An Astounding Remark

Future of Freedom Foundation ^ | Sheldon Richman

[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.

[SteamshipTime]

Come on Howlin. At least attempt a counter-thesis supported by premises.

[gjenkins]

A blind patriot would know nothing more and expect nothing less from others.

[Pistias]

If the thread should be pulled, IMHO, it's because of the poor example of freetiquette, not the subject matter. If Ashcroft is a threat to liberty, it must be discovered and spoken of in forum. If he is not, he must be defended from those with an interest in seeing him unjustly accused of being such. Either way, the topic is kosher and worth pursuing--the child's-play is not.

[Jefferson Adams]

I've learned to try to find the humor in posts similar to those I was mocking. The alternative is gouging ones own eyes out from the frustation of watching the growing masses march in lockstep, in fear of "saying something that is wrong."

I know. I do too, but it's a sad kind of humor, isn't it?

[The Iron Duke]

It is nice to read someone on this thread who speaks sense instead of knee jerk blather.

[francisandbeans]

I concur. I openly asked for an honest defense of his statements (and in fairness there have been a few). I purposely didn't ping ashcroft supporter Dane for the reason I know is that he had none. I was hopng Marple or Howlin would be able to. Instead however, they diverted immediately into insulting those of us they disagree with and i regret being dragged into that cesspool and participating.

[francisandbeans]

Again agreed. We disagree but you served as an excellent example.

[maturin]

I'm a Tarheel too, and I can't believe all this crap is coming from a native of the Old North State.

My great grandfather had to ask permission from the occupying Union captain to go to medical school in New York. Permission was denied, so he had to take to the woods and sneak through the boarder states to get his medical education. (As you'll no doubt remember as a Tarheel, they CLOSED the University of North Carolina here in Chapel Hill for twenty years. And in the three years following the war, in the enlightened period euphemistically known as Reconstruction, thousands DIED of STARVATION!!

Yes, we remember true tyranny down here all right, i.e. the sainted Mr. Lincoln, who suspended habeas corpus, muzzled the press, and even arrested the duly elected legislature of Maryland before they could vote on cessession.

I don't know where all these fantasies about tyranny are coming from. If you're paranoid, you can never go too far wrong by looking to the Left.

My father had a close journalist friend, frinstance, who was JAILED by FDR in '42 for the duration of WWII for merely suggesting in print that FDR's IDOL, good, kindly old Uncle Joe Stalin was a tyrant who had murdered hundreds of thousands (later known to be many millions) of his own people(!!)

For God's sake, what would it take to wake people up to the fact that WE WERE SAVAGED by these savages, and they are far from finished with us!!

Get on a plane if you're up for it and go up there and tell it to all the survivors of 9-11. Yes, we've had tyranny in this country before, and it has ALWAYS come at the hands of the Politically Correct, whether red-eyed Abolitionists bastards or Red Loving Democrats.

Calm down. Take it easy.

We need to get the bastards among us and they are none of them Americans. NONE OF THEM... A no-brainer...

All the best,

[Hoosier Patriot]

but it's a sad kind of humor, isn't it?

Indeed it is. I find only hollow enjoyment of such. But, given the alternative, I feel it is by far the lesser of the two evils, and a much healthier way of venting those frustrations than crawling into the pit with those who simply cannot, shall I say, "see past next week."

[jwalsh07]

"To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists,"

Would you mind telling me you disagree ith in this statement?

I'm not interested in what you ascribe to be Ashcrofts motivation for making it but with the statement itself.

[jwalsh07]

Pardon the typos.

[francisandbeans]

If I were to seperate it from the man I would say this:

It is a false statement, and a statement that lacks the depth of debate and allows for opponents to be discounted by using 911 as a means to silence them.

[AUgrad]

You may have meant he was talking about a general type of person. However, it sounds like you are referring to the people protesting conditions at x-ray specifically. I'm not a grammar nazi so I'll take the blame for misunderstanding your post. My apologies.

[Dane]

Instead however, they diverted immediately into insulting those of us they disagree with and i regret being dragged into that cesspool and participating

LOL! This was your first response to me on this thread and your response was for my remark that there isn't a dime's worth of difference between the ACLU and Libertarians.

To: Dane

How come when the village assembles, the idiot is always last to get here?

80 posted on 2/6/02 7:21 AM Pacific by francisandbeans [ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 73 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

You are a hypocrite.

[francisandbeans]

They meant Howlin and Marple.

I discounted you immediately in that post.

[Jefferson Adams]

"To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists,"

Would you mind telling me you disagree with in this statement?

Let me have a shot at it, OK?

In a nutshell, if they were truly just "phantoms," it would be one thing. But they are not. The PATRIOT Act and the Office of Homeland Security have seriously compromised what little of the freedoms aour founders tried so hard to guarantee us that we have left. And Ashcroft is saying that if we tell people about that loss of freedom, we are aiding terrorists. Combine that with his statement the other day that said, essentially, they will arrest people that they "suspect of terrorism" - when the PATRIOT Act says that those who speak out against the government may be considered terrorists - and you've got something very scary indeed. Connect the dots. If you tell people about how our freedoms are being taken away by what "our" government is doing, you are aiding terrorists and can be arrested.

This is the very antithesis of the 1st Amendment that Ashcroft swore to uphold and defend.

[Mojo-jo-jo]

Sorry, doesn't work that way.If you don't like this country, work for change. Which is exactly what many are doing despite the objection of the sheep.

Really...thanks for the clue.

Is THAT what the purpose of this thread is? Or is just being used by some as nice, intellectual reasoning to bash a relatively good man in public service (Ashcroft) by taking a statement out of context? ("To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists,")

In times of war things change. Most sheeple actually comprehend by now that there are millions of illegals in this country, some Middle Eastern, that may actually be in this country for the sole purpose of destroying it. So the powers that be (who enforce the law) are FINALLY taking measures (bound by LAW, not man) to root out these people. Its that simple....nothing more.

That is change. Liberal sheeple dont understand that (as expressed by a select few in this thread)

[Dane]

I discounted you immediately in that post.

Yep, becuase you couldn't discount the fact that there is not a dime's worth of difference between the ACLU and Libertarians.

So you hurl insults.

Hypocrite.

[FedfromNoVa]

"To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists"

"those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty" Let's see, he's talking about idiots like the ACLU and antiwar.com, etc., scaring average law-abiding Americans with "phantoms of lost liberty," i.e., non-sensical hysteria about illegals being rounded up, the FBI having an easier time wiretapping suspected terrorist cells, etc. "Your tactics only aid terrorists" Gee, if we all panic and freeze in terror and also criticize the Bush administration for doing something, to the point where it begins to second-guess itself and not act, isn't that what terrorists want?

I'm sorry, but this quote isn't worthy of the hysterics on this thread. Flame away, but think before you do. What was Clinton's first response to Oklahoma City? Trying to further restrict handgun ownership! Bush may not be perfect, but he's not Beelzebubba either. When Bush tells us to put some ice on it, then I'll reconsider.