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.
Riley, I'm going to assume that by proclaiming yourself to be a libertarian that somewhere along the line you decided that you could use your heart along with your brain. In light of this assumption, I will posit that the concept of non-intervention is based on the notion of sovereignty of nations. These nations being sovereign have neither right or purpose to interfere with the governmental workings (constitutions, laws, regulations, policies) of another nation. In our nation, the government has NO authority to loot us for distribution to other citizens, businesses or nations. This does not, however, preclude individual citizens from sharing their wealth, talents and expertise with people of other nations. Time and again, the American people have shared abundantly of their wealth with other people who were in need. This is one the hallmarks of the American people regardless of their individual politics. NOTHING prevents a libertarian from doing the same. If a libertarian is moved to donate to a people in need, then let it be done. Nothing about being a libertarian prevents you from being human.
As to the starving children schtick, how cruel and self-indulgent can you be? To call this a schtick is to be devoid of compassion. Why make the entire people suffer when, in reality, they have done us no harm? More to the point, our government is the one who adopted Hussein as an ally against Khomeini. Our government propped him up. Our government provided him with weapons and anthrax. Our government, by its silence, allowed him to invade Kuwait, the Saudis cried and we went to drive him back. Not only did our government drive him back, since he didn't wish to play by the governments new rules, the gov decided to oust him by turning his people against him. Our gov proceeded to bomb and destroy water and sewage plants to spread thirst, famine and disease. Our gov made false accusations accusing Hussein of using bio/chem weapons against the Kurds. Yet you, in a manner of a statist tool support the evil of the gov and demean and belittle this atrocity as a schtick. Since you are a libertarian, I would suggest that you take the time to put your mind and heart to work in developing a broader perspective of the application of libertarian principles their benefits and possible pitfalls and contrast that with the results and effects of current governmental action.
Isn't that the truth!
What does it mean to be Anti-American? Is anyone that challenges the government anti-American? Terrorists have challenged the US government; ergo anyone who challenges the government is a potential terrorist. Bin Laden has raised his hand in terrorism, therefore, every public hand raised in objection will from now on be treated as a public hand raised in attack.
This term applies not only to those who hate Americans but also to those who have challenged US foreign and defense objectives. Implicit in this denunciation is a demand for uncritical support, for a love of government more consonant with the codes of dictatorship than with the ideals upon which the United States was founded.
The charge of "anti-Americanism" is itself anti-American. If the US does not stand for freedom of thought and speech, for diversity and dissent, then we have been deceived as to the nature of our national history. Were the founding fathers to congregate today to discuss the principles enshrined in their declaration of independence, they would be denounced as "anti-American" and investigated as potential terrorists.
Democracy is sustained not by public trust but by public skepticism. Unless we are prepared to question, to expose, to challenge and to dissent, we conspire in the demise of the system for which our government is supposed to be fighting.
You said it, now defend it. You find one quote where Bush said the terrorists were "envious" of our freedom. Just one hotdog.
The hardcore Islamic leaders are 100% anti freedom. To say they are "envious" of freedom is pure stupidity.
So have at it, find just ONE quote of Bush's that says that. If you can't that makes you a liar. Good luck...
There seem to be some very angry posters here. There's a useful phrase that they should learn: "the best is the enemy of the good". All this time they spend talking about how the US gov't is so frickin' evil, and how bad it looks in the eyes of the rest of the world for its actions ... how about a little like-for-like comparison? How about looking at what *other* gov'ts look like elsewhere? There are plenty of places around the world that could teach the US a thing or two about oppressing its citizenry. That's not to say that the abuse of eminent domain isn't a horrible denial of human rights that should be attacked. But people, there are plenty of governments in the world that beat their own dissenters with barbed wire and broken glass; that pillage their own economies on an unimaginably large scale; that forbid women the right to own property.
Why people put so much *disproportionate* effort into moaning about what the US gov't does, either at home or abroad, is quite beyond me. I would have less of a problem with it if they'd moan about all those other countries as well in proportionate degree. (Unlikely here on FreeRepublic for obvious reasons -- but it doesn't happen *anywhere*.)
Look, I'm not a particular fan of no-knock raids. But if there's a terrorist cell inside, what 'cha gonna do? If there's a person that will be dangerous in a normal plice arrest, what 'cha gonna do?
As far as Waco goes, I was horrified when it happened, and still am. It was, in my opinion, an unbelievable mistake on the government's part.
