Yes, clearly the absense of attacks on a well guarded military vessel is parallel to the absence of attacks on the civilian population. Clearly, those with the intentions of terrorizing a civilian population will attack destroyers as often as they attack civilians.

(Yes, I'm aware of the Cole, but none of the rights-violating new regulations have anything to do with that or would have prevented it if they were in place at the time. The two are unrelated. Rules of engagement modifications were what the Cole needed, and they can be modified without violating anyone's rights.)

See how that works? There's no parallel. There have been barely ANY attempts at all, and not a single one of them was from a trained or funded terrorist. If the terror networks you fear so much you want to abandon the Bill of Rights to protect against are as motivated and threatening as you claim, where is the evidence of it? One attack more than a decade ago carried out by Saudis with box cutters?

You can't think of any way to defend against Saudis with box cutters beyond ignoring the law and invading nations which weren't involved in that attack? Clear thinking. Rational argumentation.

You have to argue from something at all.

You're just spamming because you're angry that you don't have a response to any of the logic or facts I post. For instance, this repeated spam about how I love drugs, despite the fact that I've clearly stated I find them harmful to people's lives. Despite the fact that I've stressed how legalization/decriminalization don't increase usage rates where it's done. Despite the fact that the "drug war" costs billions, gets thousands killed, and enriches murderous drug cartels. Despite the fact that I've explained the reasons for finding the "drug war" irrational, unproductive, and harmful, you post ad hominem attacks accusing me of being a drug user.

You refuse to acknowledge the costs of the drug war. You refuse to acknowledge that drug laws don't stop people who want to abuse drugs from abusing them. You refuse to acknowledge that drug usage rates have remained the same in most nations which legalized/decriminalized and barely changed in others.

As always, on this topic as with that topic, you refuse to respond to what I've posted. There's no need to keep spamming. I've responded to you. You've refused to respond to me, presumably out of cowardice. It's here for anyone to read.

I've merely written at such length to respond to everything you've said and every point you've clumsily and illogically tried to make. I respect others, so I read what they write and respond to what they actually said. I'll heed your advice and try to 'stop writing novels' if you heed mine, stop being a coward, stop spamming, and actually respect your fellow forum posters enough to respond to what they said. So long as you respond to nothing I've said, I feel that it is necessary to try to explain it more simply, as if to a small child. It's one thing to not agree with a response. But another entirely to never get any responses, despite so much spam.

I made the point that there are countless other ways terrorists could  harm and kill thousands of people. But they're doing literally 0 of them. I pointed out the extreme lack of attacks of any sort, not just hijacking.

Claiming that DHS might be successfully combating terrorism (explaining the epic lack of almost any attacks) is ridiculous. They boast about every tiny "success" they have in first convincing an idiot to bomb some place then arresting him with the fake bomb they gave him. There's no secret coverup of huge plots that have been foiled. Too many journalists, bureaucrats, and politicians want to improve their lives by boasting about successes. There are none.

I'll be happy to respond further if you up your game.

[There is a reason I had Nick post and edit the content.  WAY too much swearing in the link]

Can't you just add a disclaimer? The format is superior! Unsupervised children are looking at porn anyway.

If an insurrection had the goal of replacing our corrupt leaders who use government to commit illegal acts, Obama would not have the legal authority to use drones to attack the rebels. Government loses all legal authority, and laws cease to have meaning, when those tasked with law enforcement violate the laws they are charged with protecting and enforcing.

That is tyranny, and tyrants hold no legal authority over the free and sovereign people of the United States, as protected under our Constitution. Such tyrants form governments of men, not laws, and must be eliminated if a lawful and legitimate government is to be reinstated as required by the Constitution (law, not men).

Authoritarians hold no "legal" authority. They're authoritarians. They are the "law," such as it is. There is no measure of "legal" under such a system, only the will of the autocrats. You could call their will the "law" and say they had absolute "legal" authority, but those would be redefining those words.

This is why I'm not fixated on the specific language used. They're lawyers and politicians. They're liars. They stretch words and mislead worse than I ever legally could, and I'm in advertising.

The point is that he (Holder, Obama, anyone from the administration) does claim legal authority to do it, and he does not limit it specifically to combating insurrection.

The point is that Obama claims the legal right to bomb American citizens in America, a power not granted to him under the Constitution. Holder only said no to a very specific question. He left the door open to armed drone strikes on the American people far beyond anything the Constitution grants for defense of legitimate government against armed rebellions.

