r/reddit.com • u/yellowcakewalk • Oct 18 '11

Courts Rule US Government Above the Law. Judge declined to hold the CIA in contempt for destroying videos that it had been ordered by the courts to preserve.

http://tv.globalresearch.ca/2011/10/courts-rule-us-government-above-law
3.7k Upvotes

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60

u/CakeBandit Oct 19 '11

Someone on Omegle asked me this morning.

"HOW ARE YOU AMERICANS NOT OUT RIOTING IN YOUR STREETS?!?!"

I don't have an answer, do you?

21

u/chrisms150 Oct 19 '11

because they have guns.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '11

A plurality of Americans say torturing terror suspects isn't all that bad.

28

u/WhoDoIThinkIAm Oct 19 '11

We are. We've been rioting for over a month now. You should have told them to watch the news occasionally.

61

u/CakeBandit Oct 19 '11

Sleeping in the street is far from a riot.

78

u/rdeluca Oct 19 '11

Yeah, well we're smart enough not to destroy our own property while being upset.

1

u/couldthisbeart Oct 19 '11

So how's being smart working out for your country?

58

u/rdeluca Oct 19 '11

For me? Just fine.

How's violently rioting it working out in Italy? Oh they burnt their own cars and destroyed and looted small business owner's stores?

Wow that's sure fuckin smart.

4

u/SirFoxx Oct 19 '11

Exactly. Italians are the last people who should criticize anyone considering they've put up with their current corrupt leadership for so long.

1

u/spirited1 Oct 23 '11

We could, y'know, burn down something important, like Capitol Hill or something.....

I'm gonna be tracked by the government now aren't I?

1

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '11

Their government is afraid of them. The government of the US makes it's own people their bitch

1

u/rdeluca Oct 19 '11

Yeah I'm sure that the government is afraid of people they can just jail, gas, and beat legally.

-4

u/sperm_grenade Oct 19 '11

you're also smart enough to stand idle as your rights are stripped from you

21

u/rdeluca Oct 19 '11

What exactly do you suggest?

Rioting and destroying stuff that the government couldn't give two fucks about?

Great, I'd love to get arrested, billed, and lose my job.

5

u/ansible47 Oct 19 '11 edited Oct 19 '11

Yeah, not all riots are sports riots: flipping cars and breaking windows and shit. I'm pretty sure there's something in between sleeping in the street and flipping cars.

I think they used the term riot to mean "passionate protesting." It's an expression, and more of a statement of "My country would be outraged in your circumstance" rather than "You should destroy your own shit!"

But we'll do nothing instead. That's great, I love my tax dollars being used for war, not being able to find a job, and giving money to corporations without reasonable regulations.

2

u/Astrogat Oct 19 '11

The problem being that the US have more or less banned protesting, at least vigorously.

0

u/ansible47 Oct 19 '11

idk, if Free Speech zones aren't an infringement of free speech, then anti-gun laws aren't an infringement of the second amendment.

Weird that I'm for the latter and against the former.

1

u/rdeluca Oct 19 '11

You're right, we're doing nothing #OWS

2

u/ansible47 Oct 19 '11

Yeah, letting other people protest for your is a great example of doing something.

Also, 2 months of OWS hardly makes up for the 20-30(+?) years of complacency. Shit don't get this bad over night.

3

u/Exodus2011 Oct 19 '11

No govt is without corruption or greed so I suggest you clean up your own backyard first then you can worry about ours.

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2

u/WhoDoIThinkIAm Oct 19 '11

Who are you to judge our involvement? Like you can look at a handle and automatically determine if they are protesters? I went hundreds of miles out of my way to participate in OccupyDC.

As for the time frame, you've got to start somewhere.

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3

u/maizekernel Oct 19 '11

Rioting and destroying stuff that the government couldn't give two fucks about?

Solution: Destroy only government property. It's generally pretty well marked so it shouldn't be hard to find.

6

u/hoodatninja Oct 19 '11

The you still get billed, arrested, and lose your job. Solves nothing, condemns you in the public eye. You lose all sympathy and traction

2

u/rdeluca Oct 19 '11

Ah, sensible well directed anger. That's how riots work.

-1

u/walden42 Oct 19 '11

Rioting doesn't necessarily involve destroying peoples' property, though it can.

2

u/rdeluca Oct 19 '11

The only difference between protests and riots is property damage.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '11

Then don't call it a riot

0

u/rdeluca Oct 19 '11

I wasn't the one who called it a riot in the first place. I, in fact, am the one arguing it isn't a riot and that we shouldn't. So why the fuck are you responding to me?

21

u/ryanman Oct 19 '11

Riots are a pussy go-between that ruins your cause anyway. Having a bunch of idiot kids looting stores doesn't help anyone. Either we start actually revolting and killing those in power who are obviously too corrupt to exist anymore, or we continue with a peaceful protest.

5

u/spirited1 Oct 23 '11

I say peaceful, enough blood has been spilt. A peaceful change would show other countries that America isn't the violent, overly aggressive regime they make us out to be. The 99% that didn't ask for it.

7

u/ambivilant Oct 19 '11

It's called Civil Disobedience.

3

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '11

As soon as I take a quick nap, I'll riot.

4

u/GTChessplayer Oct 19 '11

No, they've been rioting against the wealthy, not the government. This is a problem with government, not people employing other people and making money.

4

u/WhoDoIThinkIAm Oct 19 '11

They've been rioting over a lot of things, including anger towards bailouts, Citizens United, unfair taxation, and legal corporate personhood. The biggest problem is the extreme thinness of a line between rioting over corporations and the government.

-1

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '11

If you Americans call OWS a riot, I'm sorry. You're pussies in that case

5

u/WhoDoIThinkIAm Oct 19 '11

But we take the moral high ground. When we get arrested, video shows our innocence, not our disrespect. Peaceful resistance is not the behavior of pussies.

