Land of the Free isn't free at all

Privacy is based upon the idea of private property. The diminishment of the right to privacy leads to a decrease in private property rights. When property rights diminish, those who are the most productive (those with the most private property) will leave. 

In America, we have spent so long living off of our success of the 19th and early 20th Century, we have come to assume that increased government is identical to increased wealth. America will spend itself into poverty, then our military will fall, and the wealth that we think we have will be redistributed throughout the globe as the owners of those resources abandon ship. I already know some very productive members of the US economy that are moving resources and capital overseas. Americans think that the government can stop this, they don't realize that it is government that causes this.

I LOVE living in Japan, where I have managed to fall through the cracks. Nobody pays attention to me, nobody cares, nobody harrasses me. I homeschool seven children; no government official has ever shown up at my door to ask why my kids are not in school. The oldest child is now in her third year at one of Japan's top universities. She was the youngest person ever to enter, attends on a scholarship and gets near-perfect grades, despite the fact that both her parents are foreigners. She is NOT a genius. We attribute her success mostly to being raised in a homseschooling environment. Meanwhile in Germany homeschoolers are being thrown in jail . . . I know a Japanese young man who was similarly homeschooled . . . he now has a good career in the Treasury Dept. of one of the world's largest financial institutions despite not even having a college education. People thrive and perform best with maximum freedom. I support Ron Paul as the next president because he trusts and believes in the ability of ordinary people to do what is right, and to do it well (enough) if left alone. We need millions of Ron Pauls, and judging by the growth of his supporters in the USA, we may have found them. If that's true, then we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the welfare-warfare state, and that will be true even if he fails in his bid for the White House this time.

is the merging of the corporation and the state. But of course we already know that rightwing bastids who would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will lose both and deserve neither.


"The US tendency to monitor people without warrants made it a nightmare place to live" ... a nightmare place to live, you are out of your mind. Then why do so many millions of people break our laws crossing borders illegally just to live and work here? Maybe it's a "nightmare" for those breaking our laws and planning attacks on our citizens, but that's a good thing. All the surveillance cameras in Britain, in public places, that's a good thing, we need more of that over here.

Better let the hem out on your dress a little, your left-wing skirt (agenda) is showing.

Freedom is one thing; privacy is quite another. It has often been remarked that the US constitution has nothing to say about privacy; perhaps the founding fathers took it for granted.

A more interesting limitation of the constitution and the First Amendment lies in the fact that they apply only to the federal government. Americans may be guaranteed that Washington will permit them free speech, etc., but all bets are off when it comes toi state governments, private corporations, and other individual citizens. So if you criticise the president at work, your boss can fire you for it. No comeback.

Big surprise there...
the U.S. hasn't really been leading the 'free world' in a great number of activities for awhile now, except for defense spending. We always lead the world in defense spending. Sometimes I confuse defense spending with offense spending, but it's all the same I suppose.

Bombs, guns, and bullets; they are apparently all that we count for...

Everybody knows the US and GB morphed into police states.

I think you may as well paste that moniker to the US as well as ole Blighty. I can think of the last time anyone in government was held accountable for anything here in the US.

Funny (not really) that you Brits are "top" with "worst constitutional protection", considering you don't even have one.

As a German, I can't really say that Germany is so much better - what bothers me: we decayed TWO categories at once within a year, from dark green to yellow! 

From this year on, all telecommunication links are recorded, i.e. IP adress or phone numbers with time and length of connection, so they can check exactly how long I've been reading which (subversive?) INQ article.

And while the appeal against that is filed at the constitutional court, weirdo politicians are already on the next big thing, re-education boot camps for foreign criminal youths. And I thought we already have had really more than enough camps in Germany...

I still have a year yet to get my last passport renewal WITHOUT being treated as criminal, i.e. fingerprints on the electronically readable passport, and of course in a database despite claims of the opposite. Since it will be valid 10 years, I'm (more or less) safe until 2019. I'm clinging to the hope that the constitutional court will have declared this shit for null and void until then (my hope is fading though).

:(