Obama signs NDAA

• TheKartheus wrote on 2012-01-01 07:13

  Quote from Juno;715986:

  They're not going to start arresting random citizens and throwing them in camps.
  
  Calm down .-.

  
  
  This.
  
  They still have to have a pretty good reason to suspect you to hold you in. If it was as bad as you people seem to think, it would not have been passed. If it is used in that way, it will stop. There's a reason we have a judicial branch. If it's as horrible as you think, the people who passed it won't be in office much longer anyway.
• Cynic wrote on 2012-01-01 11:42
  I wouldn't be too sure about that.
  
  And yes, Yoorah, the bill is so poorly written that it could detain practically anyone.
  
  Here if you guys want a good read on the subject; http://www.freedomfiles.org/war/fema.htm
  
  Don't say I didn't warn ya' when the sh*t does hit the fan.
• Spartaaaaa wrote on 2012-01-01 12:57
  Time to bring out the tar and feathers...
• RebeccaBlack wrote on 2012-01-02 00:23
  This is enough to make me want to move, combined with all the other things going on.
  
  I'm kinda tired of this crap and don't care about "terrorism". Something bad happened somewhere in the US in some year? That's a damn shame. We shouldn't be messing with the rights of everyone as a result. If we'd just mind our own business and stop getting into the lives of other Americans and people who aren't even in our country to begin with we wouldn't have these problems in the first place.
  
  I'd feel comfortable on a plane with minimal security measures. Same with a bus. You can't live your life paranoid that something might happen when the chances of anything happening are even less than "slim to none". If you've been on 10,000 planes then I'm betting at most, possibly one of them had a person who was a little angry and snuck a blade in, but was promptly pulled off and arrested. That's not what I'd consider "dangerous". I'd be more afraid to walk down a street knowing someone could rob me.
• Chillax wrote on 2012-01-02 00:30

  Quote from Cynic;716494:

  I wouldn't be too sure about that.
  
  And yes, Yoorah, the bill is so poorly written that it could detain practically anyone.
  
  Here if you guys want a good read on the subject; http://www.freedomfiles.org/war/fema.htm
  
  Don't say I didn't warn ya' when the sh*t does hit the fan.

  
  
  Looks like something Spartaaaaa would post, especially with that part at the end.
• Cynic wrote on 2012-01-02 01:27
  Naturally it's easy to ignore the typical religious stuff, but the rest is all accurate.
  
  Also on the subject. A lovely summery of these events;
  
  

  TL;DR The President’s opponents played the electorate like a fiddle and will get away with it because people don’t seem to realize they’ve been tricked into being angry at the wrong person.
  
  He signed it because if he didn’t, defense spending including benefits to veterans and their families would not have been authorized. The sections of NDAA that many people here seem to have a problem with are sections that were added into the document by primarily Republican legislators and which the President adamantly opposes but was powerless to stop. I’ll repeat that: the parts of this bill that many people here hate were included against the President’s wishes and in a way that he is powerless to stop. The only way he could have stopped these sections from being included would have been to try to veto the bill in its entirety, a move that would have been both political suicide as well as being futile, as Congress would simply have overridden him. He is explicit in his opposition to exactly the parts of the bill everyone here hates, going so far as to detail exactly which sections he opposes and why.
  
  You’ll notice that the bill also restricts his ability to close Guantanamo Bay; this isn’t coincidence. These sections are openly hostile to the President’s stated mandate - they are effectively a giant ‘**** you’ to the President, as well as a nasty way of eroding the President’s support with his own base. Observe:
  
  
  1) Draft legislation that is almost guaranteed to piss of the President but more importantly piss of his base.
  2) Attach said legislation to another piece of larger, more important legislation like, say, the Defense Spending budget for the entire year so that any attempt to dislodge the offensive legislation will result in a political ****storm, as well as place the larger legislation in jeopardy.
  3) Once attached, begin a PR campaign that highlights the offending legislation and brings it to the attention of as many media outlets as possible - not just the traditional media, but alternative media outlets as well (Fox news, MSNBC, Media Matters, Huff-Po, Infowars, etc.)
  4) Here’s where it gets tricky: Simultaneously, speak to both your party’s base and the opposition’s. To your base, argue that the legislation is necessary to ‘Keep America safe’ and that the President, by opposing it, is clearly soft of terrorism and endangering the military by trying to strip the legislation out. At the same time, sit back and watch your opponent’s liberal supporters tear into the offending legislation as being dangerous, anti-democratic, and a threat to civil liberties. You know they will; that’s what they care about most. You’ve designed legislation that will make them froth at the mouth. You don’t even have to keep flogging the message; one look at the legislation will be enough to convince most people that it is anathema to everything they hold dear. Because it is.
  5) Pass the ‘parent’ legislation. Doing so forces the President to sign it or attempt to veto it. Since the legislation in question just so happens to be the military’s operating budget, a veto is out of the question. The President must sign the bill, you get the legislation you wanted, but you also practically guarantee that your opponent’s base will be furious at him for passing a bill they see as evil. Even if he tries to explain in detail why he had to sign it and what he hates about it, it won’t matter; ignorance of the American political process, coupled with an almost militant indifference to subtle explanations will almost ensure that most people will only remember that the President passed a bill they hate.
  6) Profit. you get the legislation you want, while the President has to contend with a furious base that feels he betrayed them - even though he agrees with their position but simply lacked the legislative tools to stop this from happening. It’s a classic piece of misdirection that needs only two things to work: A lack of principles (or a partisan ideology that is willing to say anything - do anything - to win), and an electorate that is easy to fool.
  
