Governments like to have as much surveillance as possible of the people because it gives them greater control. It is often argued by them that this information is necessary in order for them to provide better security, and the debate becomes one where the desire for security has to be balanced by the desire of ordinary people to live their lives free from government snooping. The one case where the debate has swung overwhelmingly in favor of the government is when it says it is investigating terrorists. People have become so spooked by the idea of terrorists in their midst that they seem to be willing to grant carte blanche to the government to do whatever it likes to combat any threat. But this license can result in heavy costs to the individuals who happen, for whatever reason, to fall into the government’s crosshairs.
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I ruminated recently on how the issue of violence has got more problematic recently with neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and religious extremists using the language of violence to incite their followers. The group that has come to be known as ‘antifa’ consist of anonymous people, sometimes dressed in black, who have arrived ready to combat these groups with violence if necessary and have become part of counter-protests that have sometimes turned violent. The people on the left have been ambivalent about how to deal with the antifa, some seeing them as allies in the cause though not agreeing with the tactics they adopt.
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One thing the US media loves to do is hype the threat of wars, even highly dangerous ones with the potential use of nuclear weapons such as in the long-standing dispute between North Korea and the US. I am not accusing them of actually wanting to see the outbreak of nuclear war because that would be truly insane but they tend to talk of the situation as one of being on the brink of such a war with no solution in sight, even though there has been one for a long time.
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Louise Linton, the wife of Steve Mnuchin, Donald Trump’s secretary of the treasury who is a former investment banker at Goldman Sachs and immensely wealthy, came in for some well-deserved and harsh criticisms for the flaunting of her wealth while emerging from a government helicopter, because of her drawing attention to the brand names of the expensive clothing items she wore as if she were a paid spokesperson for them. She then lashed out at an Oregon woman who had the temerity to criticize her for it, replying thusly on her Instagram account.
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Donald Trump has decided to effectively end DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals), the program that enabled the children of undocumented immigrants who had been brought here when they were young to study and work without fear of deportation
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