Posted on 09/11/2002 7:33:04 PM PDT by chunjay
Today's liberals would find a way to stick all the blame on Judah Benjamin.
I'll never forget the vote on Desert Storm. Back then there were liberal radio shows. I think I was listening to one out of WLS in Chicago. The host went absolutely bonkers and started screaming at his callers, even his liberal callers. He was demanding that Bush41 be impeached and brought up on charges, and anyone that didn't fully go along with this he would scream at. He finally quit taking callers and continued to majorly rant for a few more minutes. I never heard him after that. It was a great day for me to finally hear a liberal be so frustrated. I think it was the first time liberals realized that they didn't have a monopoly on public opinion anymore. We had success under Reagan, but I think liberals saw Reagan as a fluke, that he couldn't possibly represent the mindset of the American people. Desert Shield and Desert Storm proved to liberals that their empire was crumbling. That was something that a lot of them couldn't believe or deal with. It had ben 30 years since that kind of feeling would have came over them. It was a great day. :^)
I feel freedoms are God-given and cannot be granted and or taken away at a whim by the government during wartime or otherwise. It's about principle. If you can convince the people that it's ok for the governemnt to suspend rights, then the people get used to the idea and are easier to control and less vocal about the removal of rights in the future. Also, this "war" is significantly different than other wars. Our objective is "general" not definitive and the enemy is not one single nation or state it's a diffuse group of "terrorists". This is the perfect scenario to get the US into a war that lasts indefinitely and thereby suspending the rights of the citizens indefinitely.
I'm not going to call you a statist and I'm not going to quote Franklin at you, but I will say I think you're an unprincipled fool and coward for taking this position. Grab your ankles and let govrnemnt have it's way because some crazies attacked us!? That's just what "they" wanted to happen and we're playing right into their game, perfectly.
Real men stand up for the rights that were granted by a higher authority - God.
You're right. Sorry DW, my sarcasm detector must've been out of commission (late) last night.
So you don't believe in the Constitution?
It's about principle. If you can convince the people that it's ok for the governemnt to suspend rights, then the people get used to the idea and are easier to control and less vocal about the removal of rights in the future. Also, this "war" is significantly different than other wars. Our objective is "general" not definitive and the enemy is not one single nation or state it's a diffuse group of "terrorists". This is the perfect scenario to get the US into a war that lasts indefinitely and thereby suspending the rights of the citizens indefinitely. I'm not going to call you a statist and I'm not going to quote Franklin at you, but I will say I think you're an unprincipled fool and coward for taking this position. Grab your ankles and let govrnemnt have it's way because some crazies attacked us!? That's just what "they" wanted to happen and we're playing right into their game, perfectly. Real men stand up for the rights that were granted by a higher authority - God.
Real men protect their families and the citizens of their nation when a foreign force attacks.
This is the lesson that this stupid liberal author should take to heart, you cannot support the goreing of another's ox, because eventually it will be your ox being gored. You can't disdain the right to bear arms, then cry when you become afraid that your anti-American speech and press risks being limited.
The Constitution NEVER granted or gave a single right. Rights are and have always been since the dawn of creation given of God to man. The Constituion sets up a governemnt that's only aim is the protection of these rights, period. Enumerated rights were specifically placed in the Constitution to make sure that the governemnt wouldn't specifically trample those rights (but it is anyway). The Bill of Rights is not the begining and end of rights in this country, and to suggest so, shows you need to spend a little more time in a history and or philosophy class.
Real men protect their families and the citizens of their nation when a foreign force attacks.
You're right real men protect their families but they do it without dropping their pants and letting the governemnt have its way with their rights. It's about principle. God will judge those who unecessarily (through force or fruad) take away what He has given. What is man compared to God?
Must I put a :-) on even the most obvious sarcasm?
