Posted on 11/27/2001 6:58:59 AM PST by Zviadist
It's easy for elected officials in Washington to tell the American people that the government will do whatever it takes to defeat terrorism. Such assurances inevitably are followed by proposals either to restrict the constitutional liberties of the American people or spend vast sums from the federal treasury. The history of the 20th century shows that the Constitution is violated most often by Congress during times of crisis; accordingly, most of our worst unconstitutional agencies and programs began during the two world wars and the Depression.
Ironically, the Constitution itself was conceived in a time of great crisis. The founders intended its provision to place inviolable restrictions on what the federal government could do even in times of great distress. America must guard against current calls for government to violate the Constitution- break the law- in the name of law enforcement.
The"anti-terrorism" legislation recently passed by Congress demonstrates how well-meaning politicians make shortsighted mistakes in a rush to respond to a crisis. Most of its provisions were never carefully studied by Congress, nor was sufficient time taken to debate the bill despite its importance. No testimony was heard from privacy experts or others from fields outside of law enforcement. Normal congressional committee and hearing processes were suspended. In fact, the final version of the bill was not made available to members before the vote! These political games should not be tolerated by the American public, especially when precious freedoms are at stake.
Almost all of the new laws focus on American citizens rather than potential foreign terrorists. For example, the definition of "terrorism" for federal criminal purposes has been greatly expanded; you now may be considered a terrorist if you belong to a pro-constitution group, a citizens militia, or various pro-life organizations. Legitimate protest against the government could place you (and tens of thousands of other Americans) under federal surveillance. Similarly, your internet use can be monitored without your knowledge, and your internet provider can be forced to hand over user information to law enforcement without a warrant or subpoena.
The bill also greatly expands the use of traditional surveillance tools, including wiretaps, search warrants, and subpoenas. Probable cause standards for these tools are relaxed or even eliminated in some circumstances; warrants become easier to obtain and can be executed without your knowledge; and wiretaps can be placed on you without a court order. In fact, the FBI and CIA now can tap phones or computers nationwide without even demonstrating that a particular phone or computer is being used by a criminal suspect.
The biggest problem with these new law enforcement powers is that they bear little relationship to fighting terrorism. Surveillance powers are greatly expanded, while checks and balances on government are greatly reduced. Most of the provisions have been sought after by domestic law enforcement agencies for years, not to fight terrorism, but rather to increase their police power over the American people. There is no evidence that our previously-held civil liberties posed a barrier to the effective tracking or prosecution of terrorists. The federal government has made no showing that it failed to detect or prevent the recent terrorist strikes because of the civil liberties that will be compromised by this new legislation.
In his speech to the joint session of Congress following the September 11th attacks, President Bush reminded all of us that the United States outlasted and defeated Soviet totalitarianism in the last century. The numerous internal problems in the former Soviet Union- its centralized economic planning and lack of free markets, its repression of human liberty, its excessive militarization- all led to its inevitable collapse. We must be vigilant to resist the rush toward ever-increasing state control of our society, so that our own government does not become a greater threat to our freedoms than any foreign terrorist.
How, may I ask, will I be able to send Mr. Paul--or anybody else for that matter--any messages from deep within the bowels of the Re-Education camp where I will be housed?
"No Child Left Behind," promised Mr. Bush. (and those who manage to escape will be rounded up and helped to see the glorious light).
It will be a sort of militarized type of charm school where we will be trained to go out into the world making sure all the women in savage lands are evolving onto our plane of existence. We will learn how to peek under their undergarments to make sure nobody has been oppressing their private parts. We will learn how to remove burkhas and replace them with wonder bras and bustiers so that our military men can feel more at home wherever they may be in the world.
Most importantly, we will learn how to pray five times a day with our foreheads to the ground facing Washington DC and our bottoms aimed towards the top of the New World Trade Towers....
I find myself thinking of the St. John Statue on Chartres Cathedral. He jumps out from among all the conforming stone faces and makes you wonder who the anonymous artist was who fashioned him. So expressive. So moving. Just one guy hanging up there year after year--always out of step, always saying something profound.
Never getting anywhere....
I suspect there's a provision in there forcing all American women to wear burqas, and no one knows it except the staffer who stuck it in as a joke.
The really funny thing is that you don't know how possible this really is. I'm serious.
A point that often escapes pacifist libertarians though is this: the public will demand greater perceived safety at the price of security inasmuch the war on terrorism is viewed as a domestic law enforcement problem.
Liberty has a chance of surviving if the problem is viewed for what it really is: a war on foreign governments to install rule of law in foreign lands, so that terrorism becomes a foreign law engorcement problem. Let the Afghani government wiretap the Afghanis and the Arabs in their midst, and send the FBI over there to lend its expertise.
Actually, the scuttlebut is that it will be menwho will be forced to wear them in the United States as penance for their long history of penile offences. It is also rumored that Bush is tossing this little fashion bone to certain members of the homosexual community who feel left out of the Islamic experience--in the ongoing effort to make the Party look more like America.
Anyway, that's what I heard.....
We will learn how to remove burkhas and replace them with wonder bras and bustiers so that our military men can feel more at home wherever they may be in the world.
So nice to see you back. I thought you may have gone voluntarily to the re-education camps.
You are clearly out of step with the people, and as the people only want what is right for the people, you are also clearly a conscious enemy of the people and therefore need a military tribunal or are insane, in which case it is not your fault and will be taken care of by the people in an appropriate institution. Thank you for your interest in the Fatherland Security Office, please press "1" to repeat this message, please press "2" to report your neighbors, please press "3" to report relatives, please press "3" to register for voluntary social re-orientation training.
