Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt

from the progressing-conservative-liberal-values-in-a-republican-democratic-republic dept

It's been a while since this last happened, but we've got a great comment topping the charts on both the funny and insightful side this week. When the feds claimed that information such as who the US is at war with is classified, Josh in CharlotteNC provided something quite rare: a fresh and original Orwell joke:

Even Orwell didn't go so far as to write:

"We've always been at war with [REDACTED]."

To balance the short and sweet, we've got the long and impassioned. Second place on the insightful side goes to Jay for his response to Obama's claim that the Boston bombings reinforce the need for NSA surveillance:

Let me get this fucking straight...

I'm supposed to believe that the surveillance would help we, the people?

The security theater is ridiculous

It didn't stop the Boston Bomber. It didn't stop the Ft Hood bombing. It didn't even stop the Washington shooter.
we shut down a city for Gods' sake and that wasn't what got the Tsarnaev. As soon as the police stopped their search a private citizen found the guy an hour later!

So now, our president, who supports these programs, wants to tell me that they needed these programs? NEEDED?!

No, you need a swift kick in the ass for lying to the American people. You need a better strategy than taking away the freedoms of the Constitution and only giving it to your financial backers. You need to learn from history and quit repeating it. You need to fire the people that have you wrapped around your finger as a public figure while you support their policies (looking at YOU Keith Alexander!). Finally, you need to grow a pair and face the music that the American public DOES. NOT. LIKE. BEING. SPIED. ON. BY. OUR. GOVERNMENT.

We did not sign up for constant surveillance. It didn't work for the past decade. You used drone strikes in our name and we're unhappy with that. You abused a war on an idea that was unpatriotic and created massive deaths in multiple countries. You cared more about your backers than the American people which you gave the worst debt to. You continued the Bush doctrine which essentially continued the problems that we've had since Reagan.

It's time to END IT! The internet is our global democracy, not the plaything of politicians that don't understand it. The government was created of, by, and for the people. Your surveillance is wrong, unconstitutional, and undemocratic. It cuts against political and patriotic lines and does nothing to help anything beyond the state to lose legitimacy. That is not the American way. It's the way of tyrants and dictatorship.

For editor's choice on the insightful side, we start with a comment from John Fenderson, who had some thoughts on the "political spectrum":

Don't sweat the labels. "Liberal" and "conservative" are code words, nothing more. To people who call themselves "conservatives", anybody they disagree with is a "liberal". To people who call themselves "liberals", anybody they disagree with is a "conservative".

They're speaking in code. Correctly decoded, both terms just mean "bastard".

(I've always thought "progressive" made a more sensible counterpoint for "conservative" if you want to talk about social-political ideologies, but of course in Canada we meddled with both words by having the "Progressive Conservative Party" for sixty years...)

Up next is BentFranklin with a simple, corrected version of the ludicrous claim that "fair use is theft":

Taking away fair use is theft.

On the funny side, we've already had our top comment, so we'll go straight to second place. An anonymous commenter suggested an updated honorific for one of Techdirt's favourite congressmen:

Shouldn't that be "Misrepresentative Rogers"?

For editor's choice on the funny side, we start with a comment from Michael, disputing our claim that piracy is not an economic loss, just a loss to a particular industry (if that):

Not True

I am very careful to take every dollar I save from pirating movies, music, and television shows and stuff it into my mattress. This ensures that this money will never again see the light of day and is a 100% economic loss.

In addition, this has saved me from having to purchase a new mattress, so I took THAT money and stuffed it into my mattress as well. However, since my mattress is now as hard as a rock, I would not call this a ripple-effect so much as an anti-ripple effect.

And, finally, while I do NOT want to spark a partisan debate (I hate those), I definitely laughed at ChurchHatesTucker's response to the hope that a future president will pardon Bradley Manning:

We just have to elect a Constitutional lawyer with a platform that includes protection for whistleblowers!

That's all for this week folks!

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