BUSH PROPOSES LARGEST EXPANSION OF GOVERNMENT SINCE TRUMAN

CNN ^ | 6/6/2002 | President

[UnBlinkingEye]

I am watching President Bush giving a speech on CNN telling us he is expanding federal government more than any Democrat since Truman.

[UnBlinkingEye]

Why don't you want to be better protected?

I equate government protection with loss of freedom. No one protects us in a moment of danger but ourselves or those on hand. I don't want the government intruding on me.

[sinkspur]

If sinkspur calls me a "simpleton", it doesn't matter to me: he's one of the sort that's caught up in the lust for power. I left that behind a long time ago. I have to pity him, actually.

Why? Because I can't touch the hem of your garment on that pedestal you've put yourself on, while looking down your young condescending nose?

You should work on being a humble man; you have every reason to be.

[lawdog]

So blind faith in the government is akin in going to a doctor ? I think not.

[Lower55]

Then never dial 911. Don't stop at red lights.(there for your protection)

Shoot out your street lights. I could go on and on, but I won't...........

[MozarkDawg]

According to Andy Card, WH Chief of Staff, there will no additional money required except the $37.1 billion he requested for Homeland Security.

Oh, so because this tremendous expansion really happened before tonight, it's not an expansion of the federal government??

He just proposed a new Cabinet position, the same way Carter invented a federal Dept. of Education in his term. You think Ridge is gonna be the only guy to hold the job and then it's kaput? Some Dem sometime isn't going to have the chance to add on to the monstrosity??

Benjamin Franklin was wise beyond our years: Those who are willing to sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.

[Darth Sidious]

Never said that I was humble. Only implied that power is an uninteresting thing. And people who want it are more uninteresting still.

[Jorge]

Beats being a Bush bootlick.

Aren't you the clever one.
Got anymore worn out Demorat cliches to parrot at us?
Polly wanna cracker?

[UnBlinkingEye]

I am very happy you would feel safer with Algore as president.

I don't place feeling safe at the top of my priorities, I think freedom is the most important goal in life.

[Darth Sidious]

You think Ridge is gonna be the only guy to hold the job and then it's kaput? Some Dem sometime isn't going to have the chance to add on to the monstrosity??

You nailed it.

[Un-PC]

Sinkspur,

I see you're still defending the indefensible. Bush and his henchmen in the Justice Department are busy installing the trappings of a police state -- the mechanism of our future oppression -- and, rather than condemn it, you celebrate it as a great victory for Republicanism and freedom, no less. Your ceaseless toadying for Bush -- even as the size, scope and intrusiveness of government explodes under his reign -- is worse than inexplicable; it's despicable.

Those of us who actually support a free republic -- free of federal snoops and "anti-terrorist" Stazi -- can do without your facile rationalizations and sandbox syllogisms.

If the Bush administration gets its way (a good bet given the unremitting cowardice of congress), we soon will live under a constitutional dictatorship, whose feckless leadership will urge us from one war to the next with the rallying cry, "The only thing to fear is not enough fear."

- Un-PC

[Lower55]

Do you own a gun to feel safe, or because you have the freedom to do so?

[discostu]

Wrong kind of protection. That's on the personal level, good for dealing with criminals. We're talking national hostility here. Yourself and those around you couldn't have done much against the empire of Japan and Nazi Germany. Wouldn't have done much good if things ever got nasty with the USSR. And it didn't help anybody above the impact line in the WTC.

[Lower55]

You have the homosexual line down. The freedom is more important than the safety.

[Steve Eisenberg]

I don't want the government intruding on me.

On the rare occasion where a policeman has knocked on our door, or asked me on the street whether I had seen something, I never considered it an intrusion. I considered it an opportunity to help the officer achieve goals I share with him. I can't quite sympathize with the concern here.

[Ole Okie]

The Department of Defense is the P.C. term for the Department of War...

If George Orwell was alive we would have to shoot him.

This isn't particularly Orwellian.

It was the Defense Department before December '41.

It became the War Department during WWII.

It reverted back to the Defense Department after cessation of hostilities in '46 or '47.

That's my memory of the events, anyhow.

[UnBlinkingEye]

Then never dial 911. Don't stop at red lights.(there for your protection)

Shoot out your street lights. I could go on and on, but I won't...........

Too late, thank you for your earlier comments...

[sinkspur]

And people who want it are more uninteresting still.

Are you talking about me?

With power comes responsibility, and I've got too much of that already.

[VRWC_minion]

No one protects us in a moment of danger but ourselves or those on hand.

Do you really believe that ?

[tanknetter]

The Department of Defense is the P.C. term for the Department of War...

That isn't quite accurate. Up until 1947 there were two separate cabinet-level departments that handled military matters. The Dept. of War was Army (including the Army Air Corp/Air Force) and the Dept of the Navy was, well, Navy (including the USMC and in wartime the Coast Guard).

In 1947 the Depts of War and the Navy were combined into a single entity to form the Department of Defense, with multiple services (each with a "Service Secretary" and "Chief of Staff" [for the USN this was the Chief of Naval Operations]) falling underneath the central authority of the Secretary of Defense (with a "Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as primary military advisor to the President).

As part of this reorganization the Army Air Force (formerly the Army Air Corps) was broken into its own separate service, the US Air Force. While the USMC remained under the Secretary of the Navy, they were given a seat at the table with the Commandant of the Marine Corps being elevated to the same status as the other three services (although there is nothing baring the elevation of the USMC Commandant to the position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, by tradition this does not happen)

[MozarkDawg]

Government by perpetual emergency edicts over never ended crises is not the democratic process in our republic. There's no end in sight!!!

I've seen a list, someone else here may have it or a link handy, but apparently, the Federal Gubmint is right now existing under several different *emergencies* that never got rescinded, recalled, ended, whathaveyou. Some fall under the Executive Order list ... I'm sorry, I wish I had them here at my fingertips to C&P for everyone else to see. I continue to be amazed at just what is totally acceptable when it's *our guy* at the helm ....