That's the same thing that the government said about Iran when they initiated a coup
Uh, no. The worry with Iran was that it would fall under the umbrella of the USSR, not that it would fall into chaos.
Look at what happened thereafter.
A successful coup enabled by the CIA that stabilized the thing for over a decade before we failed to pay attention and Islamists took advantage?
Your amazing reasons didn't even come close to proving why we need data on everyone.
That is not the threshold you demanded. You stated that there was
NO reason to collect FISA information and
NO reason to share FISA intelligence with other nations. Once you are willing to address the failure of
that claim, I'd be happy to move on to a discussion of Big Data. But what you are doing here is an attempt to change the subject - and you are more intellectually honest than that, phatz.
Why could it not be done with standard warrants? Why must everyone be spied on?
Easy answer; everyone isn't.
Collateral damage is supposed to be relative? So then you're fine with innocent lives being taken. Noted.
Naturally. You aren't going to be able to wage war without it. For that matter, you're not going to be able to have a police force, or have a citizenry that exercises its' right to self-defense, or have people drive without innocent lives being taken. If we instituted a blanket "no strikes if it might ever cost an innocent life" rule, all that would happen is that the enemy would immediately begin to use human shields as he carried out attacks.
More innocent people would die under such a foolish regulation. That is why the Geneva Conventions wisely state that the collateral damage must be relative to the military advantage gained.
The military carries out the actions. It's like blaming the mob boss for the crime and not the hitman.
Not at all. You are referencing
political decisions - decisions which, in our government, the military does not have a choice over. We have civilian control over the military in this country for Very, Very, Good Reason. The military does not have the right to usurp the authority of the President or the Congress.
Your history is wrong. There was massive increase in protectionism prior to WWI.
I believe you are thinking of the period roughly a decade before the outbreak of WW
II, when there was indeed a massive increase in protectionism, much to the global detriment.
As for the Civil War, that is a little bit different, don't you think?
Not for purposes of the thesis you have put forth.
It's tough for me to defend a guy who sees the loss of innocent lives as worth it and the spying on all Americans as necessary and good.
The loss of innocent lives
can be worth it, and spying on all Americans isn't currently performed.
Tell me, was the loss of 100,000 lives in Iraq because of the embargo, as Susan Rice put it, worth it?
It's a good question, considering that sanctions do not tend to change the behavior of complete autocracies (they may have effect on autocratic / representative mixtures, such as in South Africa and Iran), and tend to harm the populace rather than the leadership. The best argument is that it is the only way short of actual invasion to keep a regime at a certain level of
capability. I would tend to look with jaundice at the claim of 100,000, since I have mostly seen it in the hands of those with a political ax to grind, but certainly many more than that suffered.