
Freedom: The Big American Lie - Riesling
http://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/debatten/the-u-s-and-the-n-s-a-scandal-freedom-the-big-american-lie-12263704.html
======
PavlovsCat
I just saw a newspaper headline today, a photo of Snowden saying "would you
hide this man?". I didn't buy it, so I don't know if the article was pro,
contra or informative; but it got me thinking... I know it would never happen,
but why _shouldn 't_ Germany give asylum to Snowden? Oh, because we're full of
shit ourselves.

What about other so-called first world countries? Any offers so far? How many
non-offers? So, is it really the big _American_ lie?

It would be easier for rest of the world if the US were more free, sure, and
the US kinda has it in the mission statement. But it would also be easier for
the US if the rest of the world was more free, and it's idiotic to just follow
in the shadow of the "market leader in freedom", and then complain when that
market leader has a bad day, or a bad decade, or several, and runs off into a
ditch. Don't ask what freedom can do for you, but what you can do for freedom,
right?

And hey, I'm sure Putin Polonium also tells the Russian people they're free,
too. That just as a sanity check. Not that I want to belittle any of it, but
realize that in the US you have freedoms of speech and organization others
wouldn't even dream of. _Use them!_ Don't fall into the trap of being like
Germans, who tend to moan how bad it is, with being content others have it
worse... do that other thing, that American thing, where you roll up your
sleeves, kick ass and distribute chewing gum :P (those stereotypes are not
meant seriously, but well)

~~~
Joeri
Americans have apparently been so succesful in exporting their culture that
they've managed to export american hypocrisy as well ;)

~~~
krapp
Technically, we imported that from England, and just rebranded it.

We're really good at that sort of thing.

------
EGreg
You know what, this is silly (except for the part about Obama's record on
civil liberties and security).

First of all the problem, as it often is, comes from centralization on the
internet. If the web was decentralized, as it was meant to be from the
beginning, there wouldn't be such outrage. Remember all the outcry of privacy
on facebook, no government involved? I do. Or how about companies like Path
sucking up your phone records from your phone and sending it to their servers?

At the end of the day, it is we who choose to have an account with a large
company running web software so they can "take care of" our email. Giant data
centers delivering our movies to our doorstep instead of P2P. It wasn't always
like this. People used to run desktop software on their desktop.

It will be like this again, but it will take a long time. My favorite example
is how git and mercurial have eclipsed svn a long time ago, and github /
bitbucket are way more popular than, say, sourceforge. Bitcoin has gotten a
lot of attention over currencies that can be controlled by a central
authority. Adobe Cirrus and WebRTC are growing. The same kind of revolution is
going to happen in multi user communication platforms. Once that happens, and
everything is encrypted end-to-end and there is off-the-record messaging,
those using it will take back control.

We can already do almost everything in a decentralized manner except good
social networking. Privacy "nuts" can run their email, etc. on a VPN and store
encrypted backups in other places. To make it more mainstream, however, we
will need friendlier clients. And social networking!

Finally, the web itself was built to be client-server, which kind of
indirectly encouraged this sort of centralization. Clients were easy to
install -- netscape's business model even involved giving it away for free --
but not many people ran servers. And so it led to this. The long and short of
it is, we need more user-friendly opensource servers, standardized protocols,
and encryption. Those who care will then run their own servers.

~~~
sneak
> First of all the problem, as it often is, comes from centralization on the
> internet.

No, the problem comes from the maliciousness of the US military.

Centralization on the internet got us Google and AWS and the iPad.

(The iPad wouldn't be the iPad if it wasn't locked down with a centralized App
Store.)

~~~
EGreg
I'm sorry, but why do you think Google and AWS are the best we can do?

We have to rely on Google to "not be evil". A lot of businesses depend on
traffic from google, and if it decides to cut them off, well too bad. Many
governments including the US government constantly look into google to prevent
a monopoly. You want a monopoly in search? And how about the direction of
where your hosted software will go ... when Larry Page took the reins, he
decided that Google+ should feature prominently in every product. I agree with
him but others may not. And what about killing off Google reader just like
that? Do you think people come to rely on these things and then the
centralized company can just kill the product?

And as for building stuff "in the cloud", what happens when your AWS
availability zone goes down? Lots of big internet sites go down.
Centralization on the internet also got us facebook, and when facebook goes
down or shuts off a site, "Connect with Facebook" doesn't work on that site
anymore until they fix it.

(responding to your edit) As for the iPad, etc. ... yes, the original
platforms are usually proprietary walled gardens, but eventually the tech gets
commoditized (sometimes after a protracted software patent fight). Rather than
expound on it here, you can read my complete thoughts on multiple app stores
and reputations:
[http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114](http://magarshak.com/blog/?p=114)

NOW THE DISCLAIMERS: I will admit, that Google is also full of extremely
bright people and does awesome stuff with all the money it makes. Self-driving
cars, google glasses, and much more. But you are still relying on Google to
maintain its data liberation and open technologies, and to some extent their
commitment has lessened.

