Looks like a return to the wild west, copacetic story at The Daily Paul (where after all the motto is "Peace, Gold, Love"):
The tiny town of Deer Trail, Colo. — barely more than a wide spot on Interstate 70 about 55 miles east of Denver, population 546 — is considering an ordinance that would authorize licensed bounty hunters to shoot down unmanned aircraft violating its “sovereign airspace.”
A six-page petition circulated by a resident says that the threat of surveillance from drones — regardless of who is piloting them — is a threat to “traditional American ideas of Liberty and Freedom” enjoyed by Deer Trail’s “ranchers, farmers, cowboys and Indians, as well as contemporary citizens.”
Therefore, drone incursions are to be seen as acts of war.Looks like these "rugged individualists" out there don't like the idea of Uncle Sam possessing the capability to monitor what is going on in or around their little fly speck hamlet in Colorado to the point of taking up arms against the actions of their own government.
Even though their little hamlet wouldn't even exist if not for the Federal Interstate that provides the critical enabling transportation infrastructure to their community; a roadway that needs to be "monitored" in order to be adequately maintained...
Yippee ki-yah morons.
I'd rather live among the people of Deer Trail Colorado than the enlightened people of say Fort Mead, Maryland. One group of people is willing to stand up for what they believe in while the other is willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power. I think you have the crazies backwards in this case. At some point, the crazies turn out to be on-point and the 'sensible' folks turn out to be crazy. I, personally, think we are getting closer to that upside down world of double speak. If I hack a unclassified government website to find out what they are up to, I go to jail for 10 years, if they hack my life to assess whether or not I am a threat to their power structure, nothing happens. There is no check on the power. There is no cool head to say 'No,' only a puppet court that appears to be used after-the-fact to cover tracks.
ReplyDeleteThe interstate causes global warming. You guys couldn't be consistent if your lives depended on it.
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ReplyDelete"The interstate causes global warming. You guys couldn't be consistent if your lives depended on it."
ReplyDeleteA lot of people seem to be denial that our futures, if not our lives, do depend on actions have taken collectively and continue to take collectively (culturally and institutionally).
And the reason is fairly simple. It's not actually the propaganda campaign, or that vested interests are bent on preserving the status quo and milking it for all its worth. Rather, people realize at a deep level that this will involve wrenching change in their lives and don't want to face up to it just yet. But as things heat up, literally, that will change, too. And when things change collectively, they often change quickly on a massive scale. It would have been must more prudent to deal with this gradually.
So because the government provides the highway that brings with it the life blood of this community, the people there are morons for not wanting the government to spy on them with drones?
ReplyDeleteNot one of your better posts, Matt.
Oh for crying out loud these idiots are the same cohort that would say "keep you gd government hands off of my Medicare!"....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/get-your-goddamn-governme_b_252326.html
They're MORONS!
Libertarians: Get over it already...
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/06/130606-drone-uav-surveillance-unmanned-domicopter-flight-civilian-helicopter/
Oh yes that crop duster is a government spy!
This is borderline if not full-fledged paranoia...
Take a look:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranoia
rsp,
To be honest, while the Deer Trail, Colorado, inhabitants' action seems a bit quixotic, I do sympathize with them.
ReplyDeleteI don't much like this surveillance thing...
Some other good ideas:
ReplyDeletehttp://constant-geography.blogspot.com/2013/06/drones-to-rescue-drones-use-in-disaster.html
But too bad we couldnt do these things if left up to these at least near paranoid Ron Paul morons out in Deer Lick Colorado...
Why do we need MMT which shows how we can issue our state currency directly for "public purpose" when probably half of the country are over the top paranoid libertarians who dont believe in "public anything"?????
Its like I'm caught in a crossfire in the middle of some sort of moron libertarian civil war...
rsp,
Matt - I can understand that you may be feeling a bit frustrated, but all this name calling is really not very becoming.
ReplyDeleteEd,
ReplyDeletePlease tell me that you do not think that "the govt is spying on you" ? Please?
Ed,
These are the same people who think we are 'borrowing from the Chinese' and 'leaving our debt to our grandchildren" for crying out loud...
They are not to be 'feared', they are pitiful idiots that need massive amounts of education/instruction...
rsp,
Perhaps if road maintenance were a municipal matter and the remote for the drones were turned over to local transport officials...?
ReplyDeleteI don't think we are being paranoid. I don't think the government is out to get us. I think in the aftermath of 9/11 we gave extraordinary powers to government and at the same time communications technology evolved to where drones can be controlled from far away and government can make huge dragnets with a simple keystroke. While the people that work for the government are doing a good job and being vigilant, the institutions are operating outside where the public might wish them to be. The citizens of the country ultimately decide what is and is not appropriate for the government to do and will tell the government when they have overstepped 'reasonable'. It is hard to argue that the NSA chief blatantly lying to congress and then joking about it when he was caught, wasn't a bit over the top. Classifying OWS as a terrorist movement? Who is paranoid here? This sort of hubris and general lawlessness within the government must be reigned in before it becomes a real problem at the hands of someone that is malevolent. Bureaucrats must learn to work as a part of society inside the fabric of rules and laws the public sets for them and when they go outside, there needs to be civil and criminal penalties to discourage over reach. My problem is that government and business forget who is boss. It isn't them. We, the voters, hold the reigns and tell the government what to do, not the other way around. Voters have the final say in government policy and are the only ones with the power to force congress to put an end to practices they don't like.
