Posted on 12/08/2003 8:52:02 PM PST by Indie
Jewish World Review August 14, 2002 /America: A sissified nation?http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com | Benjamin Franklin warned, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." But that's what the Bush administration and Congress have asked of Americans -- to give up essential liberty for safety that's not even guaranteed. By not being fully appreciative of the fact that it's Washington, not Osama bin Laden, that represents the greatest threat to both liberty and security, we've gone along with the agenda.
Let's look at it. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the communist government of East Germany had an extensive network of informers and spies who reported to the Stasi, the secret police. The Stasi was a carryover from Heinrich Himmler's feared secret police, the Gestapo. You say, "Williams, are you suggesting that there are Americans who want our government to create a network of informants and spies?" That's precisely what President Bush called for -- hundreds of millions of dollars to devise innovative ways to spy on Americans.
He called his agenda the Terrorism Information Program (TIP), where electric utility, telephone repairmen and others having access to our homes and offices would report "suspicious" activities. Had former President Clinton made the same proposal, conservatives would have greeted it with open outrage -- but since it's Bush, shoulder-shrugging indifference carried the day. Americans have bought into the most massive government growth since the LBJ days and the attack on our liberties out of the mistaken belief that there's a tradeoff between liberty and security.
We're willing to permit government to take away our ability to move about freely, take away our personal privacy, and number and process us -- all in the name of security against terrorist attacks. No matter how much of our liberty Washington takes away in the name of security, there are no guarantees that there won't be another terrorist attack.
Instead of attacking American liberties, the government ought to go after terrorists in their countries of origin. It should be like what our military attempted during WWII. Don't wait to defend ships against the kamikaze -- bomb the fields where they take off.
We know the countries who sponsor, support and harbor terrorists. They are Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea and a few others. The president should put these countries on credible notice that should United States suffer a terrorist attack and our intelligence discovers that, say, Saudi Arabia financed, assisted or harbored the terrorists, there would be a massive military retaliation that would not exclude nuclear weapons.
You say, "Would our European allies or the United Nations support such an action?" I say ignore our European allies and the United Nations. Their vision of foreign policy is talk and appeasement of tyrants, a vision that allowed Adolf Hitler to nearly conquer Europe. If Ronald Reagan had listened to our European allies and the U.N., instead of the evil empire collapsing, Europe might be a U.S.S.R. satellite by now.
You say, "Williams, you sound like a warmonger!" No, I'm not. But neither am I willing to wait until a chemical or bacteriological attack kills millions of Americans or a "dirty bomb" makes one of our cities uninhabitable for 100 years before there's an effective response to nations who harbor terrorists.
I detest the initiation of force, but if I see someone building a cannon aimed at my house, I'm not going to wait for him to fire it. I would eliminate him and anyone else in his house before he gets a chance to fire it. But then again, I'm not a member of America's sissified generation.
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Where were all these Franklin-quoting Champions of Liberty when our Second Amendment rights were (and still are) being annihilated on the altar of "public safety"?
Try undoing the long-held anti-gun attacks on our Constitutional Right to Keep and Bear Arms before griping about TIP and the Patriot Act.
The only nation keeping Israel from being wiped off the face of the earth? Is this author an ungreatful Democrat? Yes.
Exactly what "right" has this author lost? None, unless he's planning his own terrorist attack.
We need dual government!!
Everyone must declare whether they want to be members of the Liberal Citizens or the Conservative Centers.
Liberal Citizens will pay higher taxes and be elgible for government programs. If the Conservative local, state and national councils choose not to participate in say the local library or the local bus service their citizens won't be allowed to use them, since they aren't paying for them.
Obviously even conservatives will pay taxes for roads, police and fire services. Liberals' local council might also make their citizens pay higher taxes for the library and community centers... which conservatives won't then be allowed to use.
We could start this on the local level first to see if it works and add the states later... maybe even the federal programs afterwards!!!
whatcha think???
