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Re:The NSA Can't Tell the Difference Between an American and... by tokenizer on Thursday June 27, 2013 @10:52PM (#5955925)
Join an anarchist or communist group in your local area.
Re:The NSA Can't Tell the Difference Between an American and... by mpyne on Thursday June 27, 2013 @11:29PM (#5956041)
How does that help get us closer to our Constitutional rights again? The Fourth Amendment (with its strong emphasis on the right of a person to be secure in their own home i.e. property) is contradictory to the idea of communal ownership of all property.

As far as ownership of business property, you could form a co-op or other employee-owned company structure today if you wished.... but the government won't force you to structure your business that way, either.

Re:The NSA Can't Tell the Difference Between an American and... by gasull on Friday June 28, 2013 @12:15AM (#5956196)
I don't know what kind of communism the OP refers to, but some kinds of communism defend the idea of personal property but are against private property.

Although I agree: How does joining a Communist or Anarchist group help? We need a broader movement. This isn't even a leftist thing (or only leftist).

Re:The NSA Can't Tell the Difference Between an American and... by steveklabnik on Friday June 28, 2013 @03:31AM (#5956751)
All communists recognize personal property. Remember, communism is about communal ownership of the _means of production_, which is what 'private property' refers to. Nobody wants to share your toothbrush.
Re:The NSA Can't Tell the Difference Between an American and... by gasull on Friday June 28, 2013 @10:33AM (#5958171)
In some Communist states you didn't own your home or even your car.

To be fair, many Communists don't consider those states real communism. This is analogous to Libertarians rejecting state-run crony capitalism.

Re:The NSA Can't Tell the Difference Between an American and... by mpyne on Friday June 28, 2013 @12:34AM (#5956284)
As soon as you permit property ownership you introduce a whole slate of ills with nary an end though.

Even personal property alone leads to greed and envy, which lead to suffering and eventually violence. Communism is not magic in this regard, nor is it the proper solution. There will always be a bully out to take your lunch money, at least with capitalism and representative democracy we're able to acknowledge that and try to rein in that aspect of human nature.

Re:The NSA Can't Tell the Difference Between an American and... by flyinRyan on Friday June 28, 2013 @08:21AM (#5957531)
>at least with capitalism and representative democracy we're able to acknowledge that and try to rein in that aspect of human nature.

Citation needed. You'd need to find a group who lived completely outside of capitalism their entire lives and yet still exhibit these bad behaviors. And as it happens, lots of such examples exist. They don't bolster your assertion though.

Re:The NSA Can't Tell the Difference Between an American and... by mpyne on Friday June 28, 2013 @10:43AM (#5958237)
You can't prove a negative, and nor can I. As you say, there are lots of examples of people who tried to setup economic systems outside of capitalism and still failed to keep humans from acting like humans, so I'd wager to say that the totality of evidence has definitely bolstered that particular assertion.
Re:The NSA Can't Tell the Difference Between an American and... by flyinRyan on Friday June 28, 2013 @11:49AM (#5958595)
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/12/06/...

This group lived outside of governance for 2 millennia and don't seem to have what you call "human nature". The fact is, our nature is partially "human nature" and partially a product of our environment. No one knows how much those two things contribute so you can't say "X is human nature". We don't really know and it's not easy to test. But capitalism doesn't exist everywhere and doesn't spontaneously pop up everywhere. What is true, however, is that capitalism seems to rely on continuous growth so they eventually encroach on non-capitalists and "convert" them.

Re:The NSA Can't Tell the Difference Between an American and... by flyinRyan on Friday June 28, 2013 @08:19AM (#5957524)
If enough people started doing that, the US government will just use those handy little militia laws Clinton put in place after the OK City bombing to lock you all up.