Posted on 02/06/2002 5:05:45 AM PST by francisandbeans
When Attorney General John Ashcroft told the nation, "To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists," he wasn't blazing any new trails. He was merely doing what despots and would-be despots always do: attempting to intimidate into silence those who dare to question him.
Ashcroft's statement is one of the most astounding things to be said by a U.S. official in many years. To read it carefully — letting its full message sink in — is to be overtaken by a sense of horror that is otherwise hard to imagine. Every American should be offended to hear the government's chief law enforcement officer equate public expressions of concern about the threats to liberty from drastic "anti-terrorism" measures with joining al-Qaeda. Does Ashcroft have such a low estimate of the American people's intelligence?
Perhaps he needs to become acquainted with Thomas Jefferson. It was Jefferson who said, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." That's true in the best of times. It's doubly true during war — especially an Orwellian undeclared, open-ended crusade against an enemy as nebulous as "international terrorism." Ashcroft is a perfect Orwellian character. In 1984, Big Brother told his people that "freedom is slavery." It follows that slavery is freedom. Ashcroft refuses to concede that the Bush administration is seeking to curtail liberty in the least. Those who see diminished liberty must be hallucinating, seeing "phantoms of lost liberty."
So when the president unilaterally abolishes due process for noncitizens, we are only imaging an erosion of liberty. And when Congress passes, without even reading, the administration's alleged anti-terrorism bill, which expands the government's powers of surveillance, permits secret searches of homes, and weakens judicial oversight of law enforcement, again, we are deluded if we think freedom is evaporating. I write "alleged anti-terrorism bill" because the new law does not restrict the expanded powers to suspected terrorists, but applies them to any criminal activity. This is a classic power grab under the cover of an emergency. September 11 has given policymakers a chance to bring down from the shelf every new police power they have wanted for years. They assume no one will question the need for such broad powers, and if anyone does, they can shut him up by portraying him as an ally of the terrorists. The game is rigged in favor of power.
It is no comfort that the erosion of liberty in the name of fighting terrorism has a bipartisan cast to it. Democratic Senator Charles Schumer of New York has given his blessing to oppressive government with an op-ed in the Washington Post titled "Big Government Looks Better Now." As Schumer puts it, barely concealing his glee, "For the foreseeable future, the federal government will have to grow... The era of a shrinking federal government has come to a close." Of course, the senator was trying to enlarge it long before September 11.
Schumer insists that only the federal government "has the breadth, strength and resources" to keep us secure. Forgive me for asking, but did we not have a federal government on September 11? Was it not in charge of our security on that date? Then what is the senator talking about? And if it isn't impolite to ask, just where does the federal government get all those resources? Last time I checked, it didn't produce anything. It simply took resources from the people who did produce them.
Once we understand that all government possesses is the power of legal plunder our whole perspective changes. Schumer insists that "the notion of letting a thousand different ideas compete and flourish — which works so well to create goods and services — does not work at all in the face of a national security emergency. Unity of action and purpose is required, and only the federal government can provide it." But he’s got it wrong. Security is a service. Competition and innovation are valuable in the effort to keep ourselves safe. The last thing we need is central planning. That’s what we had on September 11.
And then, it's DOUBLE-fun time!
Let's begin with Ashcroft's NEPHEW, shall we?
The constitution refers to "citizens" in some places and "persons" in others, most notably in Amendments V and XIV, indicating that the distinction was understood and intended.
The Constitution does not "afford" rights; it merely "secures" the rights that all men are born with, including the right to due process of law when the government exercises jurisdiction over you.
The Constitution also only delegates specifically enumerated powers, meaning the government has no lawful authority to act outside its Constitution. Once this analysis is applied to current government actions, it becomes clear that we are governed not by the natural law principles contained in the Constitution, but by fallible men who do whatever they deem in their own judgment to be necessary.
A constitutional government is a fragile thing, since it is really just government by an ideal instead of government by men who can be, as all men are at times, cruel or unjust. The Old Testament prophet Samuel gave this warning when the tribes of Israel asked for a king, and Ridley Scott did too in his excellent movie, Gladiator.
Perhaps the only argument that Republicans will listen to.
So typical.
I cheered the President's get tough stance with the rogue nations of the world when he said :You are with us, or you are with the terrorists.
I am not the only one who cheered. That resonated with the public. Since then, the "with the terorrists" theme has been finding itself in all sorts of statemtents: If you do drugs, you are aiding terrorists; Speak of lost liberties; you are aiding terrorists; buy certain gemstones; you are aiding terrorism.
I will not be accused as a terrorist sympathizer for the merit of someone winning an argument or some silly war on drugs. I should not be...and those that use that approach are no better than Democrats who tell the press that the Republicans are starving children with school lunch plans.
It's both dishonest and disgraceful.
Well, lessee... could it be 60+ years of government schools dumbing down the masses so they won't even know they're in trouble? Or maybe the fact that all the lamestream media is bought and paid for, so the sheep never hear the truth? Or maybe a combination of the two?
The Constitution also only delegates specifically enumerated powers, meaning the government has no lawful authority to act outside its Constitution. Once this analysis is applied to current government actions, it becomes clear that we are governed not by the natural law principles contained in the Constitution, but by fallible men who do whatever they deem in their own judgment to be necessary.
EXTREMELY well put, Steamship. And therefore repeated above.
But for the last time, I do not speak to you because you are a M*r*n who has neither the intelligence nor wisdom to think independently. I've told you no less than four separate times not to post to me as I do not care to converse with someone so lacking in rational thought as to make intelligent conversation impossible. Now, I'm telling you for a fifth time. Perhaps you can now get it through your thick head.
And, again for the last time, I didn't bring you into this thread. I merely took a cheap shot at you in a message to francisandbeans. He/she pinged you and your response was as predicted.
As I said, someone's got to be in the bottom 95th percentile. Sorry if I've hurt your self-esteem.
That's enough said. I'll not respond to you again. You needn't respond to me either.
Same here. Nor will I stand for being accused of being and/or aiding terrorists because I speak out against those who are ignoring and systematically trashing the very Constitution that is supposed to be the supreme law of the land.
As someone said above - f&b? - we are becoming a nation governed by Men rather than by Law, which is exactly what the founders of this country tried to prevent by creating a Constitutional
I apologize, but it's hard keeping you statist freaks straight sometimes, what with all the crew cuts and matching shirts.
Well, I have an idea. I'm going in a few weeks to help a Texas rancher patrol the border of his property with Mexico. I suggest you just look one up in the phone book, and offer your services.
Time to put your money where YOUR mouth is.
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