what do Americans think about the NSA scandal

[kandrathe]

To a man with a hammer, everything is a nail? Hayek's prediction turned out to be fabulously wrong. (It remains a fascinating argument, but the evidence all points the other way.) Democracies seldom regress, once established, whereas dictatorships and totalitarian governments slowly die out. People do renew democracies. Welfare states have become less, not more, socialistic, let alone "serflike". (Indeed, the key to much Scandinavian re-distributive policy is that they *encourage* mobility and human capital development.)

I know we differ somewhat on the definition of "serfdom". I wasn't specifically referencing Hayek, his predictions, or methods. It was more of an observation we've made here many times that an ignorant, distracted, uninformed, and otherwise apathetic electorate is likely to jump on the latest band wagon, and vote away liberties based upon passions, rather than relying on their principles. Our elections are Hollywood, our candidates are photogenic, and they, like us, have no principles. The only plan I see in governance is pacification.

Generally, the gist is that I'm just tired of people ignorantly tolerating "security theater" because it gives them warm fuzziness. We are paying people to strip search us when we travel, and busy building zeta byte server farms in Utah to store the collected drivel of the net, and this is why we can't have nice roads, better schools and retirement.

For me, the bottom line is; It is an indignity to be continuously treated as a criminal by my government, and a double indignity that I'm paying them for the privilege.