Keep the Faith for Freedom
MAY GOD BLESS AND PROTECT THIS HONORABLE REPUBLIC
Greg
Freedom that, freedom this, never understanding what freedom is.
Freedom is slavery.
LOL!! Here is my favorite "pacifist libertarian". This is the best "pacifist libertarian" representation I can find. LOL!
Responding To the Attack on America
by David Boaz, Executive Vice President, Cato Institute
October 10, 2001
America has been attacked. Those of us who counseled military restraint and non-intervention when our vital interests were not at stake now face the situation that we always said would require military retaliation: an attack on the people and property of the United States. Now, our government has a job to do: not to sponsor midnight basketball or regulate our workplaces but to provide for the common defense and protect our lives and property.
As President Bush said, this is a new kind of war and it will require new tactics for waging war. Here’s an outline of what we should be doing now:
1. Go after Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The air strikes are a good beginning, but we must insist that Afghanistan hand Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants over. Failing that, we must go into Afghanistan to find them. It won’t be an easy task; the Soviet Union learned that in a nightmare decade. But this is the sort of mission that our Special Forces train for. They’ll find bin Laden.
Also, the Taliban rulers have made clear that they are sponsors of bin Laden and his wave of terrorism. So, one of our goals must be the removal of the Taliban from power. Our war is not with the people of Afghanistan—it is with the government of that poor country. When the Taliban is removed, we hope that a democratic government will be established. But our military objective must make clear that states that sponsor terrorist attacks on the American people will not endure.
2. Improve civil defense. Administration officials tell us that “there is a clear, present danger” of worse attacks than we have experienced, a point that government reports have made over the past decade. Yet the federal government has done little to educate Americans about how to respond to nuclear, biological, or chemical attacks, or to stockpile antidotes and anti-viruses. It’s time to do so.
3. Round up Al Qaeda operatives in the United States. Our leaders are right to warn us against hate crimes directed at Muslims and at people who “look like Arabs.” We must not forget the kind of country we are. But when we find people living in this country who are connected with a terror network, we need to move forcefully.
Right now we’re banning soup ladles in airport restaurants while we leave Al Qaeda cells operating “under surveillance.” If we know of non-citizens involved with terrorists, we should round them up. If the evidence isn’t there to arrest them for a crime, we can still deport them—not because they’ re Arabs but because the FBI has identified them as agents of a terror network. Non-citizens don’t have the same rights as citizens. They are in the United States at our sufferance. Immigration is good for the country, always has been, but we’re not obligated to provide a warm welcome for sleeper agents until their call to action comes through. Since the FBI failed to anticipate the September 11 attacks by 19 different agents, we can assume that its list of people to be watched is not over-broad.
4. Strengthen the economy. One of our strongest assets is the strength of the American economy. We can out-produce any adversary. But our economy, already weakening over the past year, took a sharp hit on September 11. We need to give it a lift. The way to encourage economic activity is not to pump money into the economy—money that is either taxed away from those who produced it or created out of thin air in the form of inflation—but to remove the impediments to productive activity. Further progress on free trade would mean more international trade, creating more efficiency for business and lower prices for consumers. Tax cuts would make work and investment more appealing. Bush’s plan to allow workers to invest some of their Social Security taxes in real assets won’t help the economy in the next quarter, but it would increase investment and real economic activity over the long term—and that’s the relevant period for this war.
5. Build a new bomber. In conflicts such as the one we’re entering, the United States may find air bases close to the fighting unavailable or vulnerable to enemy attack—especially by ballistic missiles. Yet the U.S. Air Force is investing billions of dollars in two new types of tactical fighter aircraft that require access to such bases. In contrast, the Air Force will not begin research and development on a new long-range bomber until 2013 and will not begin producing the aircraft until 2034. Heavy bombers can carry heavier payloads over much longer ranges than can fighters and can operate from less-vulnerable bases in theaters that are farther away from the fighting or even from bases in the United States. No matter what type of foreign policy the United States adopts in the future, it will need the ability to project power abroad. It’s time to start developing a new bomber.
6. Spend our defense dollars wisely. Advocates of increased military spending have seized on the atrocities of September 11 as an excuse to spend “hundreds of billions more” on the military. But we don’t need another million men, or more tanks and cruise missiles, to fight this war. Instead of throwing money at the problem, we should take a close look at the Pentagon budget: eliminate what we don’t need and reallocate resources to real needs like civil defense, missile defense and human intelligence. A good place to start is to give the Pentagon authority to close obsolete military bases. We could also reallocate money from some of our technical intelligence efforts (such as spy satellites), many of which are better suited for Cold War espionage activities, to the harder task of human intelligence—that is, our ability to penetrate and gather information on terrorist organizations.
7. Reorient drug war resources to the war on terrorism. Some officials have compared the new war on terrorism with the war on drugs. That’s a depressing thought: We’ve been fighting the drug war for 87 years, and drug use is as high as ever. A better tack is to take some of the $40 billion we spend annually on the futile drug war and reallocate it to the war on terrorism. Use the Drug Enforcement Administration’s agents to search for pipe bombs, not marijuana pipes.
Libertarians usually enter public debates to call for restrictions on government activity. In the wake of September 11, we have all been reminded of the real purpose of government: to protect our life, liberty, and property from violence. This would be a good time for the federal government to do its job with vigor and determination.
Are you truly free without security or do you become a slave to fear?
He did. Then, to show Him thanks, this once honorable republic told Him to leave.
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