Freedom

The Safety Valve ^ | 29 jul 02 | The Safety Valve

[white trash redneck]

Ever since the big crackdown after 9/11, I've gone along with the program. You know, accepted the extra hour at the airport, watched as (seriously) 80-year-old ladies with artificial knees were given the full treatment at the airport. I didn't come out squawking about the various internal security changes in the U.S., although I was not pleased with the PATRIOT Act. After all, we were at war, and you've got to accept some inconveniences. But I was really not very happy about the way things were going, and it took Kim du Toit to make me realize why:

Message to the President: You are sailing into waters where you do not belong. Not that we don't trust you-- it's nothing personal. But we're not going to give any government this much power over our lives-- and this includes you and your successors. You'd have to persuade us that you've done everything, and I include nuking Mecca in the definition of "everything", before I would even think of letting you turn this nation into the totalitarian nightmare of your "Homeland Security" initiatives.

That's it. That is exactly it. It's grandmothers being searched instead of young Arab males. It's British mothers being thrown out of the country while the Saudis get a "visa express." It's us being inconvenienced while bureaucrats stumble around in a PC coma. When the citizens of the U.S. said they supported the War on Terrorism, it's because they thought it would be waged against terrorists, not them.

Kim's right. I will vigorously fight against any restriction or violation of my rights under the Constitution and Bill of Rights as a U.S. citizen until all possible alternatives have been exhausted. And even then, it'll be temporary and extremely grudging. During WW2 Americans accepted rationing and other inconveniences, and if necessary we can do the same this time. But we want to see that we're sacrificing for a reason. So you want to mess with my rights, FBI? Let's see a real housecleaning over there, with people fired and the gangrenous flesh of your bloated, ass-covering bureaucracy hacked away. When you're a tight, professional, productive organization with some real results to show us, maybe we'll trust you with a bit more power. Right now I think you probably need less.

And that goes for the rest of "Homeland Security," too. First, get your act in order. Fire the incompetent and the deadwood (that would solve any budget problems you claim to have, as well). Quit doing dumbass shit like rejecting Arabic languages experts you desperately need, just because they smoked some weed back in the sixties. Try, for god's sake, to run your organizations with at least 1/10th the efficiency of the average Subway franchise.
Second, let's see some truly suspicious folks take some heat before you ask us to get cavity searched. That's not "racial profiling" - that's police work. Let's see some mass deportations of illegal aliens and our borders closed to "visitors" from known terror states before you have the meter reader looking in my windows.
Third, before you get any expanded powers, show us you can use those you already have without screwing up. Accusing some guy who waved a gun around at a party of making "terroristic threats" doesn't fill us with confidence. We get this feeling you may decide it's too hard to go after real terrorists, so let's go arrest that guy down the street who said cranky things about the government.

We are not the enemy, and we don't like being treated like the enemy while the real enemy walks free.

Find out just what the People will submit to and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.
--Frederick Douglass

[white trash redneck]

I don't usually like to post from blogs, but this was so good...

[Auntie Mame]

You're right, this is so good.

[fporretto]

Someone very smart once said that, before you throw your support to a law, you should try to imagine how it would be enforced by your worst enemy. The folks who are enthusiastic about the broadening of surveillance and search powers the federal government has demanded should give that maxim some thought.

Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit The Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com

[robowombat]

Yes the rats do think that the average American is the enemy. Addicted to private choice on using his/her automobile, owning guns, having chauvinistic attiudes, infected with homophobia, sexism, and racism rank and file Americans have to be regimented and disciplined for their own good and the good of "the children and the environment".
The powers in the "Patriot" Act and homeland defense initiatives will provide the scaffolding to a pc police state.

[FreeTally]

Agreed, wait until the Democrats get their hands on these powers...

The "Democrats" already have their hands on these powers. Please, stop thinking of it as "Republicans" and "Democrats", its the GOVERNMENT, period! These laws weren't rammed through for our good, they were rammed through for the good of an ever growing, tyranic government. Democrats do not operate independently of Republicans. They both make up the government and protect their own.

[weikel]

I agree why give up our freedom when its easier to just destroy Islam entirely.

[weikel]

There was a time I would have disagreed but I agree now.

[newgeezer]

blogs

Too bad said blog went to such lengths (and language) to cement his blog-osity in this reader's mind. Frankly, rants like this one cause me to re-think my own criticism of the administration, lest I appear to have too much in common with the writer.

[GmbyMan]

>>> Democrats do not operate independently of Republicans. They both make up the government and protect their own. <<<

Forgive me, but aren't the following things true:

1)We are in a war.
2)The Patriot act gives the vast majority of it's power to intelligence and surveillance agencies such as the CIA and the FBI.
3)What, exactly, will agencies such as Dep of Int, Dep of HHS, Dept of HUD, etc.... get out of the Patriot Act.

Do we really have a problem with the FBI gaining more power than they had already? Really? Perhaps, I'm missing something, does the Patriot Act expand Medicare somehow?

