Posted on 07/18/2003 6:30:26 PM PDT by theoverseer
Dear Ann,
Hey, it's me again! I'm sure you remember me from last week when I called you on your book "Treason" and the case of John Henry Faulk. My fellow Freepers won some phyrric victories on that one, which I don't mind.
However, I saw your latest column on Yahoo! news only recently, "Taking Liberties." (Click the link above.) Once again, you're big on words, but short on good arguments.
To begin my argument, I'll start at the end of your column, where you say, "Manifestly, there is no civil liberties crisis in this country. Consequently, people who claim there is must have a different goal in mind. What else can you say of such people but that they are traitors?"
I hope you are happy, Ann; you just called several of your conservative compatriots traitors. As reported by Nat Hentoff, back in April the American Civil Liberties Union organized a public meeting in D.C. entitled "A Discussion with Conservatives: State of Civil Liberties Post-9/11. Among those present -- and most vocal about Ashcroft, the PATRIOT Act and our diminishing civil liberties in the name of "security" were president of Americans for Tax Reform and NRA board member Grover Norquist, credited with being one of the key architects of the 1994 "Contract with America;" former Congressman Bob Barr, an indutibable conservative who strongly favors privacy rights for all Americans; and Lori Waters, executive director of Eagle Forum, who told the crowd that under new federal policies, "everyone in this room is a suspect until it's proven you're not." (Eagle Forum...wasn't that the organization founded by Phyllis Schlafly, the woman you opined was not lauded as a feminist hero?)
Perhaps you aren't necessarily concerned with the idea that some of your fellow conservatives were hit by your friendly fire. Perhaps you no longer consider them conservatives because they dared to attend an event organized by the ACLU. You are a writer, not an elected official. After all, the Connecticut Libertarian Party wouldn't support you running against Christopher Shays because you refused to take a stand on the War on Drugs.
Anyhow, like in your book "Treason," you attempt to soften the blow of some Republican misadventures by showing Democrats doing the same thing, i.e. Watergate wasn't so bad because Roosevelt had the Oval Office wired; Ashcroft isn't so bad because Roosevelt put Japanese Americans in internment camps and Woodrow Wilson had A. Mitchell Palmer round up foreigners who might be communists and anarchists (and you say the Democrats instinctively hate this nation.)
You might be surprised, but there are people (like me) who don't care the political affiliation of the people who betray constitutional freedoms. I mentioned Nat Hentoff before. He is a pro-labor, pacifist Democrat who takes seriously the promises of freedom that the Bill of Rights provides. He is also pro-life and once called Bill Clinton "the most distasteful man I'd ever met" (or something to that effect.) I am obviously a Hentoff fan, and I don't care what party is in office, they must respect the rights of Americans.
To deflect liberal complaints about John Ashcroft, you focus in on Tarek Albasti, an Egyptian immigrant who was enrolled in flight school and later taken in for investigation. He was released and apologized to. Somehow, that makes everything better.
However, you are missing the larger issue. What about American citizens who have been detained as "enemy combatants," as judged by the Justice Department. I speak here of two men, Yaser Esam Hamdi and Jose Padilla. Hamdi was taken in as an "enemy combatant" because he was found among al-Quida terrorists. However, he was born in the United States, which makes him a citizen. Padilla was in the U.S. all along, and he was alleged to have planned a "dirty bomb" attack on U.S. soil. Again, another U.S. citizen.
Were they arrested and charged? No, Ashcroft wanted to make sure little obstacles like legal representation and habeas corpus were out of the way, so through the new broad powers given by the president and Congress, the Justice Department, these men were declared enemy combatants and continue to be held in windowless cells on naval ships for "intelligence purposes." No family contact, no lawyers. They can be held indefinitely.
What's more, the Justice Department has essentially told the federal judiciary that it has no power to review these detainment cases. Remember checks and balances, the cornerstone of our democracy?
So much for your claim that Ashcroft has put into place "modestly, carefully tailored policies." Have you read Stephen Brill's book, "After: How America Confronted the September 12 Era"? In it, Brill details one of Ashcroft's strategy sessions following September 11, according to sources close to Ashcroft and the Justice Department:
In the hours and days immediately following [the September 11] attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft...directed that FBI and INS agents question anyone they could find with a Muslim-sounding name...in some areas...they simply looked for names in the phone book...Anyone who could be held, even on a minor violation of law or immigration rules, was held under a three-pronged strategy, fashioned by Ashcroft and a close circle of Justice Department deputies including criminal division chief Michael Chertoff, that was intended to exert maximum pressure on these detainees."
