Posted on 10/18/2001 5:18:58 AM PDT by sendtoscott
I’ve already been accused by some of my newspaper readers of being a coward and a traitor because I can’t get too excited about the Endless War on Terrorism. So I might as well go for the gusto and say what I really think.
First, despite the truly grievous attacks on innocent people in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania, I still fear my own government far more than I fear Osama bin Laden, his al-Qaida network, and whatever foreign governments may have aided and abetted his terrorist plots. In my mind, the FBI is far more frightening than anthrax, and John Ashcroft isn’t much better than the Ebola virus.
Second, while America’s foreign policy – i.e., starving Iraqi children for 11 years because Washington no longer supports the dictator it helped prop up – doesn’t condone terrorism, it explains why some people are supportive of it.
Third, Americans have more to fear from the ideas expressed in a recent neoconservative tirade in The Weekly Standard than they do from the frothing U.S. flag-burners in Pakistan. Last week’s cover story, written by Max Boot of the Wall Street Journal, was titled, The Case for American Empire, and is something well beyond satire. Read it yourself for final proof that the neocons are insane.
Fourth, if I have to hear one more commentator prattle about America being targeted by bin Laden because of our nation’s freedoms, I am going to run into the streets of Santa Ana (where I work) yelling nasty things about our government. Don’t worry, no one will bother me given that English isn’t widely spoken around these parts.
As part of my quiet protest against the jingoism and war-mongering, most of my columns since the Sept. 11 attacks are dedicated to this proposition: America ain’t nearly as free as everyone seems to think it is.
On Sunday, I wrote about how the local children’s services agency has taken a young girl out of the care of her loving grandmother and placed her with a foster parent who, according to court records, owed $31,000 in back child support to his own kids, had a restraining order placed on him so he couldn’t see them, and was accused in a sworn statement of swimming nude with his foster children.
I was reminded that government bureaucrats can take anyone’s kids at any time for any reason, and they needn’t even tell the parent where the kid has been placed for 72 hours. Proceedings take place in a special kangaroo court where what the bureaucrats say is taken for gospel, and what parents and responsible adults say often is ignored. After my column ran, I’ve been inundated with calls from readers relaying similar tragic dealings with these agencies.
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about eminent domain abuses. In California, most cities have what are called redevelopment agencies, whose officials can declare any residential or retail area as blighted, and then exert broad powers of eminent domain to take properties from owners and hand them over to big developers. The real goal isn’t blight removal, but the creation of new shopping centers and hotel complexes that bring in more tax revenues than the current residents or business owners bring in.
Cities are supposed to pay fair-market value for the properties they take, but they try to outright steal them by making lowball offers, backed by intimidating tactics worthy of the mafia. I wrote about how the city of Garden Grove took a thriving multimillion-dollar car rental business run by Korean immigrants, and offered them the whopping sum of $16,000 for the enterprise. Small entrepreneurs are routinely forced out of business by the government, and deprived of their livelihoods – making it difficult to find the resources needed to fight back in court. These aren’t anomalies, but everyday occurrences in California and other states.
In another column, I wrote about Catholic school boosters who raised funds and started building a privately funded school on one of the few sites zoned specifically for schools in San Juan Capistrano. Although the local public school district can legally build on most any piece of property zoned in most any way, the public school officials didn’t like the idea of competition. So once they saw the private school effort, they decided to try to use eminent domain to take the site for their own school.
These are just a handful of stories from one small, albeit rather loony, corner of America over the last few weeks. After each article was published, I received calls from other people telling about even more egregious incidents of government abuse. These include developers who have the total value of their property stolen from them after officials discover some endangered bug on the land, property owners who are forced to make their homes conform to bogus historical standards, a city that is forcing some privately owned motels to shut down because they cater to poor long-term residents rather than tourists, and lots and lots of unfair takings examples. Sometimes people are protected in the courts, but only after years of fighting.
We live in a land where the government taxes more than half your income, where officials can take your children or your property on a whim and leave you little recourse, where government agencies have complete power over what you can do on your own private property and when you can do it. Yet we’re supposed to be so proud of our free country that we go around the world liberating other people with our Tomahawk missiles. God bless America, my eye. God save it, is more like it.
This could apply to the USA. What's our excuse?.
---max
It's "selective" "non-interventionism" that interests them. "Those d@mn Jews! ", is their motto.
Bin Laden in his own words declared war on America back in 98'. You don't believe him? In his last recorded message he as much as admitted it was Islamic radicals that did it. How would he know if he wasn't involved? Why deny the obvious?
No doubt.
Ironically (and incorrectly) enough this is exactly how the Democrats (and most Republicans) look at the Constitution.
---max
There has to be a way for the President to respond immmediately to a threat to the country. What if another country launched nukes and we had 30 minutes to respond? Would we have to convene a congressional session and get a formal declaration? While I think we need to start working on that issue right away, my thoughts are that we are engaged in a legal response to a surprise attack.
Oh yeah. Suppose that dedicated person wanted the income tax eliminated, or at least reduced to a reasonable level - say no rates over 10%. Suppose he wanted participation in Social Security made voluntary. Suppose he wanted to see the massive infringements on the "right of the people to keep and bear arms" rolled back. Do you think any amount of dedication would get him anywhere with that? Or with any other goal whose achievement would result in less revenue or less power for the government?
You just made the claim of liberals that the Constitution is a living document!
No! That's not fair! If we have to interpret it then we have to think and debate and exegete the text. That's not clear! That's too hard! It is our God-given right not to have to do anything that isn't written out word for word in longhand on the original paper! If it doesn't say the words "stop sign" then any law which says the words "stop sign" is FROM THE DEVIL! THE DEVIL!!!!!!!!
AMEN! You go Lew!
Another point he made, which was right on target, is the insanity expressed by some of our political "leaders" (not the least of which is Bush) that these terrorists are envious of our freedom. What a joke!!!
These people don't care about our freedoms. What they do care about are the insane policies forced on other countries by the United States on behalf of global corporations -- AND THEY SHOULD BE MAD!!! Wouldn't you?
Our government is FILLED to the gills, with busy-body, blood-lusting, low-life commies and socialists. They are called Republicans and Democrats! I hate them all.
You're quite the Constitutional warrior... Your Berkeley comrades are calling you…
Its called the beginnings of Socialism. Check out the DSA site and see how many (50) congressmen are named as friends. This is not only a scary prospect but is also the reason for the above. Stop voting in these Socialists-in-liberal-clothing types and maybe, just maybe, we can begin to take back this great country.
As to the following....
Yet we’re supposed to be so proud of our free country that we go around the world liberating other people with our Tomahawk missiles. God bless America, my eye. God save it, is more like it.
...more cynicism than anything else. I say, God Bless America, lead us in virtue and forgive us our sins and mistakes. However, if there is anyone out there who thinks there is a better place to be, a more virtuous country concerned with human rights and civil liberties, let them show the way. If there is a mass exodus then we will know there is something to this message by this author, else it is just more rhetoric with no solutions.
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