If this kind of abuse had been proposed by Clinton and Reno, FR would be afire. There'd be petitions, freeps planned, you name it. But when Bush attacks Americans' rights it's like, 'please sir, may I have another?' This President has insufficient knowledge of the history of freedom's challenges and also the temporality of his office. I shudder to think what a future Dem administration will do with a weapon like the PATRIOT Act.
Just by the way, and I say this as a cyber friend and admirer, tread carefully and mollify your enthusiasm as you explore these themes here. Many who've taken on a similar challenge in the past are now desaparecidos, like Wallaby and Uncle Bill.
Bingo. Spot on again, Byron.
BUT...
Your comment about Bush being the best thing conservatives have going for them? And that one can at least hope that Bush'll come around? Fat chance. Lookit PATRIOT II. Lookit the Prescription Drug, "Improvement" and "Modernization" Act of 2003. The first tears up the Constitution; the second is little more than a whomping huge love letter to big pharma and the insurance industries, paid for by our tax dollars. Despicable, all of it.
I shudder to think what a future Dem administration will do with a weapon like the PATRIOT Act.
R.J. Rummel made the following comment in a speech given to the ABA National Security Conference on "The Rule of Law in United States Foreign Policy and the New World Order. Washington, D.C., October 10-11, 1991:
Today, we can extend the idea of peace through democracy to cover freedom from government genocide and mass murder. But to do so requires overcoming incredible mass ignorance even about the megamurders for which authoritarian and totalitarian governments have been responsible.
Indeed, they are looney enough to try what many communists have. We have an Amendment that hasn't kept pace with the times. Nevertheless, should a situation similar to Tiananmen Square, 1989: The Declassified History occur here, there are enough citizens who own & are capable of bearing the tools necessary to produce a dissimilar outcome. Many members of the armed federal agencies & military would object to enforcing martial law. Others, who wouldn't give a rip about the Constitution, would have to face fellow federal agents and military personnel, along with several million armed citizens and probably most local police who would resist martial law.
Law review article, explaining the need to keep pace with the intent of that amendment:
The Revolutionary Second Amendment
This is the correct answer.
However, any even remotely sentinent being around here will understand that the mouth-breathers are never going to comprehend just why it is the correct answer.