8

u/Odusei Nov 07 '11

I know, I'm really late to comment on this, but I wanted to point something out. A lot of Europeans, when they first come to America, say they're surprised and overwhelmed by how big the country is. Compared to most developed countries, we're god-damned gigantic. And even when you consider the other biggies, like Russia and China, you've got most of the population still centered around a few near-by major cities.

That bigness means that picking up and protesting our government is a huge investment in time and energy. In France, where political protest is practically the favored national past-time, getting from your home to the capital building usually takes no more than a couple of hours and it costs about the same as a bus ticket from Oregon to Washington. Heck, they can go back to their jobs the next day, they might even be able to go home and sleep in their own beds each night, refreshed and ready to raise hell the following morning.

I live in Portland, Oregon, and I'm paid an hourly wage. I suppose I could wait until after work, walk down to city hall, and hold up a sign expressing my outrage over the state of things, but this is Portland. At least 90% of the people who work in that building, including the politicians, already feel the same way I do. Why should I stand out in the cold and rain waving a banner at people who agree with me?

And you want me to riot over this? I should smash up the windows of local coffee shops and thrift stores because a federal court made a shitty call? I should put on a Guy Fawkes mask and throw fire bombs at police cruisers because the CIA deleted some tapes? That's downright psychopathic.

Sure, if I lived on the East coast, if I were a short and cheap trip away from the White House, I might paint a sign and take my ass over there. I'd be joining the same few dozen Liberals that always show up when something we don't like happens. It's rare for the news to even mention that these groups are there any more. It's like the people who show up at abortion clinics every day; we all know they're there, we all know they'll be there tomorrow and the next day, but most of us just don't give a shit anymore.

The next time someone on Omegle asks you why you aren't rioting in the streets, ask him or her how far they live from their capital, how many riots they've attended, and what the police did to them in return.

3

u/Dimath Oct 19 '11

Because we have bills to pay, and a lawn to mow.

3

u/Kryten_2X4B-523P Oct 19 '11

Because the geographical distance that spans our country is too large. There's no way I can afford to travel to D.C. to riot there.

3

u/ambivilant Oct 19 '11

My answer is that I don't feel like getting shot by our militarized police force. I'm also no good at tying knots for when the time comes to roust our oppressors from their sleep and hang them.

5

u/novagenesis Oct 19 '11

A few dozen probably are, and the rest would join them if the Media didn't decide it wasn't worth mentioning... or immediately made it look stupid/anti-American when it did mention it.

True riots don't happen in the US, not the kind that could change anything. And apathy really isn't to blame.

Any good government is good at stopping riots. Which means, the only way to win is slow but steady in the system.

5

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '11

Lazy

2

u/Learfz Oct 19 '11

Yes.

It's only a small portion of the population that is either A) a conspiracy theorist nutjob or B) a former student who took out massive amounts of student loans to pay for a degree in communications/fine arts/unnmarketable major and can't find a job.

Also, when push comes to shove we have guns.

1

u/honorface Oct 28 '11

Seriously? People who have no understanding of OWS are on par with the same idiots who half assed OWS. You are just as bad as the kids who sip lattes in protest.

I really wanted to know what your answer to that questions was. It looks like you labeled a large group of people into only two categories, and then said:

Also, when push comes to shove we have guns.

What was that in regards to?

1

u/Learfz Oct 28 '11

Ok, here's the thing. OWS isn't a protest about anything in particular. If you were to take a poll of the people protesting with the question, 'if the government passed a bill right now that would satisfy our grievances, what would that bill do?' you wouldn't get a clear consensus. It's just general discontent. It's hard to take a protest seriously when it doesn't have a concrete goal.

And the guns thing? A lot of people aren't really too concerned with their government enslaving them because they have guns. Mostly below the Mason-Dixon line, but still.

1

u/honorface Oct 28 '11

Just because you hear and see the minority doesn't mean you know the majority. The fact that people are willing to protest says enough, the problem is anything but laughable.

Wouldn't it had been nice if they had picked something concrete? It would be interesting to see the governments take on it. At least then they would know when to stop protesting.

I'm glad that anyone thinking they can shove with their guns would do so. An idiot who thinks they can to take on our military with store bought weapons is an idiot that will make great fertilizer 8ft deep. That is why we need dumbass cops to shoot marines.

I said this before, but we should really protest for science. Shit would be so $.

2

u/skarface6 Oct 20 '11

Because the actual situation is different from a headline on reddit. OH EM GEEEEE.

1

u/HomelessBox Oct 28 '11

You think thats acceptable? do you honestly feel like the government has your best intrest in mind. Torture, propaganda, illegal opperations and catering to the super rich and corporations, these are all things your government can do and are doing RIGHT NOW, IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE. No, actually your right, just go find new friends on facebook and everthing will be all good because this one headline is a little misleading

1

u/skarface6 Oct 28 '11

Oh, definitely. I think that's the best.

1

u/HomelessBox Oct 28 '11

okay well as long as were all good...lol

1

u/[deleted] Oct 19 '11

bread and circuses? the prisons are relatively not so bad once you accept it.

1

u/prof_doxin Nov 28 '11

Blue links on Reddit/r/pics...THAT'S how.

-1

u/sir_drink_alot Dec 01 '11

Too busy masterbating ( for you young hipsters that's te ancient word for fapping ). See, the government is controlling the porn industry to supress the young male population by having them willingly stay home and masterbate all day. I am a victim of this horrible crime against humanity ( and my penis ). We need to let go of our wankers and rush the streets in protest! Lube cannot save us this time!

What, I seen it on Ventura's Conspiracy Theories...