"I knew we'd meet again, Doom!"
Posted on 12/03/2001 10:00:13 PM PST by Mercuria
Even in the worst of times, there's always something to be grateful for, a silver lining in the darkest cloud. For my part, I'm grateful the attacks and the events after it didn't happen while Bill Clinton was in office. Clinton was fundamentally in love with power. As he did after the bombing in Oklahoma City, and school shootings, he would have taken advantage of the deaths of other Americans for his own political advancement. In an example of extreme hypocrisy, his backers would call his grubby exploitation honoring the dead, and would accuse anyone who disagrees of having no concern for the loss of life. I've never understood the attitude that the way to memorialize the dead is by giving up freedom, the thing that makes us Americans. All I can say is, I'm glad Republicans don't have that attitude.
Picture what Clinton might have done, through crass political manipulation of the crisis. It would have been an excuse for a federal power grab. I'd imagine that he would get laws passed making it legal for his jack-booted thugs to search homes without even telling the person whose property is searched. He's the kind of dangerous politician to have done that, and more. He might have gone further, letting federal law enforcement track what content a person accesses over the internet, and, in his boundless desire to have unlimited authority over ordinary people, he might have required a lower standard of proof than probable cause. Maybe the only requirement would be that it's relevant to an investigation. I'm glad Bush is in office instead.
In 1998, the Clinton administration released plans to implement a set of regulations called "Know Your Customer", which would have required banks to determine the sources of customers' funds, track their transactions, and report anything considered unusual. The reports would be investigated by something called FinCEN, which would keep the records around for the feds to snoop through, regardless of whether there was any evidence of a crime. The whole idea was abandoned after a public outcry. Bill Clinton thus showed himself to be an enemy of financial privacy, and given what we know about his unscrupulousness he wouldn't have hesitated to exploit the situation to resume his attack. Maybe he would have revived Know Your Customer, or maybe he would have attacked privacy some other way. Maybe he would have made all retailers follow the rules banks already follow under the misnamed Bank Secrecy Act.
On that subject, that Democrats give their bills gimmicky, misleading names has always annoyed me. It's as if they know that political truth in advertising would undo them. If the Bank Secrecy Act had been called the Spy Bank Accounts Act, nobody would have voted for it. Clinton probably would've bundled all of it together in a single bill with a gimmick name like the "Patriot Act". I'm glad the honorable man in the White House now would never do something like that.
Beyond Clinton himself, there was his authoritarian Attorney General, Janet Reno. The Butcher of Waco would have plunged headlong into whatever tyranny she thought she could get away with. That was her nature, seeing no reason not to have a police state and every reason to have one, and thus subjugating ordinary people to official thuggery every time she could. By now she might have hundreds of people held incommunicado in jail, without charges, and in secret. The worst fears of the black helicopter crowd would be coming true. That woman, I tell you, had no respect whatsoever for our basic legal traditions. She might even have gotten the FBI to spy on political and religious organizations, creating the opportunity for purely political investigations like J. Edgar Hoover used to have.
But maybe I've taken it too far. Even if she wanted to, the public would never stand for that. War or not, there would be enough public complaint to stop that. And even if the public is too complacent, at least we now have good men in office, who would never take advantage of that kind of complacency.
That's funny. Saw his article on your site. Don't "patriots" believe in truth in advertising?
Lest America ever forget why The Nameless One, W(B)-97, and all their enablers should be hectored, hounded, and harried into silence, until "clintonese is only spoken in Hell," look here:
AJ, now you've done it. ;-)
"I knew we'd meet again, Doom!"
Keep up the good work. In times of "hoo-rah" we still need to consider carefully the actions of our leaders.
Stay well - Stay safe - Stay armed - Yorktown
Wake up Republicrats.
I would certainly hope so...I believe in it!
I see Mr. Armitage as a "dedicated patriot seeking the truth"!
Now, as to YOUR truth in advertising...
I hope I can add some humor and insight that you will find as valuable as that which you have given me.
You people are delusional. This piece isn't clever in ths slightest. What low standards you "patriots" have. /serious
If you hope to add, you have to try.
You can start by enumerating your objections to the column rather than the tired methods of trying to paint people you disagree with as "delusional" without explanation.
In any case...thanks for bumping the thread!!
It's spot-on!
I don't know WHY that seems to be so tough for people to understand!!
And so it is.
now if that was not so true, I'd LOL...
cue the music...
Theres a bluebird on my shoulder...
Yep.
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