  This is pretty basic political maneuvering and the biggest problem is that it almost always works because most people either don’t know or don’t care how their political system actually functions. The President was saddled with a lose-lose situation where he either seriously harmed American defense policy (political suicide), or passed offensive legislation knowing that it would cost him political capital. To all of you here lamenting that you ever voted for this ‘corporate shill’, congratulations: you are the result the Republicans were hoping for. They get the law they want, they get the weakened Presidential candidate they want. And many of you just don’t seem to see that. You don’t have to like your country’s two-party system, but it pays to be able to understand it so that you can recognize when it’s being used like this.
  
  EDIT: thanks to Reddit user Mauve_Cubedweller for this post

• Phunkie wrote on 2012-01-02 01:38
  I'm not worried about this.
  
  If the gov't really started arresting people for no reason, so much sh*t would go down, it's not even funny.
  
  People would hit the streets and so much chaos would arise. Nobody wants that.
  
  So I'm not at all worried.
• Cynic wrote on 2012-01-02 01:44

  Quote from Phunkie;717420:

  I'm not worried about this.
  
  If the gov't really started arresting people for no reason, so much sh*t would go down, it's not even funny.
  
  People would hit the streets and so much chaos would arise. Nobody wants that.
  
  So I'm not at all worried.

  
  
  I'm not personally worried, but I do wish people would take this more seriously. It is far better to be prepared than to brush it off. Whether or not they want to believe it is fine, but to treat it like it's nothing? We all know how these things end. Not to mention it doesn't kill you to be careful.
• Spartaaaaa wrote on 2012-01-02 21:18

  Quote from Phunkie;717420:

  I'm not worried about this.
  
  If the gov't really started arresting people for no reason, so much sh*t would go down, it's not even funny.
  
  People would hit the streets and so much chaos would arise. Nobody wants that.
  
  So I'm not at all worried.

  
  
  Exactly what happened in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia... Oh wait...
• Juno wrote on 2012-01-02 21:52

  Quote from Cynic;716494:

  I wouldn't be too sure about that.
  
  And yes, Yoorah, the bill is so poorly written that it could detain practically anyone.
  
  Here if you guys want a good read on the subject; http://www.freedomfiles.org/war/fema.htm
  
  Don't say I didn't warn ya' when the sh*t does hit the fan.

  
  
  That site spells Muslim 'Moslem.' There's also no hard sources cited. Admittedly, I stopped reading quite early, but if there's trustworthy info there I'm sure it can be found on a more trustworthy site.
  
  

  Quote from Spartaaaaa;718821:

  Exactly what happened in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia... Oh wait...

  
  
  In both of those instances, the people saw enough tangible benefit to a currently benign movement to buy into it. In this case, the only result is people being detained, etc.
• Cynic wrote on 2012-01-02 21:55
  Most of the Nazis were forced into service, or they were basically shunned or sometimes even detained themselves. While not all of them were like that, a lot of soldiers were just as innocent as they very people they gassed.
  
  In this case however, they have all the legal power they want to throw you in if you disobey. They already have a literal army on their side, so they don't need the support of their people.
• Juno wrote on 2012-01-02 22:00
  If the marines are ever ordered to blatantly infringe on the rights of innocent U.S. citizens, we'll have another civil war on our hands. Anyone issuing such an order is basically giving up their authority and anyone following it will be stopped at any cost.
  
  Honestly, we don't have to worry about them.
• Spartaaaaa wrote on 2012-01-02 23:18

  Quote from Juno;718874:

  
  In both of those instances, the people saw enough tangible benefit to a currently benign movement to buy into it. In this case, the only result is people being detained, etc.

  
  
  Yeah, but NDAA could also be perceived as "benign" since our "benevolent" government is just trying to "stop terrorism" and "improve national security".
• Phunkie wrote on 2012-01-03 01:37

  Quote from Spartaaaaa;718821:

  Exactly what happened in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia... Oh wait...

  
  
  Not at all worried. :XD:
  
  We're not in those times anymore.
  
  With how liberal and outspoken the American society has become in the last few decades, the government wouldn't dare to do anything crazy. It'd unleash so much disorder.
• oasis789 wrote on 2012-01-03 10:44
  If you don't like it, there's always Ron Paul.