Gee, could he be referring to Jose Padillo the so-called dirty bomber? Well if he is, I have another scary thought for the day. That container ship being held for over 48 hours off the coast of New Jersey. New information released today has it that that ship was flagged because of intelligence received suggesting that a ship matching its description could be carrying nuclear material or a nuclear device into the United States. Special Ops has joined the search of that ship as of today. Now that's scary. We don't need the likes of Padilla walking the streets knowing that he's an al qaeda operative who had intentions of setting off a dirty bomb.
Can you not recognize someone agreeing with your sarcasm? My point was that the US would be justified in summarily executing captured illegal combatants, not just detaining them in somewhat pleasant conditions.
Are you implying that the Bush administration encouraged the 9/11 attacks?? Or are they just opportunists who want to use this an excuse to turn us into a police state??
I'll agree that this war doesn't fit the conventional norms and has the potential for prolonged and unusual abuse of power. I'm not blind to that possibility.
But the very uncertainty as to the real enemy (as opposed to a definable nation and their people) is why we must be concerned with the activities of people within our own borders. The enemy didn't launch missiles from foreign soil. They boarded planes on American soil. I accept that effective deterence to preventing further such events involves surveillance and inspection of people on American soil, unfortunate as that is.
You seem to believe our government salivates at the chance to restrict freedoms and will not release its grip once the threat has been removed. I, using American history as my guide, believe otherwise. If that makes me a coward and a fool, so be it.
I'd rather live in a lawful and secure United States with a temporary suspension of a few rights than to live under the terror or control of an Islamist nation. In my mind, those are the choices. How many more innocent American lives are you willing to sacrifice to insure that more Mohammad Attas can live in complete Constitutional freedom until the moment they choose to take over an aircraft?
The perceived threat of terrorism will never be eliminated. You can't eliminate the threat of an action in the same way you can eliminate the threat of a nation. This is supplying the next Clinton-clone in office with an insanely powerful tool for sanctioned abuse.
How many rights need to be sacrificed until the choices are equivalent? I'd say less than 5... property, bear arms, speech, and assembly ought to do it. Why start down that road? Why conceive of only two options, especially when both would be considered preferable to the status quo by the terrorists who attacked us?
(I just addressed "temporary" above, which is why I deleted it.)
I understand your point but I'm not sure that creating yet another layer of bureaucracy is the best solution for this problem. At the beginning I was but as I read about the legislation that creates the office and what it entails I begin to question what this new office will really be used for. If it just created an office to coordinate activities that would be fine but there is an attendant huge expansion of power that I don't think is justified. Just one example is the 'sneak and peak' where they can search a residence and not tell anybody! In some cases it doesn't even require a warrant. And I have to question the logic of your last statement, if they have always been done, then why do we need a new office with expanded powers?
As it turns out the information that various agencies had about what the terrorists were doing in this country that could have prevented the attacks on Sept.11 wasn't overlooked due to lack of coordination. Important observations were rejected and pigeonholed for politically correct reasons and nothing about the new office would do anything to change that. If anything the experience of many citizens at airports trying to board their flights demonstrates the problem is worse. Magnify the behavior of gate security attendants by the power of the office of Homeland Security and the prospect is fightening.
Historically, every time we rush to institute these kind of changes in response to individual events we fail to forsee the dangers that they pose and the inevitable misuse that that kind of power engenders. What would Nixon have done with such an office? Remember Craig Livingstone and the 500 FBI files in the White House? What do you think was happening there anyway?
We know who the enemy is and we know basically where they are. That every further attempt has been foiled since last year is proof that we already have all the resources needed to protect the nation. And I will say it again, the reason we didn't see what was coming was because the Federal Gov was distracted with that plethora of socialist programs that it shouldn't be focusing on in the first place. We could be doing things NOW that would be far more effective than creating a new bureaucracy. I detailed just some of these in my first post.
I'd be willing to wager that 30 years on down the line our childern will damn us for creating this office just as we now damn our parents and grandparents for 'social security' and an income tax on just the top 1% of the 'wealthy' that has led us into the socialist boondoggle that we face today and is a greater threat to our freedom than the whole Islamic world.
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