Posted on 11/24/2001 4:26:19 AM PST by Ada Coddington
What You Should Really Fear
by Brad Edmonds
The Patriot Bill, H.R. 3162, does many awful things. It expands government, both in power and in funding requirements. In creating new funding requirements, it promises to help eat up any future federal budget "surpluses" that might have resulted in tax cuts for you. It reduces your rights and your privacy, handing over more of both to the government. It further inures an already docile, naïve, unambitious, and ignorant population to Big Brotherly central-governmental intrusiveness and domination.
But it would be easy to make the case that nearly every document produced by Congress does all of that.
The Patriot Bill makes it easier for your government to interfere with financial institutions, both in the US and overseas. A little suspicion of terrorism, however established, has your government freezing accounts, tracing transactions, and threatening banks.
But the government has been doing all of that already, in waging the War on Drugs.
The Patriot Bill ridiculously condemns discrimination against Arab and Muslim Americans; but we’ve already been force-fed multiculturalism until we’re ready to vomit.
The bill increases, or makes easier to apply, all sorts of penalties for behavior that was already illegal, such as "money laundering." The bill makes it easier for various law enforcement bodies at different levels to cooperate with each other, further centralizing the aiming of our own government’s guns at us; and it makes it easier to use DNA evidence against terrorists and "other violent criminals" (and you thought it was just an anti-terrorism bill).
But the government has had the power to pursue lawbreakers for as long as there’s been a government.
The Patriot Bill, for the most part, merely makes it easier for the government to go on doing the things it’s been doing – mainly taking more freedom and property from us while giving more power to itself – since Thomas Jefferson took office and immediately commenced violating the Constitution and good judgment.
You should always be afraid of new legislation. Lovers of freedom have long recognized that the creeping expansion of government is a hazard. For the most part, this bill is merely another incremental expansion of government. The real threat from this bill is not the new provisions, procedures, funding, and penalties – these are more of the same old things we’ve been fighting, and must continue fighting. No, the real threat from H.R. 3162 is the new set of definitions.
When you increase the ease with which government can pursue criminals, you expand government incrementally, and you threaten primarily people who already knew they were criminals. It is an entirely different matter to change the definition of "criminal," however, and this insane bill makes the definition so broad the government can engineer a case against any citizen.
The Patriot Bill expands the definition of "domestic terrorist" so much that it includes virtually all of us. H.R. 3162 defines as a domestic terrorist anyone who appears to intend to change government policy through intimidation (and intimidation is not defined, so the term easily could be used in court to include protest activities the Constitution was intended to protect). Your infraction doesn’t even have to be intentional; it just has to appear so. The wording of H.R. 3162 has other absurd implications, such as: If you accidentally destroy a railroad-crossing signal with your car, all a lawyer has to do is convince a judge or jury that you did it willfully, and you’re a domestic terrorist. Does anyone believe a crooked sheriff wouldn’t jump on the opportunity to use such a provision against a political rival?
George Orwell proposed, in 1984, that a powerful tool for government control of a populace was control over their vocabulary. Over time, by removing certain words from the language, the government might minimize subversive thoughts – you can’t think about freedom if you’ve never encountered the concept. In reality, it’s impossible for a government to remove words from a language; in fact, our government has found an even more effective device: They’ve invented new definitions of words to the extent that anyone, with the possible exception of submissive, freedom-hating couch potatoes, can be accused of domestic terrorism, and taken away at gunpoint.
Anyone who’s been thinking that the erosion of civil liberties following 9/11 would be minimal, justified, nonintrusive, nonthreatening, or would contribute to the security of American civilians, should have known better. More to the crux of the matter, the next time you examine a new piece of legislation, just skim the parts that outline new procedures, funding, and government powers – you know what’s there without looking. Instead, put your primary focus on new definitions. The devil’s in the definitions.
November 24, 2001
Brad Edmonds, MS in Industrial Psychology, Doctor of Musical Arts, is a banker in Alabama.
However, as this article cautions, his legacy could turn out to be the antithesis of what we hope and expect.
If G. W. Bush is a great man--if he is Mount Rushmore material--he will dispatch America's external enemies forthwith--and then direct his attention to America's internal enemies.
This could well mean the revocation of the Patriot Bill and its provisions--as a starter.
The threat from within is a far greater danger to the United States, to liberty, and to the people of the world, than is the threat from without.
The war on terrorism is childs play compared to the real challenge--the threat from WITHIN.
Americans must insist that George W. Bush understand this.
And Americans must assure that George W. Bush rises to the real challenge.
I may be the victim of a delusion.
I hope not.
Nothing is more dangerous than self-deception.
I have been disillusioned before--many times. I have shown good judgment and bad judgment. Generally speaking, my judgment has proven sound.
Time will tell.
This is could well be the most dangerous time in American history--more dangerous than the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, or World War II.
Americans must be extremely cautious and extremely vigilant! We are all in danger--from without--and from within.
Yes.
I am not one of them.
We need leaders, and George Bush is a good one. We also need to keep them on a tight rein--even...no, especially--the best of them.
That's what I advocate: keep them on a tight rein and watch them like a hawk.
In other words: "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
We need to make sure that the meanest alligators snapping at his ass are We, The People--and that We make damn sure he drains the swamp!
And who's the man for that job?
"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it."-G.W. Bush
...and let's not forget this one:
"We can support our troops and not support our president."-Trent Lott
You sir, or madam, as the case may be, have hit the proverbial nail squarely on it's head. We the people have no one to blame but ourselves. The power-hungry politicians are just doing what comes naturally to would-be tyrants. It's in their nature, they are no more to blame for the mess we're in than the rabid dog is to blame for biting you. They will go just as far as the people will allow them to go, and the people are urging them to go even farther every day. The people who want to be cared for by an omnipotent government are now in the majority and have been for the last 7 decades. It isn't going to get any better.
it will be used for other criminal activities
nobody has put forth a credible alternative that would protect us from terrorists
while i strongly oppose pornography and misdemeanor drug violations, i would hate to see this law used in investigations of this sort sometime in the future. our government continues to grow and usurps resources from us to keep us safe from others, and from ourselves. don't laugh, the politically correct movement is really an extension of this.
i propose that we let this bill alone. but we limit the taxing and spending that the government can do and we insist on a balanced budget -- constitutionally. limiting taxing must be a significant reduction -- not a slowing in the rate of growth.
politicians are not stupid. if we provide them with the groundrules, they will figure out how to protect us as efficiently as possible (with as little money as a beaurocracy can do). they simply will not be able to spend the money to extend this bill to cover other criminal investigations.
it all comes down to money -- not because we are greedy, but because it represents what resources we have. let's force the government into more of a business decision making mode and less into an ideological warfare campaign.
This gives them plausable deniability, while, at the same time, giving them exactly what they most desire.....more power with which to rule/control the peasants.
Some people (well, not people n this website, but think in terms of the Socialist Liberal Left Wing) would say "Right Wing Fundamentalist Christian Militia Types".
And therein lies the danger. The opinions of those who are going to be enforcing the law may differ from what you and I think the intended targets should be...
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If G. W. Bush is a great man--if he is Mount Rushmore material--he will dispatch America's external enemies forthwith--and then direct his attention to America's internal enemies.
This could well mean the revocation of the Patriot Bill and its provisions--as a starter.
The threat from within is a far greater danger to the United States, to liberty, and to the people of the world, than is the threat from without.
The war on terrorism is childs play compared to the real challenge--the threat from WITHIN.
Americans must insist that George W. Bush understand this.
And Americans must assure that George W. Bush rises to the real challenge.
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