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Re:Help EFF Find Out How Your Local Police Agency is Using D... by Karunamon on Tuesday June 12, 2012 @12:30AM (#4098779)
Oh, so you're just posting content-free hyperbole then. Okay.
Re:Help EFF Find Out How Your Local Police Agency is Using D... by mindcrime on Tuesday June 12, 2012 @09:32AM (#4100324)
Hyperbole is just a tool, like anything else. If you can't look beyond the technique and see the underlying point, that's as much a failing of your insight as my writing. Nobody else here seems to have gotten hung up on that aspect, FWIW.
Re:Help EFF Find Out How Your Local Police Agency is Using D... by Karunamon on Tuesday June 12, 2012 @09:54AM (#4100418)
>If you can't look beyond the technique and see the underlying point

It's a weak technique usually employed by those who have nothing of substance to say. Why resort to a cheap appeal to emotion right out the gate? What's the point? What is your point?

Re:Help EFF Find Out How Your Local Police Agency is Using D... by mindcrime on Tuesday June 12, 2012 @10:15AM (#4100503)
Why resort to a cheap appeal to emotion right out the gate?

First, I reject the premise of this question, therefore no real answer is possible. There's nothing "cheap" about emotion.

And aren't we getting way too caught up in debating style over substance here? I think my point was pretty clear, personally, and that you're just being intentionally argumentative for the sake of being argumentative. But since you asked, the point is that our government(s) are far too large, bureaucratic, corrupt and evil as it is, and that the continued militarization of local police is an unhealthy step towards more State power... a trend which I've observed growing over my lifetime (38 years so far) and which seems to be continuing unabated, if not gaining steam.

Now, go ahead and accuse me of a "slippery slope fallacy," if you want. But I believe that if the bad guys (and I do consider governments to be the bad guys) have these UAVs flying around spying on (and, more than likely, eventually attacking) us, then we should at least have the capability to respond in kind. Whether or not it's actually time to start doing that is an open question, but we should resist letting the balance of power shift further and further.

None of this, if course, argues against a simultaneous strategy of working to reduce State power by educating people, using the electoral process, etc. But I'd rather hedge my bets...

Re:Help EFF Find Out How Your Local Police Agency is Using D... by Karunamon on Tuesday June 12, 2012 @03:09PM (#4102189)
>And aren't we getting way too caught up in debating style over substance here? I think my point was pretty clear, personally,and that that you're just being intentionally argumentative for the sake of being argumentative

I disagree. You called them "gestapo drones" (an emotionally loaded and pretty much useless term) without elaborating further. That said, nope. I try not to argue on the internet just for the lulz. Huge waste of time. I'd rather you just tell me what you're getting at in plain English, thanks.

Re:Help EFF Find Out How Your Local Police Agency is Using D... by mindcrime on Tuesday June 12, 2012 @05:55PM (#4103142)
I'd rather you just tell me what you're getting at in plain English, thanks.

Well, then you should have said so before I posted! :-)