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 I am glad that you stopped winking at me...people were getting the wrong idea.
OK, ok. I'm convinced...
Ashcroft is a sell-out to those statist globalists who would use the WOD to subvert our freedoms while they get all the money and ignore the Constitution and set up national monitoring on every single person while they let illegal aliens run amok and suck up to the liberals and get ready to ship us to work camps to serve the New World Order and what about those contrails and how about Area 51 and by the way I don't like George Bush he is a wimp and LIFE'S NOT FAIR!!!
There...did that about cover everything? I am going to go clean out a closet, now.
Although you may now officially be declared a terrorist sympathizer just for typing those words.
"To those who pit Americans against immigrants, citizens against non-citizens, to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve," Ashcroft told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Who is he referring to? Is he referring to everyone who is concerned about lost liberty? No, if he were, the first half of his sentence, the quantifiers, would be rather pointless. Mr. Ashcroft told the UN where to get off on the gun laws the UN tried to institute. Were it not for Ashcroft and others in this administration we'd be looking at a whole host of new gun laws right now that would make Jim Brady's wife proud, laws to bring this country in line with the UN objectives. Ashcroft's not the kind of person to treat your 'rights' lightly.
So who is he referring to here? It really does not take a genius to figure it out- he is talking about people who are kneejerk anti-immigrant, the ones who are like the moron on the threads the other night who was advocating putting ALL moslims in detention camps. Amusingly the guy thought that would protect our 'rights.' He was willing to imprison people based on race, religion or nationality to preserve out 'liberty.' Ashcroft's not talking about people who are against just illegal immigrants- he's talking about people whose first agenda is a hatred of any and all immigrants, whether they've done something wrong or not. To convince people of the need to clamp down on immigrants, they preach about immigrants - all immigrants- being the cause of lost rights. Do you fit that bill, francisandbeans? Hate 'em all, do you? I don't think so. Those who hate people just because they weren't born here or have a funny religion are no defenders of liberty, whether they use the spectre of lost rights to justify their agenda or not.
"To those who pit Americans against immigrants, citizens against non-citizens, to those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve," Ashcroft told the Senate Judiciary Committee.
He's talking about people who are trying to stir up hatred to suit their agenda... he is NOT talking about 'anyone and everyone' who is concerned about civil liberties. He's not talking about three groups of people, immigrant haters, non-citizen haters, and civil libertarians- he's talking about ONE group of people which fits that description. (Think about it- is there a difference between people who are against immigrants and people who don't like non-citizens?
Get a life people. There is nothing wrong with discussing civil liberties but there is something wrong with people shouting 'nuke em all' or 'put them all in camps.' There is nothing wrong with being concerned about illegal immigration, or loose immigration laws. But there is something wrong when people want to stir up enmity between groups of people here in the US for no other reason than that they don't like 'foreigners.' Ashcroft's not even threatening people who are of the hate-all-immigrant mentality- he's just pointing out that they are not what they appear, and that such people are not doing us any good.
He is right when he says this:
"They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of good will to remain silent in the face of evil.
He is speaking out against the EXACT SAME MENTALITY WHICH THE NAZIS USED TO JUSTIFY THEIR ATTACKS ON INNOCENT PEOPLE.
Remember the famous quote that goes something like this? - "...When they came for the Jews, I said nothing because I wasn't a Jew...when they came for the gypsies I said nothing because I was not a Gypsy..."
Sounds an awful lot like 'when they came for the muslims, I said nothing because I was not a muslim... when they came for the Arab Christians I said nothing because I was not an Arab Christian...when they came for the Sudanese animists I said nothing because I was not a Sudanese animist... when they came for me there was no one left to say anything.'
Ashcroft is absolutely right. 'The ship them all back' talk and 'round them all up and lock them away' talk does make us look like NAZIs. It does not win you any friends. In fact, it's a good deal more frightening than your misinterpretation of what a man said. That 'hate them all' kind of talk, right about the time Ashcroft gave that speech, had resulted in some Indians and Sikhs getting murdered by some 'patriotic Americans' thinking they were doing good by attacking 'mooooslims.' Remember the guy who murdered some innocent guy and then announced how proud he was to do it for America, or some stupid comment like that?
Yes, I bet he was real concerned about 'rights' too. Only his own, of course. He wasn't a bit concerned about the man he shot. I bet he would be screaming bloody murder over Ashcroft's 'abbreviated' comment right alongside you folks.
I for one don't trust people who crop someone's words to make a soundbite for their agenda, as the author did... and as Senator Leahy does. If someone did that here on FR we would all look guilty of any infraction you can imagine. A little snip here, a little snip there, and you're guilty of advocating anything, depending on which audience someone wants to inflame with the 'edited' comments.
I also hope she gets some help with her drug problem. Xanex is well known by people who use for allowing you to sleep when you can't after an amphetamine bender. I doubt she was trying to get Xanex just to do Xanex.
I will just show them this entire thread.
And QUIT trashing each other. You know who you are. Knock it off! Way too many flamewars and feuds going on.
This hardly seems productive.
Let me sum a few of them up -
1) We were attacked
2) Almost immediately, things were put in place, into law, which had, in fact, been sitting on the shelf for several years because the powers that be knew they wouldn't be accepted a) The PATRIOT Act - which wasn't even available to be read before the vote in Congress. It was passed, without reading it, and it decimates several important parts of the Bill of Rights. Do we realize the HUGENESS of the fact that a bill was passed - without "our" congressthings even reading it??? - that removes basic liberties guaranteed by our Constitution?
b) The Office of Homeland Security was instituted - it had been created during the Clinton era, but it was just sitting and waiting. Bush didn't mention that it was a Clinton creation - he just implemented it as his own.
c) Now we have the Attorney General of the United States saying that if people are concerned about losing freedoms because of what "our" government is doing, they're aiding the terrorists.
My God, people - how can you see these events, in that order, and not be scared to death about what's happening to your country?
After the first 2/3 of your post spoke Truth about what's going on right before our eyes, you have to go clean out a closet.
OK. Do it fast. In another couple of years you may need to file paperwork with the government before undertaking such a task. After all - it's really the federal government's closet, you know :)
Is that a macro?
They'll be screaming it from the rooftops the next time a dem gets in office. Maybe it won't be too late by then.
Unsycophant! And I thought Loopy was an ironic moniker. LOL, ROTFLMAO.
Either you are with us or you are a terrorist.
You might want to take up your disagreement with them.
While it does soften the blow, I refuse to allow him to accuse anyone who isn't directly funding and supporting terrorism as "one who aide terrorism." That is pure unadulterated propoganda. I am pro-immigration, and even though he takes a swipe at my opponents on that issue, he is wrong. I am pro-civil liberties. He is painting me with that brush. It is a scary statement as a snippet and just as much so in the entire statement. I will not be called someone who aids terrorism. I refuse to and ashcroft can "stop" the UN from getting our guns all he wants, all it tells me that he read one right in a bill of many.
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