Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Government Against the People
Words of Truth ^ | Aaron Armitage

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.


TOPICS: Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 241-260261-280281-300 ... 361-379 next last
To: Cultural Jihad; Texaggie79
Texaggie79 babbles:

"prove that you can smoke crack as much as you want and that you pose absolutely no threat to your neighbors".

And the indecipherable reply?

"Wouldn't the ideologues claim that the neighbors consented to be endangered by drug addicts because otherwise they'd have moved some place else?"
256 posted by Cultural Jihad

-------------------------------------------

Folks, gibberish don't get much better than this. Enjoy.

Whoops! Forgot to flag tex, and draw attention to his 'sayings'.

261 posted on 12/11/2001 8:13:09 PM PST by tpaine
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 256 | View Replies]

To: tpaine
'prove you can beat your wife without hurting her'

Wow, so you see using crack as harmful to neighbors. Kewl, so we agree then. Glad you finally got it.

262 posted on 12/11/2001 8:13:48 PM PST by Texaggie79
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 258 | View Replies]

To: A.J.Armitage
People have done criminal acts on nicotine as well....
263 posted on 12/11/2001 8:14:31 PM PST by Texaggie79
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 259 | View Replies]

To: A.J.Armitage
Fine. So the Libertaliban has legalized all forms of recreational poisons and stationed their Brown Shirts outside the heroin and crack depots and package stores to protect them from unlawful arsonists in the neighborhood. We understand that according to the worldview of the moral-liberal elitists, the right of drug addicts to shoot up in the open air of a public park always trumps the right of families to enjoy a picnic unmolested by sleaze and dirty needles. We understand that according to the worldview of the moral-liberal elitists, the right of perverts to acquire a self-inflicted disease always trumps the right of hemophiliacs and newborns to be free of behavioral diseases. We understand that according to the worldview of the moral-liberal elitists, the right of debauched people to produce, consume, and inundate our culture with the most vicious and degrading of pornography always trumps the right of children to their own innocence. We understand that according to the worldview of the moral-liberal elitists, the right of able-bodied and lazy freeloaders to sleep on the sidewalks always trumps the right of taxpayers to navigate the sidewalks free of urine, feces, and vomit.
264 posted on 12/11/2001 8:15:00 PM PST by Cultural Jihad
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 255 | View Replies]

To: tpaine
Why don't you post with colored words, it would make your experience more trippy.
265 posted on 12/11/2001 8:18:13 PM PST by Texaggie79
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 261 | View Replies]

To: Cultural Jihad
Did typing all that make you feel good?
266 posted on 12/11/2001 8:18:25 PM PST by A.J.Armitage
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 264 | View Replies]

To: Texaggie79
People have done criminal acts on nicotine as well....

I suppose so. Should we ban that too?

267 posted on 12/11/2001 8:19:12 PM PST by A.J.Armitage
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 263 | View Replies]

To: Texaggie79
Why don't you post with colored words, it would make your experience more trippy.

I'm glad we have mental giants like you around.

268 posted on 12/11/2001 8:20:41 PM PST by A.J.Armitage
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 265 | View Replies]

To: Texaggie79
severe hallucination with alcohol? really? Show me documentation.

-------------------------------- Did you really get through college without hearing of delirium tremens in alcoholics?

Strange education.

269 posted on 12/11/2001 8:24:54 PM PST by tpaine
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 257 | View Replies]

To: A.J.Armitage
I suppose so. Should we ban that too?

I would vote against it, but states have every constitutional right to do so.

270 posted on 12/11/2001 8:27:24 PM PST by Texaggie79
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 267 | View Replies]

To: tpaine
Only with withdrawal, not with use.
271 posted on 12/11/2001 8:29:22 PM PST by Texaggie79
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 269 | View Replies]

To: Texaggie79
'prove you can beat your wife without hurting her'

Wow, so you see using crack as harmful to neighbors. Kewl, so we agree then. Glad you finally got it.

------------------------------------

I 'got', - from you, - another infantile attempt to equate smoking crack with wife beating. -- Thanks.

272 posted on 12/11/2001 8:31:27 PM PST by tpaine
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 262 | View Replies]

To: tpaine
No you did that.
273 posted on 12/11/2001 8:34:19 PM PST by Texaggie79
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 272 | View Replies]

To: Texaggie79
I would vote against it, but states have every constitutional right to do so.

States don't have rights. People do.

Now, nothing the Constitution would stop them, but that doesn't settle the issue. There's nothing in the Constitution to stop states from banning pencils. Don't just say you'd vote aginst it, as if it were just a matter of your personal view. Such laws are unjust, everywhere and always, for everyone.

274 posted on 12/11/2001 8:42:20 PM PST by A.J.Armitage
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 270 | View Replies]

To: A.J.Armitage
"There's nothing in the Constitution to stop states from banning pencils."

See the 14th amendment.

275 posted on 12/11/2001 8:47:57 PM PST by tpaine
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 274 | View Replies]

To: A.J.Armitage
God gives people rights, the constitution gives states rights.

And yes states CAN make bad laws that are allowable under the constitution. However, laws that prevent the legal sale of substances that take away people's ability to reason, to choose to stop using the drugs, to see reality, to recognize their kids as their kids and not a secret agent that they decapitate (actual event), or any other necessary inhibition to function as a responsible human.

276 posted on 12/11/2001 8:51:54 PM PST by Texaggie79
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 274 | View Replies]

To: tpaine
You are the only one that defines the constitution to their liking. The rest of us know it's meaning.
277 posted on 12/11/2001 8:52:48 PM PST by Texaggie79
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 275 | View Replies]

To: Texaggie79
God gives people rights, the constitution gives states rights.

No. Only people can have rights. Governments have powers. And no, the Constitution doesn't give states powers. They already had them by the time the Constitution was adopted.

And yes states CAN make bad laws that are allowable under the constitution.

Are you illiterate? I never said otherwise. What I did say is that there are laws that violate justice, regardless of whether or not they happen to be unConstitutional. That isn't that hard to grasp.

However, laws that prevent the legal sale of substances that take away people's ability to reason, to choose to stop using the drugs, to see reality, to recognize their kids as their kids and not a secret agent that they decapitate (actual event), or any other necessary inhibition to function as a responsible human.

I don't think that parses as a coherent English sentence.

278 posted on 12/11/2001 8:58:28 PM PST by A.J.Armitage
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 276 | View Replies]

To: A.J.Armitage
Only people can have rights.

Look up rights in the dictionary.

  1. Something that is due to a person or governmental body by law, tradition, or nature.

Are you illiterate? I never said otherwise.

Are YOU illiterate? I never said you said otherwise.

I don't think that parses as a coherent English sentence.

Perhaps not for an editor of newsweek but I put several sentences into one because I am to tired to spell it all out. It makes sense.

279 posted on 12/11/2001 9:27:36 PM PST by Texaggie79
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 278 | View Replies]

To: Texaggie79
There is a huge constitutional argument in this country over states powers under the 14th.

Many people here at FR have the same position as I, and in fact, FR is where I first found it.

Your 'communitarian' opinions on the subject, however, really are bizarro fringe stuff.

280 posted on 12/11/2001 9:36:30 PM PST by tpaine
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 277 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-20 ... 241-260261-280281-300 ... 361-379 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson