"He's not a conservative working for a more free and constitutional republic. I'm not sure what he is but he's certainly not that."
Well, I see the situation a bit differently. I noticed that GWB told the UN "gun trafficking" bureaucracy to stuff it. To me, that's standing up for national soveriegnty and our Constitution.
I watched GWB remove the ABA from vetting federal judges before they came to Congress. Again, to me that's standing up for the proper Constitutional separation of powers.
I listened as GWB told Congress "No" to a national ID card. I watched as GWB signed into law a bill that PROHIBITED government from stopping pilots from arming themselves on commercial flights.
I saw that GWB followed through on his campaign promise to lower taxes even though the opposition said that tax cuts were dead on arrival. I saw EPA CO2 regulations repealed and OSHA home-office regulations killed by GWB.
I'm currently watching as GWB and VP Cheney are standing up for our Constitution by refusing to cowtow to GAO demands and Congressional requests for private Executive Office meeting notes, even though the "political" thing to do would be to release those notes because there is no chance that anything is wrong in them.
I've seen that GWB stood up for the Constitution's assignment of military matters to the Executive Branch by assuring that war prisoners would have military tribunals instead of civil trials under the Judicial Branch, much to the chagrin of trial lawyers everywhere.
Do we have a MORE free America today than before GWB took office? Yes. Specifically, ask the pilots who are now training to arm themselves on commercial flights. That opportunity was never there before GWB.
In contrast, no one on this thread has been able to name a specific freedom that they've lost to the federal government since GWB took office.
That makes it pretty clear to me that you are mistaken to claim that GWB isn't working towards a more Constitutional and free America. There just isn't any tangible evidence of what you claim, versus the tangible evidence that I alone have provided to the contrary.
Thus, there is no question about who is correct in this debate.
Did you catch that GWB refused to contribute to peacekeepers in Afghanistan? Notice that there can be a Constitutional difference between peacekeeping in foreign lands and defending our nation abroad.
Did you witness GWB use his Constitutional power of recess appointments to place very conservative appointees into office?
Are you not pleased with GWB's foreign and domestic handling of our war on terrorists? Do you disagree with President Bush's plan to privatize social security?
#527 ... Great post!!!
The only thing I'm unsure of (to date),... is the plan to privatize social security. I'm not so sure a Social Security "Investment" plan in a free market, and after seeing what we have recently with the Stock Market (for a couple years now really) is a good idea. I freely admit, I need to research it more. But it is the major thing we probably disagree with our President about.. that and immigration policies, though I saw some things I did like recently by our President. Which is causing me to pause..and take a little better wait and see approach with regard to his policies. He may be getting things right more than even I give him credit for!!
We feel that Social Security would have been just fine, had the politicians NOT dipped into it all these years. If it had been left alone..it and the concept of it, would have continued to prosper and serve those who paid into it all these years. It was, and still is, the best idea. The problem is the Government needs to stick to its promises!! The Social Security issue is akin to what they did to Vets who retired with the "promise" of free life long health care for them and their spouses if they served 20 or more years. We already renegged on that. And I hate to see us take anything away from Social Security,..as people have paid into it..and once you start to take it away.. its a slippery slope. I mean.. what "if" the stock markets crash..and a person is disabled for life? What then? Will they EVER be able to retire and know the American dream?? That concerns me.
I certainly don't profess to have the answers.. but I do have questions :o)
In contrast, no one on this thread has been able to name a specific freedom that they've lost to the federal government since GWB took office.Here is a few for you.
The following are futher examples of some of the changes in law as a result of the so-called USA PATRIOT Act. The legislation:
:minimizes judicial supervision of federal telephone and Internet surveillance by law-enforcement authorities.
:expands the ability of the government to conduct secret searches.
:gives the attorney general and the secretary of state the power to designate domestic groups as terrorist organizations and deport any noncitizen who belongs to them.
:grants the FBI broad access to sensitive business records about individuals without having to show evidence of a crime.
