Tag: QotD

Quote of the Day – Roger Simon Edition

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I don’t have a brief for Snowden. He seems to be a new form of narcissistic international creep, similar to Julian Assange of Wikileaks fame. I hope he gets dysentery in Ecuador or wherever he winds up.

But he may have done us a favor, putting an exclamation point on the activities of the NSA so there are no doubts. He also has made obvious the utter contempt with which Russia and China treat the Obama administration. (Evidently this was surprising to Dianne Feinstein on Face the Nation Sunday. Go figure.)

Also interesting is that the heightened concern for our civil liberties under government digital surveillance crosses political and party lines. Given the plethora of scandals confronting the administration, this presents an opportunity for dialogue we haven’t had for many years. Who knows if it will happen?

But if it does, I hope it will be intelligent and substantive. — What Snowden Knew

Don’t hold your breath waiting for that one, Roger.  What I find most interesting is who has come out in defense of essentially unlimited government snooping.  That crosses political and party lines as well.

Quote of the Day – Jerry Pournelle Edition

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Sort of a twofer:

I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. … Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, in fact, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence, and cruelty. When clear prospects are opened before vanity, pride, avarice, or ambition, for their easy gratification, it is hard for the most considerate philosophers and the most conscientious moralists to resist the temptation. Individuals have conquered themselves. Nations and large bodies of men, never.

John Adams, letter to John Taylor (15 April 1814).

The remedy, of course, was to form a Republic, and for over two hundred years the Republic endured. Now it is to be converted into a democracy, and the result is predictable and predicted. There are many good studies of what happens when a democracy commits suicide. If it is fortunate it gets a Claudius Caesar, but more often it must first endure a Caligula so that Claudius seems a blessed relief. And after Claudius as likely as not comes Nero. But I digress. For the moment we do not yet have Marius.

Quote of the Day – New York Times Edition

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When you’ve lost the editorial board of the NYT, you’re in deep, deep guano:

…the Obama administration issued the same platitude it has offered every time President Obama has been caught overreaching in the use of his powers: Terrorists are a real menace and you should just trust us to deal with them because we have internal mechanisms (that we are not going to tell you about) to make sure we do not violate your rights.

Those reassurances have never been persuasive — whether on secret warrants to scoop up a news agency’s phone records or secret orders to kill an American suspected of terrorism — especially coming from a president who once promised transparency and accountability.

The administration has now lost all credibility on this issue. Mr. Obama is proving the truism that the executive branch will use any power it is given and very likely abuse it.

Hey, NYT editorial board, here’s a clue: It’s not just the executive branch, and it’s not just “this issue.”

But hey!  Nice start!

Oh, and “overreach”? There’s that term again.

UPDATE:  Aaaaand the NYT felt it necessary to soften the tone, apparently:

The New York Times edited its damning editorial condemning the Obama administration for collecting phone call data from Americans to make it less stinging shortly after the editorial was published online Thursday afternoon.

The editorial originally declared that the Obama “administration has lost all credibility” as a result of the recently revealed news that the National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been secretly collecting call data from American users of Verizon under the authority of the Patriot Act.

But hours later the stinging sentence had been modified to read the Obama “administration has now lost all credibility on this issue.” [Emphasis added]

IOW: They got it right the first time.  And no, they did not note that the piece had been altered.

Full disclosure:  I’ve edited this piece twice now.

Quote of the Day – Glenn Reynolds Edition

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What’s up with this? It’s not based on any concern with safety. Lego guns, cap guns, bubble guns, nibbled Pop Tarts, and fingers are no threat to safety. And the wild overreaction in these cases says there’s more going on here than simple school discipline. As I said, who treats a 5-year-old this way? It smacks of fanaticism.

In fact, it seems like a kind of quasi-religious fanaticism. I think it’s about the administrative class — which runs the schools with as little input from parents as possible — doing its best to exterminate the very idea of guns. It’s some sort of wacky moral-purity crusade. If a few toddlers have to suffer along the way, that’s tough. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

— Fighting education fanatics

Quote of the Day – IRS Scandal Edition

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Where, one wonders, did “anyone at the IRS that was involved in this” get the idea that it was a good thing to do? Were they just going to drop it on the porch, like a cat bringing home a dead sparrow, and hope they would be praised by He Who Wieldeth the Opener of Cans?

It’s possible, but it’s not the way to bet. I leave the implications (for now) as an exercise for the reader.

— MiddleAgedKen

Even Jon Stewart Gets It

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In a few short weeks, you’ve managed to show that when the government wants to do good things, your managerial competence falls somewhere between David Brent and a cat chasing a laser pointer, but when government wants to flex its more malevolent muscles, YOU’RE FUCKING IRON MAN!

Yup. That’s it exactly. (Had to look up the David Brent reference.)

Edited to add this as Quote of the Day:

This has, in one seismic moment, shifted the burden of proof from the tinfoil behatted to the government.

Where that burden ought to be all of the time.

Quote of the Day – GeekWithA.45 Edition

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In a comment to the post below:

Our opponents take the position that guns are self evidently bad, a source of inherent evil, to be tolerated only as a shameful matter that, like the dark ages lists of books likely to be (mis?)understood by the unwashed masses, are therefore forbidden to any without special gloves, mental training, and the anointment of the magic pixie dust of State.

That we reject their contention that this is a shameful, shameful matter, to be hidden from the children, and only discussed in whispers after dark. We reject the premise that gun clubs should be treated as brothel hallways, where each man points his face to the floor in shame, lest he recognize, or be recognized. We reject the premise that arms are the sole purview of the state. We reject the premise that the State is somehow endowed of inherently superior stuff, and that all are to forever to accept their station in life and hold ourselves subordinate to it. And this… is all the evidence they will ever need of our depravity and in the eyes of some, outright evil. It is all the evidence they will ever need that we are an inherent hazard to society, and therefore our suppression, marginalization and elimination is a well justified social good.

Well, as they say, bad luck with all of that. I can wish them only misery and failure.

Jesus forgave those who acted in ignorance, but I see no reason to, for these know full well what they do.

“God help us, for we will not plow for those who didn’t beat their swords into plowshares.”

So say we all.

So say we all.

Start blogging again, Geek. I mean it.