Also, Amazon's impressive commitment to low margins is a net win for all of us
consumers (including the developers). At the scale that Google and Amazon
build, a lot of amazing research is possible. That is the upside of
centralization. And I am not saying that we should "abolish" centralized
services. Especially the ones which are open and have great tools.

What I _AM_ saying is that the open source foundations need to step up their
game and produce SERVERS that are user friendly and easy to install, maintain
and run. This new generation of servers should automatically link together. I
really do believe that at the end of the day, history has shown that open
PLATFORMS lead to the greatest good for humanity, as everyone can build apps
on top of them without favoritism. For example Apple's iOS favors twitter and
facebook sharing over any other companies, because they made a deal with them.
There needs to be competition between the "centralized sector" and the "open
source sector", which will lead to the server software becoming commoditized
and more user friendly, just as browsers are today.

~~~
sneak
> I'm sorry, but why do you think Google and AWS are the best we can do?

Please don't set up a straw man. You seem to be claiming that I'm arguing in
favor of complete centralization. I'm not.

Google and AWS both need competitors.

That also doesn't mean that we as a society haven't benefitted monumentally
from Google and AWS existing.

Centralization has vast benefits. We should not discount those simply because
it also makes a juicy target for evildoers. It's throwing the baby out with
the bathwater to say "this is the fault of centralization".

Your approach works and benefits people even if we as an industry continue to
primarily build centralized services (and we will, because it is tremendously
more cost-effective). I encourage you to pursue it in parallel.

~~~
EGreg
I think we're saying the same thing. As I mentioned, I am NOT saying
centralization doesn't have benefits -- I even mentioned some major ones,
including having enough money to do awesome R&D and move humanity forward.
What I am saying is that open source foundations need to step up their game,
and build servers that automatically talk to each other, are easy to install,
maintain, and are user friendly. Kind of like the new WebRTC P2P
client/servers.

------
tokenadult
May I ask a simple question as a reality check? Granting for the purpose of
discussion that the current revelations about NSA in the United States appear
to show a slippage to worse conditions from the legal restrictions that
originally governed NSA's activities related to Americans living in America,
is it genuinely correct, as the article claims, that "idealists have, as the
Washington saying puts it, 'nowhere else to go'" besides supporting one major
United States political party or the other?

My observation of history is that third-party political movements in the
United States have never won the Presidency or a majority in Congress since
the fragmented election of 1860 that began the current "two party" system, but
the two parties have changed everything about their positions on policy while
keeping their names the same. The Democratic Party and Republican Party went
through a complete role reversal with each other on many issues from the 1890s
to the 1990s, and third-party movements in the United States continue to nudge
the parties to respond to popular discontent. United States political parties
are not ideological, and have no ideological test for membership. Political
parties in the United States are coalitions to aid the efforts of individual
candidates to win elections. My state has been governed by a third-party
governor quite recently, and I have voted for candidates who are genuinely
independent of any party, and candidates endorsed by SEVEN different political
parties, in state and federal elections since the 1970s.

As for a broader question about where freedom is available to the common
people, what do immigration patterns tell us? The United States is a rare
example of a country that has consistent, sustained population growth
irrespective of natural increase through immigration. Tens of millions of
people around the world have responded to public opinion surveys to indicate
that they desire to immigrate to the United States. The United States gains
population on a net basis in comparison to almost any other country. If there
is a freedom problem here in the United States, where is there not a freedom
problem?

~~~
Cowen
The fact that America's two largest political parties are not inherently
ideological is part of what's wrong with them.

The fact that they might change eventually does not help those who want change
now.

~~~
parasubvert
On the contrary - I find ideological political parties rather abhorrent. No
ideology is complete and The Truth.

I would much prefer a party that has clear policy positions that doesn't
necessarily hew to any particular belief system across said positions, so long
as there is rational justification to believe a particular policy will be
effective in achieving an end.

------
kailuowang
...rights aren’t ‘rights’ if someone can take ‘em away; they’re privileges.
That’s all we’ve ever had in this country: a bill of temporary privileges. And
if you read the news, even badly, you know that every year the list gets
shorter and shorter.

— George Carlin, “You Have No Rights"

~~~
tootie
All every human society has ever had is priveleges. What exactly did George
Carlin think was the alternative? Who the hell else is going to guarantee your
right not to be murdered for speaking your mind?

~~~
unclebucknasty
That is such a circular argument that it is impossible to determine where it
begins and ends.

------
brokenmusic
_> The answer, to a depressing extent, is that our basic freedoms are
threatened today because our political system and our very culture make it
nearly impossible for us to act._

That's why action should not come as an open fight. History is full of
examples when revolutions only lead to blood, after which other elites simply
take over and keep exploiting everyone else. Or, alternatively, revolutions
fail and after a bloody fight the same elites stay in power.