:leads to large-scale investigations of American citizens for "intelligence" purposes.
More specifically, Section 203 (Authority to Share Criminal Investigative Information) allows information gathered in criminal proceedings to be shared with intelligence agencies, including but not limited to the CIA — in effect, say critics, creating a political secret police. No court order is necessary for law enforcement to provide untested information gleaned from otherwise secret grand-jury proceedings, and the information is not limited to the person being investigated.
Furthermore, this section allows law enforcement to share intercepted telephone and Internet conversations with intelligence agencies. No court order is necessary to authorize the sharing of this information, and the CIA is not prohibited from giving this information to foreign-intelligence operations — in effect, say critics, creating an international political secret police.
The concern here is about the third branch of government. One of the overarching problems that pervades so many of these provisions is reduction of the role of judicial oversight. The executive branch is running roughshod over both of the other branches of government. I find it very bothersome that the government is going to have more widespread access to e-mail and Websites and that information can be shared with other law-enforcement and even intelligence agencies. So, again, we're going to have the CIA in the business of spying on Americans — something that certainly hasn't gone on since the 1970s when the illegal investigations of thousands of Americans under Operation CHAOS, and the spying carried out by the CIA and National Security Agency against U.S. activists and opponents of the war in Southeast Asia.
Nor do the invasion-of-privacy provisions of the new law end with law enforcement illegally searching homes and offices. Under Section 216 of the USA PATRIOT Act (Modification of Authorities Relating to Use of Pen Registers and Trap and Trace Devices), investigators freely can obtain access to "dialing, routing and signaling information." While the bill provides no definition of "dialing, routing and signaling information," the ACLU says this means they even would "apply law-enforcement efforts to determine what Websites a person visits." The police need only certify the information they are in search of is "relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation."
This does not meet probable-cause standards — that a crime has occurred, is occurring or will occur. Furthermore, regardless of whether a judge believes the request is without merit, the order must be given to the requesting law-enforcement agency, a veritable rubber stamp and potential carte blanche for fishing exhibitions.
Additionally, under Section 216, law enforcement now will have unbridled access to Internet communications. The contents of e-mail messages are supposed to be separated from the e-mail addresses, which presumably is what interests law enforcement. To conduct this process of separation, however, Congress is relying on the FBI to separate the content from the addresses and disregard the communications.
In other words, the presumption is that law enforcement is only interested in who is being communicated with and not what is said, which critics say is unlikely. Citing political implications they note this is the same FBI that during the Clinton administration could not adequately explain how hundreds of personal FBI files of Clinton political opponents found their way from the FBI to the Clinton White House.
And these are just a few of the provisions and problems. While critics doubt it will help in the tracking of would-be terrorists, the certainty is that homes and places of business will be searched without prior notice. And telephone and Internet communications will be recorded and shared among law-enforcement and intelligence agencies, all in the name of making America safe from terrorism.
This legislation wouldn't have made any difference in stopping the Sept. 11 attacks. I seriously believe this is a violation of our liberties. After all, a lot of this stuff in the bill has to do with finances, search warrants and arrests."
I don't like the sneak-and-peek provision because you have to ask yourself what happens if the person is home, doesn't know that law enforcement is coming to search his home, hasn't a clue as to who's coming in unannounced … and he shoots them. This law clearly authorizes illegal search and seizure, and anyone who thinks of this as antiterrorism needs to consider its application to every American citizen.
The rationale for the Fourth Amendment protection always has been to provide the person targeted for search with the opportunity to point out irregularities in the warrant, such as the fact that the police may be at the wrong address or that the warrant is limited to a search of a stolen car, so the police have no authority to be looking into dresser drawers. Likely bad scenarios involving the midnight knock at the door are not hard to imagine.
The Fourth Amendment states: "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated; and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
This action by the Bush Administration is indefensible.
These are some of the rights that have been abridged by these new laws...