The framers of the US Constitution dealt with insurrection between their war of rebellion and the formation of their constitution. The Constitution legally permits the executive branch defend its sovereignty against internal threats. The Obama administration claims the legal authority to do far more than defend itself against internal threats. Did Holder point to the Constitution and the specific powers it gives the executive branch? No. Did he point out that the Obama administration believes it has those powers specifically, and no more or less? No. He left the door open to far more activity than is granted in the Constitution. He claims far more authority than is granted in the Constitution.

Holder is an attorney working as the top lawyer for a president who is a legal scholar. Obama and Holder didn't refer to the powers granted to them in the Constitution to clarify what powers they claimed to have, because they claim more powers than it grants them. Of course they didn't say outright "we want to be able to bomb Americans who are a threat to us politically." They'll never say that, even when they do it.

But they didn't rule using drone strikes to eliminate political enemies which they can broadly interpret the Constitution to define as "imminent threats" to the United States. People in the media exposing corruption and tyranny could motivate people to resist tyranny. To resist government. That could be viewed as an imminent threat. Media voices could be silenced with drone strikes constitutionally, by that broad reading. They'd be combatants, sort of. They'd be threats.

And Obama and Holder won't rule it out, despite a month and a half of pressure from members of the legislature and years of pressure from sovereign Americans. (Many protested the Bush policies which paved the way for what Obama is doing now.)

Einstein, I wasn't aware of Holder's latest testimony. It had nothing to do with a URL. I wasn't up to date on the subject. Learn to read. You're embarrassing yourself. Again.

As The Great Eye points out, I'm arguing that there's much more significance to this topic than just Obama and Holder refusing to say who they think they have the legal authority to bomb with drones, and that there's much more significance to their delaying saying the tiny bit that they have. He disagrees. So we're talking about it. Neither of us expects to convince the other of the wisdom their position, but it's good to state and read the best cases for a position.

This stuff isn't complicated. Maybe you can learn something from it.

The Yell, Holder didn't limit the legal authority to bomb Americans he claims the administration has to what you're referring to. He claims more. That he is legally permitted to do less than he claims is irrelevant.

The exact same thing is the biggest driver of healthcare costs in the USA. Just as you point out people overuse emergency rooms when it has little cost to them (high real cost), people overuse healthcare in general when it has little cost to them (high real cost) because they're overinsured. (a result of government via a 1943 IRS ruling)

Looks like the regulations you champion failed. Thanks for giving us an example to back up that point.

You support your nation's oppression of of people all over the world via the oppressive authoritarians it supports with billions of dollars.

You just advocated the hurting of people's families (civilians) in response to such oppression.

You just rationalized terrorism and said that terrorists are justified in attacking US civilians. Your last post is literally you embracing the exact ideology that Jihadists believe in.

What a joke. You're the biggest hypocrite in the history of this forum.

And you've given no "answer" to anything I've posted. Literally everything I've posted in this thread obviously went entirely over your head.

I've never claimed that terrorism isn't real, terrible, or doesn't warrants fighting.

I've pointed out specifically that most of your supposed examples warranting supposed anti-terrorism measures, personnel, departments, and regulations are not examples of such regulations/personnel stopping attacks, nor of cases where the regulations/personnel you support would have stopped attacks.

You're not even responding to what I said. I've already responded to literally everything you're saying. I've made points and raised questions which you're completely oblivious to. You haven't even attempted to refute or disagreed with anything I've said.

NOTHING you support in DHS policy would have stopped the Cole attack. It's completely irrelevant. This is over your head.

NOTHING you support in DHS policy would have stopped the first WTC bombing. It's completely irrelevant. This is over your head.

The 9/11 WTC attack was done with box cutters. Worse weapons have been smuggled past TSA security (DHS regulations/policy which you support) and I've linked you such stories. There are many more easily accessible such stories on these interwebs if you wish to learn more. The measures you're supporting here obviously aren't successfully stopping another 9/11 style attack--another such attack hasn't been attempted.

If you want to keep vaguely responding as if I approve of terrorism, go for it. I'm not going to presume anyone else reading this forum is so illiterate as to think that from what I've said.

Additionally, the list of points and arguments I've made which you've never attempted to refute or argue against is so lengthy at this point that it'd be tedious to list them all. You've conceded every point, refusing to state where and why you disagree with any of them. This "discussion," which you've mostly refused to take any part in, is obviously over.

You're ruining it! Don't help him troll! When the troll is the butt of a joke, you troll him! It's in the Geneva convention!

I find your post very insightful, You_Fool. Could you please elaborate with examples on how Chavez and Reagan were similarly oppressive? I wish to learn more, but I do not know where to start.