections.
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^Interesting: ^Mitt ^Romney ^presidential ^campaign, ^2012 ^| ^Mitt ^Romney ^presidential ^campaign, ^2008 ^| ^Devo ^| ^Election ^Special
^Parent ^commenter ^can [^toggle ^NSFW](http://www.np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=autowikibot&subject=AutoWikibot NSFW toggle&message=%2Btoggle-nsfw+ciymzvx) ^or [^delete](http://www.np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=autowikibot&subject=AutoWikibot Deletion&message=%2Bdelete+ciymzvx)^. ^Will ^also ^delete ^on ^comment ^score ^of ^-1 ^or ^less. ^| ^(FAQs) ^| ^Mods ^| ^Magic ^Words
In August 2012, the band Devo released a single called "Don't Roof Rack Me, Bro (Seamus Unleashed)",
oh Devo
I've also never heard a really good explanation of what the NSA's motives would be if they were blackmailing politicians.
They spy on politicians so they can blackmail politicians in order to....what...... exactly?
It is literally a theoretical scapegoat for anything the government does ever. Its just trying to undermine any legitimacy the government
Example: the congress passes much needed defence budget reform, is it because it was needed.... or is it because the nsa is purposely gutting the American military's ability to defend itself?
Ah, the eminently reasonable "World socialist website.org". Truly an unbiased and reasonable place.
That site is like a cesspool of alex jones style conspiracies about the world and negative stories of capitalism etc.
It's like the far left discovered that the far right was taking over the world of conspiracies, and they went all gung-ho in response with wsws and global research.ca.
As they say it's not really a linear spectrum but a circle with Hitler in between those two groups.
##Hello, I am Godwin's law bot!## I'm calculating how long on average it takes for hitler to be mentioned.
|Mean Seconds| Mean Hours| Median Seconds | Median Hours ---|---|---|---|--- This post| 35878.0|9 Average over 6128 posts|157133|43|16240|4
Current High Score: 2 seconds
Number of bans this bot has recieved: 173
Number of times this bot has been replied to with the only content being the word hitler: 207
Graph of average over time available at www.plot.ly/~floatingghost/0
RAW data available at Post limit, maximum pastes per 24h reached
No new high score, try again next time.
It's a shitty website with a bleak, pompous outlook but it's rather over-the-top to compare them to Alex Jones, unless they've got much worse over the last few years since I paid them any attention.
Oh I've seen some insane shit on there that I thought for a second was prisonplanet.com but it was this site named worldsocialistwebsite.
Trust me, they put in some serious alex-jones style conspiracies. I'm not exaggerating.
I don't trust you; in fact I have you tagged as "insane militaristic ratheist." So there's that.
WSWS? Spare me that bullshit. It seems like r/libertarian and r/politics are having a competition of who has the most nutjobs. r/libertarian may win per capita, but damn does r/politics got a lot of them.
r/libertarian is leaking into r/politics too. I used to browse there for the lulz but the libertarianism that has become super edgy and popular in the last few months is nauseating.
Lately these kinds of titles have all started to become one big blur when I read them. I can't even bring myself to actively scan this stuff
Indeed. But do speak up sometimes. If more people spoke up against the circlejerk they would be destroyed.
I'm trying my best with r/snowdencirclejerk.
Ahh, r/poltics. It really is a good thing that teenagers can't vote and twentysomethings don't.
Their hero greenwald never votes. Because he knows who's really in control: the illuminati, better known today as the NSA. But they ain't kidding anyone.
. Its funny my fellow liberals worship him. They forget that the first time he got to vote he voted for Bush, then he supported all his anti terrorism activities for a long time.. Its funny how people just forget these things
Any liberal supporting Greenwald is a fucking idiot libertarian who doesn't understand anything about the liberal ideology.
Greenwald is the antithesis of liberal democracy. He is a supporter of only conspiracy theories and insults against all governments.
Everybody knows the people, you and me, are really in control and the government is only a tool at the disposition of the population, always working for its welfare!
It might be too libertarian now, but back when it was all Chomsky-style leftists they had this really amusing belief that theirs was the first generation that would never grow up, so that once the Baby Boomers died off (who are horrible by virtue of being adults who vote and don't have childish beliefs) the world would prosper under them.
Judging by the increasing volume of libertarianism, it looks like they were right in as much as never growing up, even if that may mean the opposite of prosperity. Endless adolescence for all!
I was once a libertarian. Then I read books about economics, military, and law. After I realized they were wrong on every single possible economic issue, which I had thought surely couldn't be true, I had to ask myself what kind of person would still insist on being a libertarian?
I realized that it's someone who after 100s of years of politics would come in after being born in the 2000s or 1990s and say "damn, look at all these problems... Clearly everyone must be somewhat wrong. Clearly the answer must lie somewhere in the middle from a group that has never really been in power. Because obviously if the right ideologues were in power they would have solved all these problems already. So I pick libertarian." It's the kind of person who thinks government and all its bureaucracy and all the political problems were mistakenly created rather than an evolved set of functions and capabilities that developed over 100s of years of reform.
No, it isn't. That's ageist bullshit and it doesn't deserve upvotes. The voting age should be like 12 or 14; there's absolutely no reason to think that dumb political ideas are concentrated among teenagers.
We were all teenagers once, we all know exactly how they think. When I was 15 I thought I had solved every problem the world faces. Then I grew up. I'm glad I couldn't vote at 15.
I don't know if it happens to every adult or just some adults, but at some point you realize that accusing and criticizing everyone of everything is incorrect and instead trying to understand other perspectives and why they do what they do is more valuable and efficient use of time. Then picking and choosing wisely what issue to push for change and only if you are absolutely sure.
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As a teenager, I think I'm qualified to say that teenagers are stupid. 14 year olds are in know way experienced, interested, reasonable, or informed enough to vote. I even have my doubts about 18 year olds.
It completely depends on the teenager in question.
Some teenagers know far more about the world than some deep wood, hill-billy red-neck. Others have less cognitive power than a brick wall.
Democracy doesn't work for at least two reasons:
Which is specifically why we(USA) have the electoral college.
Yay! Let's all be classist assholes!
God, people who use the term "ageism" incorrectly piss me off.
Ageism refers to the mistreatment of the elderly.
Stop appropriating terms to feel unfairly oppressed. It reeks of teenage rebellion.
No, it doesn't.
Saying Ageism is only applies to the elderly is akin to saying Sexism only applies to women.
/edit: women
feeeeeeemales
"Women." The word you're looking for is "women."
And yes, women really are the only ones who face everyday, institutionalized sexism. Just like how the elderly are the ones who face institutionalized, everyday ageism.
L2RPTD
(Learn to read past the dictionary)
Why wrap it up in a bullshit pseudo-linguistic argument? If you want to say that young people aren't oppressed, we can have that argument, but I really don't feel like banging heads with some moron who insists that the dictionaries are all wrong because he says so.
Here's hoping you get some perspective when you grow up.
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