Posted on 06/29/2004 9:27:45 AM PDT by ksen
Police state, ho!
by John Whitehead
6/28/04
With each passing day, America is inching further down a slippery slope toward a police state. Soon, we’ll have picked up so much momentum that there will be no turning back.
Incredibly, not too many people appear concerned. Bombarded by media images and a mind-numbing entertainment culture, people seem to be so distracted that they do not even realize that our civil liberties are slowly and stealthily eroding away.
Yet the signs of a police state are everywhere. They have infiltrated all aspects of our lives, from the mundane to the downright oppressive. We were once a society that valued individual liberty and privacy. But in recent years we have turned into a culture that has quietly accepted surveillance cameras at traffic lights and in common public areas, drug-sniffing dogs in our children’s schools, national databases that track our finances and activities, sneak-and-peek searches of our homes without our knowledge or consent and anti-terrorism laws that turn average Americans into suspected criminals.
In our post-9/11 world, government officials have effectively used terror and fear to subdue any public resistance to legislation like the Patriot Act, which embodies the heavy-handed empowering of government intrusion into our lives. Our police officers have become armed militias, instead of the civilian peacekeepers they were intended to be. Now, even average citizens—those that should have nothing to fear or worry about—are becoming unwitting targets of a government seemingly at war with its own people. Understandably, fear and paranoia rule the day.
Now with the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, we have reached yet another milepost on our journey to a police state. A majority of the high court agreed that refusing to answer when a policeman asks “What’s your name?” can rightfully be considered a crime under Nevada’s “stop and identify” statute. Nineteen other states already have similar laws on their books. No longer will Americans, even those not suspected of or charged with any crime, have the right to remain silent when stopped and questioned by a police officer.
The case arose after Larry D. Hiibel, a Nevada cattle rancher, was arrested and convicted on a misdemeanor after refusing to tell his name or show identification to a sheriff's deputy. By requiring individuals to identify themselves on pain of arrest, this ruling turns Americans innocent of any wrongdoing into immediate suspects. Indeed, it is hard to ignore the similarity to the police states found in countries like China and North Korea. It can only be a matter of time before we are required to carry identification at all times. With all the talk of digital chips and national IDs, it may not even be so far-fetched to think that someday our slightest movements will be tracked by government satellites.
We are fast becoming the police state that Congressman Ron Paul (R-Tx.) warned against in his June 2002 address to the House of Representatives. His words painted a chilling portrait of a nation willingly allowing itself to be monitored, tracked, fingerprinted and controlled. “Personal privacy, the sine qua non of liberty, no longer exists in the United States. Ruthless and abusive use of all this information accumulated by the government is yet to come.”
“It’s the responsibility of all of us to speak the truth to our best ability,” cautioned Paul, “and if there are reservations about what we’re doing, we should sound an alarm and warn the people of what is to come.”
Although the alarm has been sounded repeatedly from critics on all sides of the political spectrum, is anyone listening? If they were, every piece of legislation that tightens the government’s stronghold on American citizens would be considered an affront to freedom. And every court decision that weakens the right of each American to privacy and to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures would be considered an attack against individual liberty.
Politicians love to boast about how far we’ve come since 1776. Yet sadly, we seem to have lost the love of freedom that laid the groundwork for the American Revolution. The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 have further confused the situation. In fact, it is common to hear both our elected officials and citizens state rather bluntly that it’s time to relinquish some of our freedoms in order to feel more secure.
This kind of sentiment was completely foreign to those who founded this country. Obviously, those who fought the arduous battles to preserve our freedom had a different concept of what a society should be and what it meant to be a good citizen.
Vested with the deep-seated belief that all men are created equal and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, those who founded America took a courageous stand for their right to freely pursue life, liberty and happiness. And when their outcries were ignored by Great Britain, they declared that “whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government.” This led to the drafting of our Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
It has been said that on a sunny day in Philadelphia in 1787, just after the Constitutional Convention had finished its work, a woman approached Benjamin Franklin and asked, “Mr. Franklin, what kind of government have you given us?” “A Republic, madam,” Franklin quickly answered. “If you can keep it.”
I only hope that we have the wisdom and the courage to keep it.
Ho-hum.
Winner? Every thread on Hiibel has had this same post. It got old back in February.
ksen, I posted most of my reply here on a different thread, but I think it applies to this one as well. I'm having trouble finding the middle ground on this, if there is any.
I think many are lulled into thinking the country is no longer in any danger of terrorist attacks. I hope that is so, but I'm not ready to relax too much for I believe that until the presence of the islamofascists and the entire belief structure from which terror is born is removed from the country we will still be at risk.
As far as I'm concerned, the only answer is complete elimination of that belief system from our shores. But I doubt if that will ever happen.
In the meantime, concerning the Patriot Act and the dangers it may pose in the long term, it's a Catch-22. Danged if we do and danged if we don't. There must come a time when a nation which is in jeopardy of destruction, a question has to be answered: What is the best course of action to prevent that destruction, realizing that freedom and liberties cannot be exercised anyway if there are rivers of blood flowing in the streets.
