re: Edward Snowden requests asylum from Russia. Have you changed your mind?

Like motherfricking George Washington said on day 1.

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Undetermined at the moment. I believe releasing info that the Gov't was being intrusive on citizens was the right thing to do though.

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Outside of the 4th Amendment. Secret courts granting secret surveillance hardly jives with privacy protections of citizens.

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This country is already terrorized by outside persons. One could argue, that our own Gov't acts in a terrorist way at times. It's the cost of freedom. And more violations of Constitutional Rights won't prevent something from happening down the road at some point.

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I didn't think it was possible for Alahunter and I to agree on anything politically, but...

:kige:

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However something I was forced to come to terms with is that since we have a two party system that locks out all other groups and who predominantly stick to party ideals rather than evaluating individual issues, compromise is the key. Without compromise on the part of our politicians our government becomes stagnant, and not in a positive way. It is the nature of the deals struck in the name of compromise that give politicians a bad name. Bring back the Whigs?

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Bring back the Whigs, or allow a third party to emerge to counter the extremism on both ends.

Will never happen unfortunately. Need no parties actually. But 3 would be better. I feel like it would end up being another extremist party though. It isn't just north and south and a happy middle if that makes any sense.

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At least a third. Is there a feasible way to make the process more inclusive without banning all lobbyists (and therefore their money)? Is a person's money actually representative of a person's right to free speech? I don't claim to have that figure out yet, but it is a central question to restoring integrity to our political process.

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The roadblock to this is the two existing parties. They are more concerned with power and party platforms than serving the people who elect them, and they're not going to give that power up willingly. Right now, a 3rd party can't even get on the ballot unless their candidate received 5% of the vote in the previous election. And neither the Rs nor the Ds will support changing that rule - they won't do anything to potentially erode their own power.

I'd be for banning all lobbyists. They should exist to provide information only, not to buy votes. They override our voting rights - we can elect the politician, but when his vote on an issue is up for grabs to the lobbyists, the people's power, and interests, get pushed further down the priority chain.

I don't have the answers either.

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I'm leaning whistle blower at the moment. The US bitches about China hacking, but as it turns out the US are hypocrites.

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Diddy, didn't you already know this? We may complain, but our spy network is probably the most sophisticated int he world. Of course we spy - on the Chinese, the Russians, every middle-eastern country, etc. Our ands are definitely not clean.

Now, that's not meant as an anti-government comment. We are no worse than any other country, and I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. For all of our faults, I think we're still the best place to live.

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Once folks can see past their prejudices ( ), they see I'm right most of the time.

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As for third parties, they'll never work in the long-term under our current election system. The only way third parties could thrive in this country would be if we moved to a proportional representation scheme, like zee Germans. Create a small threshold that third parties could reach so that single-issue voters (I don't count myself among them) can have a voice in the system.

I just wish the US would STFU about what the Chinese are doing with internet spying.

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I just wish the US would STFU about what the Chinese are doing with internet spying.

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There's a political reason behind this. They complain about what everyone else does, and try to keep us distracted from what we do. Snowden exposed that we're hypocrites - which most people knew but didn't have info that solid to back it up. I'm just concerned about the long-term consequences of the info he has.