Real democratic, eh? You may claim that it was in the heat of the attacks, that Ashcroft wasn't thinking clearly. Heck, you wrote a column claiming America could essentially take over all of the world of Islam and Christianize it. You lost your position at National Review on that one; I wonder if Ashcroft could ever lose his.
What's more, the detainees after September 11, especially in INS, were told that they could have access to lawyers, according to Brill's book. The problem was that the Justice Department and INS had lists of phone numbers for lawyers that were no longer in service. "Sorry, this number is out of service. You may be detained forever and nobody would know. Sorry for the inconvenience."
Finally, your curt dismissal of Albasti's statement that he was afraid he may be hanged and nobody would know about it as a reason to deport him was certainly out of line. Is exercising one's freedom of speech a reason for deportment? Albasti was married to an American, which made him an American citizen. He has the right to speak his piece. Yes, we are America, a constitutional democracy, but don't think that precludes abuse of power. Albasti had a lot to be worried about.
Well, according to the Village Voice, several civil rights organizations are getting ready to sue the justice department over alleged abuses of detainees' rights, as well as the Patriot Act. Their ammunition: the 198-page report done by the Justice Department's own inspector general, accusing the department of widespread abuse of detainees' rights to counsel and to hearings.
Perhaps you'd like to assume your old role as attorney and defend him?
Perhaps you'd like to assume your old role as attorney and defend him?Did your mother not hug you enough as a child or something?
They run this trick in reverse too. Some people vote Demoncat for reasons other than be a Liberal. So when the complaint is about Liberals, the deceivers like to bring up Demoncat exceptions, as if the Demoncat exceptions are Liberals.
Such is the deception of the Liberals/Libertarians. Gratuitously Equivocate Liberals = Demoncat, and Conservative = Republican. Then after establishing this as Truth, then prove that it isn't. When one asserts that it is true, then proves that it is not, then magically all criticism of Liberals/Libertarians is supposedly refuted.
Actually Woodrow Wilson did a lot more than just round up a few anarchists and communists. He tolerated a nationwide community spy organization (even a junior one was created that had toddlers informing on adults) that had thousands of citizens thrown into jail for just voicing doubts about the war against Germany or for bad mouthing him or his policies.
LOL! She's taken a stand. She supports drug laws.
Of course, the decriminalization or legalization of dope is the single most important issue to the Libertarian Party. Nothing else comes close. They are as addicted to to the pro-dope agenda as Bill Clinton is to sex and Hillary Clinton is to power.
In any event, getting dissed by the Connecticut Libertarian Party is like having your choice of shoes criticized by a homeless person.
"What about American citizens who have been detained as "enemy combatants," as judged by the Justice Department. "
The President determines who will be detained as enemy combatants, per the congressional authorization to use military force, per the Constitution.
And their petitions for writs of Habeas Corpus were heard by courts, per the Constitution.
Bad as our media is it's still amazing how much people think they know that just ain't so.
Don't separate your shoulder patting yourself on the back. The chances of Coulter "remembering" you from a pathetic little diatribe on FR is somewhere between slim and none.
My fellow Freepers
"Fellow freepers"????
You've only posted ONE stupid vanity up to now, and never bothered to reply to that one at all. You are as much a FReeper as Hillary Clinton.
Actually it does not. The spouse still has to apply for citizenship, and there is a considerable time lapse as well. It does get the foreign spouse permanent residency, but even that can be tripped up under certain conditions My brothers in law are both married to women from countries of the former Soviet Union and have been for around 4 years, neither spouse is a US citizen, not even the one with two American born kids. A nephew is married to a Sicilian and they had all sorts of problems just getting her into the country after they were married in Sicily. (He's a federal LEO now, but wasn't at the time he married her, he was a local city cop, and was in the Navy when they met)
You know, I've just decided to go out to Barnes & Noble tonight and buy it. I need a pleasurable summer read.
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