Personally, I'd elect to solve the problem, whatever it took. (Not really. See footnote.) Then after the threat is eliminated there should be no hesitation by government to revert to the rule of law and constitutional government.
But that presents another problem. One which pre-dates terrorism. The government itself has been guilty of nibbling away at the constitution for decades. That alone does not inspire confidence in government by the people, for the element of trust is not present.
IMO, there be few who would believe that those who control the engine of force would relinquish its assumed powers when they are no longer needed -- and to keep those powers after the threat is ended could only mean that that force will be used against the people themselves.
Is there anything in our history that would lead us to believe it would be otherwise?
It is strange that we are currently transferring power in Iraq, 'granting' them their Sovereignty, when our elected officials have been involved in destroying the Sovereignty of our own country and its Citizens for a long, long time.
But still, the question remains. How far are we willing to go on the 'rights' issues if the terror threat continues for years. I'm not willing to agree to a long-term, tit- for-tat battle. I'm not willing to live in fear of my life every time I go to Wal-Mart or ride public transportation. If the gummint does not initiate the final solution (round 'em all up and ship 'em out) before, or immediately after the next attack here, perhaps the people will.
Footnote: I agree with the dissenting opinion. But what to do? Still Catch-22 unless the offending belief structure responsible for the threat is removed. Any other remedy is only a patch and not a cure and the curtailment of rights will continue until we can no longer remember what our Constitutional Republic was.
When will the hyperbole, alarmism and false reporting stop.
When you, cinnyFLOP, grow up and stop posting that trash, than's when.
I tend to agree.
Many seem to enjoy falling off the edge. They love to run around yelling the sky is falling ... it's Wal-Mart's fault, or Michael Moore and George Soros are going to buy this election, or Rush Limbaugh is a junky, or, or, or ____.
I like the ones about "their taking our guns!"
Not that they're not trying, but like those that complain the most are willing to take up arms to protect that right.
Please don't feed the troll.
I tried pointing that out to him, but he still claims he never mentioned drugs.
Pure Clintonian word parsing at its finest.
Your subsitution for reasoned debate when you have no reasonable response?
I know... and yet he pi$$es and moans and runs to the AM whenever someone hurts HIS widdle feelings. What a jerk. Would that there were some way we could french-fry these trolls in both literal and virtual boiling oil. Or at least use a 16-pound hammer to pound some sense into their skulls. Or a stake into their "hearts." I hope I HAVE hurt his feelings. It would be the best thing I've done online all week.
Expect more. In the early sixties when we lived in Germany (Am. military) I was shocked to find that citizens had a national ID and had to report to the police when moving so they could be kept up with.
Go figure! There are many "leaders" out there who want us to be like the Europeans. Don't have to look far.
Kerry, Clintons, their minions, SC justices...the list goes on.
Republicans are far from perfect, but you don't have to be superbrain to figure that if you cut these libs off at the (grass)roots
they can't flourish.
The lib drumbeat has gone on so long and become so pervasive, I don't know if "conservative" justices, even if allowed to be confirmed could change the tides. Some of the garbage is entrenched in our universities.
Today on Rush, he mentioned a Kerry quote from Langston Hughes--"Let America go back to being America"(hope that is exactly right--it's the gist of it anyway. Then Rush read some of Hughes' poetry hailing Marx and Lenin and equating these "workers" with himself. Langston Hughes was a black man who put down Jesus Christ and hailed Communist leaders.
Question? Does Kerry KNOW Hughes was a Communist? Does he know and not care? Does he think the American public won't know he quoted an American Communist because we're so ignorant, or does he think we don't care.
I do not ever want a President who openly quotes and admires a Communist or Communist sympathizer.
vaudine
Good grief. I suppose the cop could have just waited until the car moved, then stopped it. This nut wouldn't have had anything to whine about then.
Good grief. People who are terrified of sharing their name either have something to hide or are simply wearing their tinfoil hats too tight.
As I recall, Congress authorized the use of force. So how is that different from 'declaring war'? Semantics?
And I thought I was the only one. :-)
Well, there are some pretty specific things that happen legally when we are in a declared war. And, of course, in a state of emergency.
Sooooo, ARE we under a state of emergency, currently? That would be interesting to find out. Are our "rights" already at the whim of our government?
And/or four more Justices that can read what the Constitution actually says like Justice Thomas.
N.B. Thomas went along with Scalia on the lawnorder ride on this one.
A crime had been reported. He said he was parked ok (indicating he was the driver) and other charges were filed.
Hiibel came toward the police officer. It was only natural that the officer spoke to him first. If he had not acted like such a dolt he would have been on his merry way in a few minutes (that is if the kid did not press charges for him hitting her).
It allows politicians like Kerry to waffle and later say they only authorized the use of force to give the president some backing and they never intended that we would actually fight.
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