This remark of Franklin's is universally misconstrued. The occasion of his making it pertained to the powers of the nascent governing body of colonial Pennsylvania, not the civil liberties of the colonials. The governing body wanted to float a bond to finance a militia for the purpose of suppressing Indian raids, and the English Colonial overseers told them that the term of the bond must be 10 years and not 20 years ( or something like that. ) Franklin's admonition was meant to inspire the governing council not to back down in the face of their English masters. He meant that they should not buckle under to the Penns out of anxiety to raise the militia.
It's a very great stretch to apply this sentiment to the niceties of criminal law as we have come to know them in our own time - something quite alien to Ben Franklin.
*slapping forehead* I'd call you a genius, but even that word is not apt in expressing the awe I have at the brilliance of your proposal. Seriously, most excellent idea! : )
We'd have to tax the late bloomers by making them pay a tax for switching from one to the other, of course.
Walter Williams specifically?
I have a sick feeling that there would still be plenty...and they'd mostly be in the mainstream media. They'd be circling like vultures over the Conservative areas, waiting for something awful to happen.
Then, failing to find anything damning, they'd slink back to the Liberal areas and blame all the Liberal's woes on the "evil Conservatives withholding their wealth."
After that, the Liberals would start doing border raids on the Conservative areas. Then the Conservatives would put up a fence and the Leftists in the mainstream media would cry "Apartheid!!" and we'd be condemned by the all the socialists of the world ranging from Europe to the U.N.
And then things would REALLY start getting silly...
I don't forsee us being separated, we'd have to carry ID cards or something. State ones, hopefully. We'd still live, work and shop side by side but we would have different tax rates and such depending on what the local Liberal and Conservative councils decided to do.
It would be too complicated to have one for the libertarians though... what if it were more than taxes and spending?? Local Libertarians legalize pot and gambling... only libertarians would be effected by the new laws....
Imagine businesses swiping an ID to see if a person is paying a 4% or a 9% sales tax. Buses, libraries and welfare offices would be checking them to make sure your a liberal I guess.
I have got to get this idea fleshed out and send the idea to Shawn Macomber over at www.returnoftheprimitive.com
Is this author an ungreatful Democrat? Yes.
Labeling Walter Williams as any kind of Democrat, much less an ungrateful one, is quite an uninformed statement to make. Please don't take offense.. I just want to give you background on the man before you attack him personally.
Dr. Walter E. Williams, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor of Economics, George Mason University
(previously department chairman from 1995-2001)
Also an Adjunct Professor of Economics, Grove City College
Besides his syndicated column, Dr. Williams is one of the rotating substitute hosts for Rush Limbaugh, and is the author of several books, including:
More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well
Do the Right Thing: The People's Economist Speaks
Williams is also involved with several organizations committed to limited government, including Citzens for a Sound Economy, Reason Foundation, Hoover Institution, Landmark Legal Foundation, Institute of Economic Affairs, and the Cato Institute.
"You'll know Williams is disarmed when Williams is dead." Guess who said this?
I agree. It is outrageous when the administration would be more distrustful of its LEGAL CITIZENS than those responsible for 9/11.
He's lost much of his privacy rights.
One may wish to hold onto a right, even if one doesn't use it. For instance, I've never owned a gun, nor ever plan to. I have no desire to own a gun. However, I value my right to own a gun.
Of course, by your logic, if they outlaw guns, I'll have lost no rights. I guess you're urging non-gun owners to vote Democratic. Well, if that's what you really want ...
I couldn't agree with you more.
It is anti-liberty, it is defenseless, and it is dangerous that we allow our federal government to unconstitutionally pass and enforce laws prohibiting the private owners of airline companies from allowing their customers to bear arms on their aircraft to share and help in the defense of their property and other passengers lives from death at the hands of terrorist hijackers.
September 11, 2001 would have never happened. 3000 fellow citizens would have never died because potential hijackers would have known that 10, 30, 60 plus people would be armed on any aircraft to foil such an attempt.
The ultimate blame for the deaths and destruction of property on September 11, 2001 are the federal president's, federal congress people, federaljudges, and voters who supported such unconstitutional, anti-liberty laws now and in the past.
I do not have that blood stain on my hands.
Unconstitutionally prohibiting free, moral people, which are an overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens, from bearing arms, does nothing more than empower the few dangerous citizens among us to commit crimes against we fellow unarmed citizens,
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