The Glade 4.0

It's not always about the Barney.

The government barely touches the everyday lives of citizens,

... I drove the government-enforced speed limit to daycare ... I then drove the speed limit toward work

Got up this morning, took a crap and flushed it off to the government wastewater treatment plant, took a shower with my government-supplied water. Got the kids ready, fed them some FDA-approved cereal, and some USDA-approved milk, and put everyone in my State of MD inspected vehicle. I drove the government-enforced speed limit to daycare, where the rate I pay is higher because of government-mandated child-to-adult ratios. I then drove the speed limit toward work, before receiving a phone call from daycare that one of my children has a tick on them. They cannot pull it off because of government health care laws. So I drive back to daycare and pull the tick off. I then drive through the government built tunnel and pay toll to the government.

Meh, I'm bored. This is all before 8AM. You get the point.

REP. TREY GOWDY (R-SC): Mr. Issa, Mr. Cummings just said we should run this like a courtroom, and I agree with him. She just testified. She just waived her Fifth Amendment right to privilege. You don't get to tell your side of the story and then not be subjected to cross examination. That's not the way it works. She waived her Fifth Amendment privilege by issuing an open statement. She ought to stand here and answer our questions.

In comic strips the person on the left always speaks first. - George Carlin

In other words, the government involvement in those things barely touched your life. You went about your business without the government bothering you one bit.

You're being silly.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

That's really the opposite of what he said. He said the government pretty much touched everything in his life, and bothered him constantly.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.

He goes about his business every day with minimal government interference, if any. All of those things involve the government establishing a regulation, and then people going about their business within the regulation.

Now, we can agree on a lot of practical necessity of these things - water and sanitation in particular - but the reality is, government influences and interferes with nearly everything.

You work 2080 hours a year. As it stands, you are, in an absolute best case scenario, required to defer payment of 35% of your paycheck until the following calendar year. In other words, the government forces you to work a minimum of 727 uncompensated hours a calendar year.

Repeated charges of illegal searches, violence, racial profiling, racial slurs and intimidation against Lt. Daniel Sbarra and his team have cost the city more than $1.5 million in settlements
Victims say Sbarra is a 'ticking time bomb' as the Brooklyn North Narcotics lieutenant is involved in 15 lawsuits. The NYPD says charges are meritless and that narcs are often targets

NYPD veteran Daniel Sbarra donned his dress blues on Aug. 2, 2011, and headed to One Police Plaza — where Commissioner Raymond Kelly, a promotion and a pay raise awaited.
Kelly shook his hand. And targets of Sbarra’s crude and costly police tactics were left shaking their heads.
The Brooklyn North Narcotics sergeant with 15 years on the job made lieutenant despite years of on-the-job conduct some say raises serious questions about whether he should still have his badge.

A Daily News investigation of Sbarra and his team of cops exposed repeated charges of illegal searches, unprovoked violence, racial profiling, racial slurs and intimidation that cost the city more than $1.5 million in settlements.

In Sbarra’s case, court documents revealed an assortment of jaw-dropping charges. Among the allegations:

- He and a second cop, with black tape over their badge numbers, called a young Brooklyn barbershop owner a “n-----” during a traffic stop in Bushwick. Settlement: $19,500, including $1,000 Sbarra had to pay out of his own pocket after the city, in a rare move, refused to represent him. Sbarra was found guilty of departmental charges related to the incident, but “Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly dismissed all charges,” Sbarra said in a 2012 deposition.

- He strip-searched a black city paralegal, pulling the man’s underwear down with his boot, at Bedford-Stuyvesant’s 81st Precinct stationhouse. The suspect was charged with marijuana possession; his lawyer later suggested the drugs were planted. Settlement: $30,000.

- His officers brutally beat a Brooklyn man, yanking out a handful of dreadlocks and bashing his head into a window at the 81st Precinct stationhouse, as the man’s 11-year-old son watched in horror. The little boy was recovering from leukemia. Settlement: $50,000.

...

The government influence the macro-level regulation of society is not the same as interfering with your life personally, or even "interfering" with that activity at all.

You are engaging right now in exactly the problem that the existence of this thread proves - expansion of the idea of "tyranny" until it encompasses every single thing government does, no matter how necessary. In your case talking about the government "influencing" things.

All of those activities you would do anyhow, regardless of how the government "influenced" them. Your life was not meaningfully "touched" by government.

A kindergartner who brought a cowboy-style cap gun onto his Calvert County school bus was suspended for 10 days after showing a friend the orange-tipped toy, which he had tucked inside his backpack on his way to school, according to his family and a lawyer.

The child was questioned for more than two hours before his mother was called, she said, adding that he uncharacteristically wet his pants during the episode. The boy is 5 — “all bugs and frogs and cowboys,” his mother said.

“What I have a problem with is the severity,” she said, and the way it was handled.
...

Marcro-level regulation of society does indeed interfere with my life personally, as I've pointed out.

The fact that I would do some version of these things anyway is irrelevant - the government is interfering/influencing these activities to a large extent.

I've not suggested this is tyranny, so drop the strawman.

I'm merely blowing your statement "The government barely touches the everyday lives of citizens," out of the water. And this is a run of the mill day. My folks are trying to build an addition on their house. The amount of **** they need to do in order to get "permission" to build is substantial, and expensive.

I'm not sure you've ever been more wrong.

Except you haven't pointed out any interference, and obviously don't know what interference is.

The government barely touches the everyday lives of citizens,

No you're not. You're showing that you can nitpick semantics. All of the things you described fall into the category of "barely touching". I didn't say "doesn't touch at all". You even have to go down to "influencing" in order to make your argument work, and pretend it means the same thing as "interfering". That's pathetic.

As for your folks, don't make personal examples. The anecdotal situation of your parents, and whatever "substantial and expensive" are supposed to mean don't mean ****.

NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily

The National Security Agency is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April.

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.

Facism is not a school of thought, it is a racial slur.