Ann Coulter: BUSH PAYS HOMAGE TO THE FETISHISTIC RITUALS OF LIBERALISM

Interrupting the endless 30-year Watergate retrospective and getting back to the war for a moment, I've noticed that liberals are having trouble making any good arguments against Bush, so I thought I'd help them out this week.

In the third presidential debate, George Bush responded to a question about racial profiling by spontaneously denouncing the profiling of Arabs at airports: "Arab Americans are racially profiled ... people are stopped, and we've got to do something about that."

Admittedly, this was before Sept. 11. If Arabs were being stopped at airports before Sept. 11 -- and that's a big if -- that was probably wrong. There had been only one terrorist attack here in America by Arabs -- the bomb at the World Trade Center in 1993. (This is excluding Sirhan Sirhan, the first Muslim to bring the classic religion-of-peace protest to American shores, when, in support of the Palestinians, he assassinated Robert Kennedy.)

But now it's after Sept. 11, we're at war, and Bush is still vexed about profiling Arabs.

Last week, Bush's Department of Transportation required airport security to search former Vice President Al Gore ( news - web sites). There's a lot not to like about Al Gore, but he's not a terrorist. Gore said he was glad he was searched. Why? So that a potential terrorist could be spared the trouble?

Searching Al Gore is a purely religious act. It is the purposeless, fetishistic performance of rituals in accordance with the civic religion of liberalism.

It's not just Bush's Department of Transportation swearing fealty to the left's civic religion. A few weeks ago, FBI ( news - web sites) Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee ( news - web sites) that "immediately after Sept. 11" when the FBI was trying to stop "a second wave of terrorists out there," FBI policy was this: "We were not looking for individuals of any particular religion or from any particular country."

Evidently, the only people the Bush administration thinks it appropriate to search are angry men with smoke pouring out of their trousers.

Fortunately, Fitzpatrick and O'Malley out on the street appear to have had a different idea about whom to roust after Sept. 11. If not, then valiant and hardworking FBI agents are to be commended for their rapid surveillance of 280 million Americans -- cheerleaders, dentists, nursing home residents, Amish, performance artists, professional baseball players and so on -- before settling on about a thousand Muslim men to detain.

If it weren't a laughable lie, Mueller should be fired for demanding that FBI agents chastely ignore religion and nationality when investigating terrorism.

But instead of calling for Mueller's head, Democrats on the committee demanded that Mueller issue yet more ritualistic professions of faith in liberalism's civic religion. Only a religious cult would require people to appear before committees and say things that are demonstrably false.

Mueller dutifully complied, repeatedly assuring the assembled clergy that "The bureau is against -- has been and will be against -- any form of profiling." He said the new guidelines do not address "members of a particular group and not members of a particular political persuasion or anything along those lines."

In his inimitable Stalinist way, Sen. Russell Feingold demanded that no one at the FBI even consider whether racial profiling might have prevented 9/11. Liberals treat racial profiling like the Victorians treated sex. It is not a topic that may be discussed, except to recoil in horror at the practice.

Feingold said he was "very troubled" at seeing government officials "quoted in the press saying that they believe concerns of being accused of racial profiling led the FBI to not act on the Phoenix memo."

The Phoenix memo was the one noting that a lot of Middle Eastern men were enrolled in American flight schools. Inasmuch as all of the leaders of the terrorist attack were Arabs in American flight schools, it's not crazy to think that an aggressive investigation of Arabs in American flight schools might have thwarted the attack.

When Mueller came back with some flaccid response, saying he had heard an "indication" of "a possible concern" about racial profiling, Feingold imperiously informed the director: "I was hoping for a different answer." Not the truth -- just a different answer. The only thing he left out was "Comrade."

Muslim terrorists are trying to nuke Manhattan, and the Senate is conducting Soviet show trials on whether anyone at the FBI is wistfully daydreaming about racial profiling.

Relentlessly pursuing incipient thought crimes at the FBI, Feingold pronounced it "a distortion" to suggest that acting on the Phoenix memo would have constituted racial profiling. The memo, he said, "contained specific information about specific individuals."

The specific information was this: A lot of Middle Eastern men were attending American flight schools. Excising the portion of that statement that liberals refuse to consider -- Middle Eastern men -- the only "specific information" is: "People were attending flight schools."

These are the lunatics the Bush administration is hoping to propitiate by refusing to engage in racial profiling. If an attack comes, I assure you: No one will be praising Bush for abiding by the rules of the cult and carefully searching Al Gore.

From here

To: The_Media_never_lie

Airport screening, more accurately search and seizures, is a hugh constitutional question.
Our federal government claims legislative jurisdiction over the airlines private property via Article I, Section 8, Clause 3, commonly known as the "commerce clause."
Thus our federal government, through a federal agency called the FAA, in the early 1970's, mandates that airline customer's, private citizens, be searched, without affirmed probable cause, before boarding aircrafts.
Even though our federal government may have legislative jurisdiction to "regulate commerce...among the states," these regulations still have to conform to the right's protections contained in the Bill of Rights.
Since the original FAA search mandate violated both the 4th amendment and the 5th amendment (nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation), our federal government made sure that it was the airlines that hired their own personnel to search their customers or contracted with a private security firm to perform the searches and seizures, to give the appearance of not violating the 4th amendment.
I do not believe the 5th amendment violation was ever rectified. Though I seem to remember an additional tax being assessed to airline tickets for financing security measures.
In addition, our 2nd amendment right was violated by our federal government, through this same FAA agency, prohibiting citizens from bearing an arm on an aircraft.
This violation has never been rectified.
This cozy arrangment lasted for almost 30 years until 9/11.
Now our federal government is not even trying to remotely disguise the constitutional violations of recently passed airport search and seizure legislation and regulations.
Mandating the use of "federalized" screeners, for search and seizures of airline passengers, blantantly violates the 4th amendment. (the ACLU refused by request to file an injunction in federal court to stop the implementation of this unconstitutional law--hypocrites)
Requiring the airlines to purchase new and expensive baggage screening equipment, as well as mandating that the airlines increase the salaries of "federalized" airline passenger screeners, is a 5th amendment violation to the property rights of the airline stockholders.
Now add in this new controversy about "racial profiling," and a new constitutional question and violation comes into the picture.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act has been unconstitutionally applied to private property owners via the jursidiction of both the 14th amendment and the Art I, Sec 8, Cl 3.
However, the Civil Rights Act violates the 9th amendment because private property owners have the right to refuse to offer their products and services to any one, for any reason.
So ultimately, it is we the taxpayers who should be held financially and morally responsible for the loss of property and life from the 9/11 attacks because it is due to our governments unconstitutional actions that constibuted to the vunerability of an aircraft being hijacked for terrorist purposes.
The 1st amendment guarantees the right of all citizens to the "...redress of grievances..."

11 posted on 6/5/02 9:10 AM Eastern by tahiti
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies | Report Abuse ]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.