Posted on 09/24/2001 12:49:15 PM PDT by A.J.Armitage
The American Constitutionalist
By: Aaron Armitage
Government Against the People
As the United States prepares retaliation aimed at Osama bin Laden's network of terrorists and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan there is a temptation, already succumbed to rhetorically by some people, to treat the Afghan people or all Middle Easterners as the enemy in a total war. George Bush, in his address to Congress, has rejected this, and he was right to do so. Acting on that impulse is exactly what bin Laden wants, because there's no other way his dream of uniting Islam against the West can happen. Beyond that, such a total war is simply misdirected. The Taliban are, in many ways, an alien force within Afghan society. The Taliban gained power in large part because of the sponsorship of Pakistan, although Pakistan is currently siding with the United States (no doubt under compulsion). Many of the supporters of the Taliban, including bin Laden himself, are from foreign countries, especially Saudi Arabia, and these are some of their best troops in the war against the Northern Alliance. Were they not disarmed, starving, and otherwise oppressed many Afghans would resist. Some, especially women, already are, but not in the open.
In a more important sense, though, all tyranny is a force alien to the organic society it rules over, because tyranny is government against the people (or some of the people), as opposed to government for the people. A non-tyrannical government exists to protect the persons and property of everyone inside its jurisdiction by punishing domestic criminals and defeating foreign attackers, and as such is an ally and supporter of the people. To the extent that a government exists for any other purpose, especially a purpose which aims to force human nature to fit an artificial ideal, it must treat the people as an enemy to be subdued.
In order to make Afghans fit their concept of what a Muslim should be, the Taliban has outlawed music, kite flying, shaving, pictures, smoking, television, access to the Internet, leather jackets, chess, and even brown paper bags. The restrictions on women are, as I'm sure most people know, even harsher. Women aren't allowed out of their houses unless they're wearing a burqa, which includes cloth in front of their eyes that's difficult to see through. Incidents of female pedestrians being hit by cars have greatly increased, even though the vast majority of the people are too poor to have cars. Women are prohibited from working, and aren't allowed to receive an education. Some particularly brave women have set up secret girl's schools. The Taliban are an extreme example, in competition with North Korea for the "honor" of being the most oppressive dictatorship on Earth. Even these governments, though, maintain police and military, and thus provide at least some sort of protection for the rights of the people even while devoting most of their efforts to violating those rights.
There lies the ambiguity of the real world. The masters of the wretches of the world protect them, if only the way a farmer would protect the livestock he intends to sell to a meat processing plant. Closer to home, even governments founded to be for the people have their original principles compromised and admix tyranny with otherwise wholesome government.
America is not exempt. The prohibition of drugs, for example, cannot be enforced by means fit for a free people, and rather than ending it the government resorts to means unfit for a free people. That the majority of the people currently support the war on drugs does nothing to make the means of enforcing it, which still don't work, any less like the measures of an occupying army. Our government has declined from its original position under the Constitution, but our old liberty can be restored or even improved upon, if enough people have the will to do so.
The United States is nevertheless one of the freest countries in the world, and we should keep it that way by not allowing opportunistic politicians to rob us of our patrimony using the conflict we're now in as an excuse. The parts of our government that are most hostile to the people are the ones furthest away from them, the agencies nominally answering to the president. The most tyrannical regimes, the communists of North Korea and the Taliban of Afghanistan, got that way by being as separate from and hostile to the people as they could. We should keep that in mind during upcoming events. It is neither in our interests nor is it moral to gratuitously attack Afghan civilians.
Of course they can! How hard can it be to not allow CVS pharmacy to sell cocaine on it's shelves? How hard is it to arrest someone that is publicly using, holding, or buying hard drugs? I have not one single problem with drug stings. No constitutional right is violated just as with prostitution stings. No-knock raids are not the only way to enforce drug laws. Drug laws can be applied QUITE constitutionally, and effectively.
I agree.
Are you trying to miss the point?
That is a stupid question, and so is the assertion that a state prohibiting drugs out of a majority decision is violating people rights.