[FreeTally]

Forgive me, but aren't the following things true:

1)We are in a war.

No, we are not - no matter what you want to think.

2)The Patriot act gives the vast majority of it's power to intelligence and surveillance agencies such as the CIA and the FBI.

Probably, and this is not a good thing.

3)What, exactly, will agencies such as Dep of Int, Dep of HHS, Dept of HUD, etc.... get out of the Patriot Act.

Only time will tell.

Do we really have a problem with the FBI gaining more power than they had already? Really? Perhaps, I'm missing something, does the Patriot Act expand Medicare somehow?

This "we" has a problem giving the "government" more power over anything. Its time it is stripped of the majority of its powers.

[Eagle Eye]

We are in a war.

A very convenient excuse for everything the government and it's lapdogs want nowadays.

We've already seen that those powers WILL be used against citizens. First it is those that are probably guilty, undoubtedly unpopular. Next it is those that are possibly guilty. Then who knows. As long as "We are in a war", who can stop anything that the government wants? By the time that the average Joe notices that his personal freedoms are gone, it is too late. Lok at what the jpublic swallows now.

Those who said that military triibunals etc wouldn't be used against citizens were wrong within months.

[GmbyMan]

Out of curiosity, what proof do you have that we are "not" in a war? The 3,000 dead bodies at the former WTC or the 500 or so dead bodies at other places across the country (Pennsylvania and the Pentagon). Perhaps the 30 or so Navy soldiers on the USS Cole helps. Maybe the 300+ people at our US Embassies will show you, no? The 19 soldiers murdered in Mogadishu in 1993? The original attack on the WTC? How about the fact that Osama Bin Laden has declared war on us? No? Perhaps the fact that there are hundreds of young men and women in Afghanistan right now?

If the FBI and the CIA had more power prior to 9/11, they may have been able to thwart that terrorist attack.

There are portions of the government which need to stay large. The government should fully fund our military and security agencies before spending a dime on so called "social" programs.

I could be wrong, but I think the Patriot act does more to protect our freedoms than it does to remove them. When there are Jihadi maniacs plotting to detonate nuclear devices in downtown Los Angeles, perhaps it's time to consider giving the people who may be able to stop them more power. No?

[Gig]

You said "If the FBI and the CIA had more power prior to 9/11, they may have been able to thwart that terrorist attack."

May I suggest that the two agencies you name have not used their resources wisely? If you spent some serious time investigating these two organizations, I feel confident you would be amazed at the amount of waste and the number of stupid decisions that have been made, all in the name of career enhancement.

Most of the people in the trenches are probably decent, hard-working Americans who love their country. But the polical leadership seems to always be willing to sacrifice anything to further their own power. So decisions are made that are bad for our country but good for the decision-maker's career.

The politicians and beaurocrats have enough power. Don't give them any more!

[GmbyMan]

>>> The politicians and beaurocrats have enough power. Don't give them any more! <<<<

Look. What are we talking about here? The goal which the CIA and the FBI have is a worthy goal and it can only be accomplished (or at least partly accomplished) with government involvement.

Here's what I mean. The intelligence community's main job is to keep the country secure. This can be done with the help of non-governmental agencies but not with the government agecies themselves in place.

OTOH, the goal of welfare is to "defeat poverty." This is also a worthy goal but the real work in this regard is being done by private agencies and state agencies. The federal government does more harm than good in this endeavor.

We need the FBI/CIA to be strong, just as we need a strong military. I believe that the military, just as the intelligence community, is in a rather large morass of beareaucratic syrup. Nevertheless, we need to fully fund it because it's job can't be done by anyone else and what they do do well is positive.

In order to stop Al-Quada and others who wish to kill us, we need to have a more powerful intelligence gathering operation. How should we do that if we choose not to empower the FBI/CIA/NSA/MI?

[SteamshipTime]

You hypothesize that the government consists of "good," efficient and effective elements (the military, intelligence community, law enforcement, etc.) and "bad," inefficient and ineffective elements (HUD, Social Security, the Smithsonian, etc.). The truth is that all elements of government operate solely from non-economic, bureaucratic incentives, which is why it has cost us a billion dollars a month to put 6,000 troops on the ground to chase a few ragheads.

What basis do you have for thinking that the FBI/CIA/NSA will do better with more money and more authority? Not one government employee has lost their job nor has one government bureaucrat questioned any of the policies that contributed to or facilitated the 9/11 attacks. George Tenet, a Clinton appointee who has been party to numerous intelligence failures (bombing an aspirin factory in Sudan, the attacks on the USS Cole, the utter failure to focus on domestic Islamic terror cells, even after the 1993 WTC attack) is still on the job with the complete support of his new boss: Republican George W. Bush.

Every obvious solution, from a national must-issue CCW law to exercising a minimum of discretion in whom we allow free to roam our country to maintaining strict neutrality in foreign wars, has been rejected. Your belief that more money and more authority will make a difference beyond the hundreds of billions spent on defense and intelligence every year is unfounded.