But there's good news here. The government, I think, would not do it again. That's the difference here. It's discussed openly and there are public hearings etc etc etc, and we all figure it out. We get better, hopefully, over time, and not worse. Have a little faith in the system. They are not trying to "get us".
Quite a change, I would say. In fact, for all practical purposes it renders your statement empty. It is the recognition of the futility of "working for change within the system" that has, in many if not all cases, led to domestic terrorism. That is not to say that the terrorism is justified. It is to say that by holding up a false promise of the possibilty of significant change through participatory democracy, government sets up people for the frustration which results in rage against the system and, in some cases, to a resort to violence.
TWO WORDS: Socialism and Communism!
And I am sick and f*cking tired of these so-called "Conservatives" falling all over themselves, defending any and everything that Republicans do in the name of "freedom".
Just this latest "Patriot" bill is a perfect example. These people are evil! The very fact that they would even name a bill, designed to destroy the Bill of Rights, "Patriot", shows the level to which these low-life Orwellians have sunk.
And you expect me to think it's OK? These things don't happen in one fell swoop. These tyrants know that it would send out alarms, even to the most retarded citizens. No -- these commies do it incrementally -- slowly -- so as not to alarm the dolts -- who actually think themselves to be patriots.
It takes a TRUE patriot to nip these things in the bud BEFORE the next incremental step is taken. So far as I've seen, there are ZERO patriots in the Democratic party, and VERY FEW left in the Republican Party. All the rest of the TRUE patriots have gone Libertarian.
Sounds familiar. Munchen Zeitung the day after the beer hall putsch?
Libertarians often rely on saying "this is bad." In that they're a little like liberals or socialists. Just as some talk about a world without war or poverty or injustice, our author talks about a world without governments, taxes, or emininent domain. How do we get there? Is there any way of getting there? Are we even sure that there really is a libertarian "there" to get to.
Something may be bad, but is there an alternative or a remedy? Could the alternative or cure be worse than the illness? Is the alternative suggested really possible? How would it look in practice? I'm not saying in advance that the libertarian alternative won't work, just that people who advocate it assume that it will and that it would be easy to implement it.
A society of sparsely settled self-sufficient agriculturalists could live without a very oppressive or developed government. Once communities become more densely settled, the rights, desires and hopes of people become too intermixed.
I have a hard time believing that the Ayatollah Peikoff wouldn't find ways to put a superhighway through my block if that's what he wanted. Or that our author "Mr. Government is worse than Anthrax" wouldn't find ways to get rid of offensive nuisances in his neighborhood. He should also watch out that his neighbors don't get the idea first.
"I think our governments will remain virtuous for many centuries as long as they are chiefly agricultural; and this will be as long as there shall be vacant lands in any part of America. When they get piled upon one another in large cities as in Europe, they will become corrupt as in Europe." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. Papers 12:442
Do you really believe that most of our laws are Constitutional?
Now there you go being nice to me, so I'll have to be serious. :-)
I'm not sure what my political label is, but here is what I believe: the Constitution is the basis for American law, because it expresses the consent of the governed (us) to the form of government. It is not a "living document" in the sense the liberals use the phrase, because they divorce the text from the intent of the writers of the text, and anyone who has read Alice in Wonderland knows if you can make a word mean whatever you need it to mean it means nothing at all.
At the same time, it is equally ridiculous and juvenile to think you can use, or be guided by a text without interpreting it. It is intellectually impossible to do, and those who think that they do are breathtakingly lacking in self-knowledge. The Constitution must be constantly interpreted, elaborated, parsed, and applied. That word "must" is descriptive, not prescriptive: anyone who allows the document to penetrate past their optic chiasm will be interpreting as they read.
But the only thing which keeps the intellectual discipline of interpreting a text from being subjective at best and crooked at worst is the simple and obvious principle that the words and phrases in the text mean what they meant to the people who wrote them.
So, no, I don't think most of our laws are Constitutional, but I also don't think anything not written with a quill pen is un-Constitutional. Both extremes are just evasions of the perennial burden of applying the original, guiding words to our generation. The liberals dissolve the words, the (what label?) dissolve the "applying" part.
My sarcasm in the previous post was just exasperation at the latter, whose obscurantism is amply represented on this thread.
I agree with that. If what we are doing is not achieving the results we set out to achieve then we are wasting time, effort and money. What I am disagreeing with is the responsibilty we are having to assume for the nutritional deficiencies of the Iraqi people. Again, if what we are doing is not working and Hussein still has power and money, it is his responsibility to feed his people.
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