If you want real change and bloodless revolution, start using Bitcoin. Don't
pay _them_ a cut if you disagree with what your money are spent on. It's not
democracy that keeps politicians in check. It's simply money. If they have
none, they're powerless.

~~~
monsterix
Here is an alternate dimension too.

If both left and right political wings are full of dubious people, then don't
bring them both to power. Create an alternative political party of your own
and then compete in the next elections. Vow to kill all the FUD such as mass
surveillance, Gitmo, SOPA, PIPA, bring in transparency, bring youth to power
etc.

I mean fight 'em with the system, and fight outside the system too as more and
more people, I noted, have been suggesting the latter on HN here.

This is how India is currently planning for the 2014 elections. The ground
reality is so intense that one cannot describe in words.

We have a legion of corrupt assholes both in our Government and its opposition
that is called the congress and BJP duo. These guys have a history of carrying
out some of the biggest scams on the planet. Shamelessly. They are known to
have killed thousands of innocents, like Congress done away with Sikhs in 1984
[1], BJP done away with Gujrati muslims in Godhra in 2002 [2] and so on ...

Not much of a choice w.r.t democracy, you know!

So people lately have built a third political party called the 'Aam Aadmi
Party' AAP [3], meaning common man party, whose president is Mr. Arvind
Kejriwal [4] (A young engineer from IIT and an ex-diplomat of Indian
Government.) Ground is swelling with support to put the new face into power,
give power back to youth of our country. And yet traditional and powerful
media continues to sleep with the incumbents, so a similar situation of dimwit
reporting too.

I don't know how the elections in the US work, heard it is complicated and
messy, but this is one angle that perhaps you guys could look at: form a party
of your own. Call it something else, like a pirate party, and then fight the
elections.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_anti-
Sikh_riots](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1984_anti-Sikh_riots)

[2]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gujarat_violence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gujarat_violence)

[3]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aam_Aadmi_Party](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aam_Aadmi_Party)

[4]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvind_Kejriwal](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arvind_Kejriwal)

~~~
pekk
What kind of 'third front' do you want? The fact that you don't actually
detail what sort of politics it would have makes me suspicious. Who is it that
you want me to give power to?

~~~
brokenmusic
You know what I don't really get? Why do we need anyone to give power to? Keep
it to yourself. We've got everything we really need to make ourselves happy
and live our lives. Why do people so desperately need someone to reign over
them? This sounds like a Stockholm syndrome.

------
dllthomas
"[T]o a depressing extent, [...] our basic freedoms are threatened today
because our political system and our very culture make it nearly impossible
for us to act."

Let's act: [http://www.meetup.com/Hack-Government-Bay-
Area](http://www.meetup.com/Hack-Government-Bay-Area)

To the broader point, the two party system certainly pulls "to the center",
but it's also somewhat random which middle. Those pushed to the fringes of the
Democrats and those pushed to the fringes of the Republicans have some
substantial points of disagreement, but have some significant overlap as well.
We should see how we can work together to pull both parties to a better place.

------
jl6
Reality check: for all the ills of warrantless wiretapping, computers are
still an overwhelmingly positive force for enlightenment, empowerment and
liberation of people across the world.

~~~
alan_cx
We _think_ we have been enlightened, empowered, and liberated, but really all
we have done is concentrate our activity in to one nice easily monitor-able
state, which means we can now be more controlled than ever before.

Chat in a park? Good chance its private. Chat on line? Good chance its
recorded. I could go on...

Your "reality check", I'm very sorry to say, is exactly the lie we are being
sold.

~~~
jl6
Nobody's claiming computers can't be used for evil. I'm just saying let's not
lose sight of all the good stuff they enable which is orthogonal to whether or
not their users are being monitored.

------
laurentoget
The fascinating thing is that this article, which compared to US press, sounds
like a liberal paranoid rant, is being published in the Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung, which is about as liberal as The Wall Street Journal ....

This thing is a PR disaster of the greatest magnitude.

------
chasing
Christ, what a terribly written article.

------
sultezdukes
When you have leftist democrats that are statists and country-club type
republicans that don't really believe in limited government, and these two
groups make up the majority of congress then there's really no hope until the
people wake up to the tyranny that is happening.

But the people are ignorant and all the statist politicians and government
officials have to say is "security" and the majority of the sheeple fall right
in line - "what do I have to worry about, I'm not doing anything wrong. I
dont' care if they're spying, if it's protecting the country".

~~~
cobrausn
Well, you made through three quarters of the comment before typing 'sheeple'.
That's gotta count for something.

Your first statement I tend to agree with, though 'tyranny' is a strong word
often implying rule by a single person.

~~~
sultezdukes
_Well, you made through three quarters of the comment before typing 'sheeple'.
That's gotta count for something._

It's weird that your offended by that.

 _Your first statement I tend to agree with, though 'tyranny' is a strong word
often implying rule by a single person._

No, it doesn't imply rule by a single person.