Contrary to what you might think, the mere fact that a majority wants to violate a right, such as the right to get and use property, does not end the right, it merely violates it.
They can move, if they don't like it
Specious, because you should not have to move to use your rights, and because every other jurisdiction in America has related drug laws.
If you eliminate EITHER of the choices from the decision, you are THEN violating rights.
You have no right, either by yourself or with others(however many others), to violate a right. None. Not letting you have a choice in the matter doesn't violate your rights, because you've got no right to make that choice to begin with.
By your strange argument, the First and Second Amendments are massive violations of rights, becayse they take a away one of the choices in two separate political issues. And I say that's a good thing.
But that's not even what I'm proposing. No one has suggested an amendment to prevent the prohibition of drugs(although that wouldn't be a bad idea). I'm merely pointing out that only one of the two choices in just.
Perhaps because by owning it, buying it, selling it, ect, you violate other's rights. The same goes for hard drugs. You have no right to endanger your neighbors when they have specifically voted to prohibit such an activity.
I don't really understand your point here and would appreciate your clarifying.
In the meantime, given the ballsy way we've immediately pintpointed and FROZEN their assets (much like those of Nazis were "frozen" in WWII), chances are we've been fairly comfy with their making hay while the sun shines -- sans the dust of two World Trade Towers -- over Wall Street.
Go figure.
I didn't know doing drugs involves raping children. Thanks for clarifying that.
You think so? I happen to think that even with those things you mentioned, we would still have freedom worth fighting for. By the way, maybe you can help me out with something I don't get. I thought we already had national ID cards. Isn't that what a SS card is? We all get one, it's a unique identifier, and it is required information when getting all sorts of permits, licenses, etc. So two things: why do we need another one, and what difference does it make if we get one?
Maybe this sounds like a foolish question, but I am hearing lots of folks saying they are opposed to this ID card, and I am having trouble figuring out what specific ills will derive from it.
Anyway, I'll take our country over Afghanistan, even with ill conceived legislation. Because in our country, the people can reverse any of that stuff whenever they get the will. And they can amend the constitution any time they have the will. Which means, as always, we get the government we deserve. That may not always be pretty, but it is freedom.
I saw Joe Biden on tv yesterday, and he said, "we have." He says the powers given to the President are the "constitutional equivelant" of a declaration of war. Explain to me what difference it makes.
Do we even know that Congress HASN'T granted that ? Oh well.
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--- Telling. -- You mention insane & sodomy in the same slur.
Then you go on to refute your own view on my 'insane' view, by claiming I have no argument 'behind' [backing up] the constitution. -- There is no real need, is there?
However, if YOU need one, check out AJ's words above on inalienable rights being beyond/behind the constitution.
When you get deported because you could not find your national ID card, then you'll know.
---max
Man calls black white. Pigs fly. Film at 11.
I didn't know raping children was the only way to violate others' rights. Thanks for clarifying that.
I'm all for the speedy execution of anyone caught bringing red cocaine or heroin into the country. I'm also for 'states rights' in that a drug-producing state would bear all costs of keeping said drugs confined within their borders.
Other than that, I find it hard to believe -- speaking strictly in terms of debilitating and destructive Substance-Abuse -- that alcohol would not be the greater source of carnage, litter, absenteeism, withdrawal, addiction, clenched fists and venomous tongues than Cannabis.
Doesn't add up.
Speaking strictly within 'moral' terms, if you can make bathtub moonshine, no reason you shouldn't grow pot on your sill. Where that activity endangers or actually hurts another, the FULL measure of the law. Allows folks to decide for themselves what they will and will not abide in their own community.
A fake "War on Drugs" wherein it's abundantly clear our TRUE defenses against the REAL ENEMY (the marxist destruction from within that is the corruption of our leadership, agencies and military and the destruction and addiction -- or idolatry -- of our people) do not exist ... is absurd and intolerable.
All "get tough" measures on drugs have served only to imprison and punish the weak while NEVER addressing those truly responsible for the scourge.
Drugs DOES NOT WORK LIKE ANY OTHER COMMODITY.
It is SUPPLY that drives DEMAND for drugs.
Think about it.
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