ReplyDelete"Please tell me that you do not think that "the govt is spying on you" ? Please?"
ReplyDeleteMatt - The government is spying on us! Where have you been? I know you are familiar with Edward Snowden and his revelations about the NSA. In your own words:
"Looks like these "rugged individualists" out there don't like the idea of Uncle Sam possessing the capability to monitor what is going on in or around their little fly speck hamlet in Colorado....
Do you not consider it unconstitutional and and extreme violation of the 4th Amendment for the NSA to be collecting billions of data on every phone call, email, Skype message etc.. every day?
The 4th Amendment says: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
What is the probable cause for such massive data collection on each and every one of us? The only question in my mind is whether they are only collecting data on the sender/recipient, time and duration/length of calls and emails or whether they have the ability to retrospectively go back into the data and reconstruct a conversation or exchange between two or more parties. To date I have not heard a definitive answer to this question.
However putting all that aside, my initial reply was in regard to your name calling, which denotes intellectual laziness on your part and is insulting to someone on the receiving end. I am a libertarian who happens to be influenced by MMT. Reconcile that if you can, but regardless I hope that you do not think that am a moron.
There is a political realignment underway in the U.S. which will result in a new coalition of the liberal progressive left and libertarian right and it will take shape and become more evident as the 2014 mid-term elections draw near and will kick into overdrive with the 2016 presidential election. I have said this here before, but it is time for MMT and libertarians to come together on areas of agreement because there is nothing to be gained by alienating each other. Oh and BTW... I have a well documented record of introducing MMT ideas on the Daily Paul.
Ed, as a libertarian of the left — in find "anarchist" misleading at best — I agree with you on this. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Clearly, this behavior on the part of the executive is extra-constitutional and it is only being permitted bythe other branches due to "extremis." But there has been mission creep in executive power for some time, for example, wrt to the war power. That was wrt to foreign policy, however. Now we have mission creep domestically and the creep is turning into a gallop under Bush-Cheney and now Obama, who not only ratified it as policy but also extended it.
ReplyDeleteIt's way past time to draw the line. All the ducks are in place for the trap to spring and all it will take, as General Franks said some time ago, is another 9/11 for martial law to be declared. then there is the possibility of a false flag op to spring the trap, too.
When the degree of control and secrecy are in place, as is apparently the case now, democracy hands on a fraying thread. A number of my friends have said lately that this is looking more and more like Germany in the 1930s.
I could go, of course, but I simply wish to state here that regardless of the intentions of the Bush-Cheney and Obama administrations, which may be benign, and I would like to they that are only misguided, the conditions are being created for an actual coup should circumstances develop in that direction. And there are reasons to think that they easily could, based on the neoliberal record and the people manipulating power in the American Empire.
And not to think that this is at bottom economic is naive IMHO. Political power and economic power go hand it hand. The underlying reasons for all political conflicts are always heavily economic.
"A number of my friends have said lately that this is looking more and more like Germany in the 1930s."
ReplyDeleteYes. I recently finished reading "In the Garden of the Beast", by Erik Larson, which if you haven't already read it, I can't recommend it enough. It is about U.S. ambassador William E. Dodd and his family when they went to Germany in 1933. The changes that take place in Germany at the time are chilling and I can see parallels to U.S. society today. A well written book based on exhaustive research by the author from diaries, newspaper stories, letters, speeches and anecdotal stories.
Ed,
ReplyDeleteNo offense, but if you believe (via MMT or otherwise) that our govt currently has the authority to credit a bank account at will for public purpose, you imo are ultimately not a libertarian OR a moron...
rsp,
Matt - Where the rubber meets the road I draw a distinction between "authority" and "ability". Of course the government has the ability to credit a bank account at will, but the public purpose part of it is up for debate.
ReplyDeleteFor example, Rand Paul has introduced legislation to prohibit the government from giving $1.6 billion in foreign aid to Egypt in the wake of the military ousting (can't call it a coup) of president Morsi. U.S. law already says that foreign aid of this kind must be curtailed when there is a foreign (instead of using the word coup, I will instead use "banana" ) banana. Paul just wants the administration to obey the law. How feckless can it be for the Obama administration to be studying the issue about whether the military banana in Egypt was a banana or not?
Don't get me wrong, because I understand the administration's perspective, because if they refer to the word banana with regard to the disposal of Morsi, then Egyptian crowds demonstrating in the streets of Cairo will not have the benefit of being showered with tear gas canisters MADE IN the USA.
Matt, if you look at the political compass, you will see that there are a range of possible positions that range along the spectrum of left-right and authoritarian-libertarian. Those not at the center are not all extremists of either left-right or libertarian-authoritarian.
ReplyDelete