Posted on 10/03/2005 8:01:29 AM PDT by Mikey
Item: "The government will grant increased powers to law enforcement and security agencies to enhance their capacity to prevent attacks. Importantly, control orders will be available to our law enforcement agencies in circumstances where a person might pose a risk to the community but cannot be contained or detained under existing legislation." – John Howard, prime minister of Australia, Sept. 7, 2005.
Item: "I think when people say this is an abrogation of our traditional civil liberties, I think it is possible to exaggerate that. I mean, as far as I know people have always accepted that with rights come responsibilities." – Tony Blair, prime minister of the United Kingdom, Sept. 16, 2005.
Item: "The system itself is the problem. We are trying to fight 21st-century crime – ASB, drug-dealing, binge-drinking, organized crime – with 19th century methods, as if we still lived in the time of Dickens. The whole of our system starts from the proposition that its duty is to protect the innocent from being wrongly convicted. Don't misunderstand me. That must be the duty of any criminal justice system. But surely our primary duty should be to allow law-abiding people to live in safety. It means a complete change of thinking." – Tony Blair, prime minister of the United Kingdom, Sept. 27, 2005.
Item: "Clearly, in the case of a terrorist attack, that would be the case, but is there a natural disaster – of a certain size – that would then enable the Defense Department to become the lead agency in coordinating and leading the response effort? That's going to be a very important consideration for Congress to think about." – George Bush, president of the United States of America, Sept. 25, 2005.
Item: "President Bush yesterday sought to federalize hurricane-relief efforts, removing governors from the decision-making process. 'It wouldn't be necessary to get a request from the governor or take other action,' White House press secretary Scott McClellan said yesterday. 'This would be,' he added, 'more of an automatic trigger.' Mr. McClellan was referring to a new, direct line of authority that would allow the president to place the Pentagon in charge of responding to natural disasters, terrorist attacks and outbreaks of disease." – Washington Times, Sept. 26, 2005.
Item: "Bird flu 'could kill 150 million people' A flu pandemic could happen at any time and kill between five to 150 million people, a U.N. health official has warned." – BBC News, Sept. 30, 2005.
Despite wide-open borders and a consistent federal refusal to enforce national immigration laws, there have been no terrorist attacks in the United States for more than four years. Despite decades of warnings about AIDS, Ebola, SARS, West Nile, Anthrax and now Bird Flu, there have been no mass outbreaks of disease in the United States for more than eight decades.
At a certain point, one is forced to wonder. Are these top government officials primarily concerned with preventing potential dangers to the public, are they primarily concerned with covering their political posteriors in the event of failing to prevent such dangers that actually come to pass or are they primarily concerned with using the perception of potential danger to destroy the liberties of their nations' citizenries?
It seems most strange that three of the most powerful leaders in the once-free West should simultaneously choose the very same moment to call for drastic changes in their respective legal systems. Coincidentally, all three leaders happen to be arguing for the elimination of individual liberties and centuries-old legal protections by dangling the fabulous carrot of increased safety and security before the public.
Since the passage of the Patriot Act – which conservatives who should have known better argued themselves blue in the face in trying to convince everyone of its innocuous nature – the Bush administration has steadily continued its ominous drumbeat for an ever-increasing expansion of central government power. Now, it is daring to openly argue that a single attack, natural disaster or outbreak of disease should grant the executive branch the power to shred the Constitution and declare martial law at will.
This is freedom-hating idiocy of the highest order. Even if the current president has the purest and most angelic of intentions, as well as Christ in his heart, such legislation is akin to placing the collective neck of the American public in the guillotine for the remainder of the Republic's doomed existence. For sooner or later, there will be other presidents who are not so virtuous. If the American people are so foolish as to grant the present administration its wish for this anti-constitutional abomination, they will richly deserve the servitude to which they will inevitably be reduced.
Vox Day is a novelist and Christian libertarian. He is a member of the SFWA, Mensa and the Southern Baptist church, and has been down with Madden since 1992. Visit his Web log, Vox Popoli, for daily commentary and responses to reader email.
I understand. They are not common where I live now, except for the ocassionaly license checkpoint between my house and the nearest town. They are very common in other places, as I noted, and unfortunately, except for a few inviduals, they are largely tolerated as a necessary incovenience in the interests of security and safety
I am content with Montana, but if I ever had reason to move Texas would be my first choice.
Or a "disease" outbreak - real or fictional.
Yep. For sure.
We already have them during Saturday nights in the summer, they are called DUI checkpoints.
It is usually a bad idea to generalize, so keep that in mind when I say this:
Throughout the state the people are mostly 3rd & 4th generation Montanans whose lives are simple and pretty much as their father's were -- the culture has not changed much.
They are ranchers, farmers, horse owners, hunters, gun owners and conservative.
In isolated areas, mainly the more touristy areas, like the Flathead Valley, many have come from other cultures.
They are big money, fun oriented - turn a city into a theme parking thinking liberals. Unfortunately in their quest for the last best place, they have raised property values and the locals, realizing that they can become instantly rich, are selling off the ranch so that they can buy the dream house, RV, and boat they always wanted.
Montana is a great place, but the liberals are spoiling it in various locations.
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