Free Republic

God bless you, sir. I was beginning to think there was no one left on FR with an independent thought. No offense intended to anyone, honest.

Instead of ad hominems, what about the issue at hand?

Is habeus corpus now dead?

Good to know something like this still elicits a lot of comments. *grin*

Here's what concerned me, taken from the viewpoint of someone who does not at the moment know the political climate as well as I used to... life had other plans for me.

If this had been in place when SAS was born... would I have expected a visit from the FBI? After all, I was a proponent of GUN OWNERSHIP... in the eyes of the liberals, that in and of itself makes me a dangerous threat to this country.

Could we have done what we did? Would it have been possible? Or would we have been a little too cowered by government involvement in our free speech rights?

Me personally... it wouldn't have made a negative impact. At the time, I had a local talk radio program and would have taken to the airwaves about the abuse... not to mention the Freeper network.

But what of some of our coordinators, or volunteers, the people who were the backbone of the SAS experience and rally? What about after the rally, after everything died down, when the national attention was gone but Clinton was not?

What about the whole Election 2000 fiasco? Could I have still stood outside the Leon County Library or the courthouse where international decisions on the election outcome was being held and put on my Darth Vader outfit, and held my sign saying "Keep Counting Until the Dark Side Wins?"

Or would I have been considered... 'dangerous.'

I realize we are in a post 9/11 world. But frankly, that world is no more dangerous now than it was on September 10. If anything the entire country is more alert to the possibilities, and as such we are safer.

We can poo-poo things now, categorize them as acceptable because 'our guy' is in office. But when 'their guy' is in office, the precedent has already been set, the genie is out of the bottle, and we will be unable or unwilling as a nation to try to shove it back in.

Because someone is always considered 'dangerous' by the state. Whether yours or mine, it won't matter. Soon enough, they will come for you and no one will speak up.

They'll be too afraid to do so.

My two cents.

Haven't been here in a while, but am an old-time Freeper, lest those who don't know my background think I'm a troll.

Did a search for this article and didn't find it, and I'm very curious to see what others think about someone the likes of Bob Barr sounding the alarm.

I've ignored a lot of the whining from various quarters over the last few years, even though I have been quite concerned about the Patriot Act et al.

But... hmm... your thoughts?

Thanks!

Hotline
Co-Founder, Second Amendment Sisters
(right here on FreeRepublic, 2000)

Hey, David...you gonna mud-wrestle Scotty Maddox for the position? ;-)

What is the specific source for this statement and how many of the 1.5 million incidents involved the defense of a child?

US Department of Justice during the Clinton years. They probably weren't interested in the safety of the "chillllren" if mom and dad were doing the protecting.

Wow....this was in a newspaper? And they thought Ann Coulter was harsh...go, girl!

ping

And just so we know that not all is lost, there is hope...

Lost Boys graduate
By Tom Pantera
The Forum - 06/02/2002

Like most new high school graduates, Alfred Ngong and Abraham Deng have possibility stretching before them.

Ngong graduates from West Fargo High School today, Deng from Moorhead High School. Both plan to start college in the fall. Ngong will train as a civil engineer at North Dakota State University, and Deng will go to Minnesota State University Moorhead; he hasn’t decided on a career, although he’s considering something in medicine.

They have a whole, big world out there to see. But some would say they’ve already seen too much of it.

The two 19-year-olds are Lost Boys, Sudanese orphans who trekked across two countries ravaged by civil war. They survived by their wits, taking care of each other, and saw friends killed by bullets, floodwaters and wild animals before finally landing in refugee camps.

When they finally were brought to America, many of the Lost Boys were placed with foster families. But Ngong and Deng are unusual even by Lost Boy standards; they came here as legal adults and have lived on their own the whole time with no parents – foster, surrogate or otherwise.

While many a high-school kid dreams of independence, the Lost Boys know the reality.

“It was really hard,” Ngong says. He found a part-time job at Menard’s, but three days a week that meant a full day of school followed by a full evening of work – and that would be followed by homework. He often didn’t get to bed until 3 a.m.

His situation eased a little when an anonymous benefactor started paying his rent. But he still needed wages for bills and food.

For Deng, living on his own was no big deal. “It cannot affect me, because that’s (what) I (was) used to before,” he says. “I started when I was 6 years old. I can stay alone without a father, because I get used to (it).”

Both boys got some education in Africa, but the schools were rudimentary at best. The teachers were poorly trained, supplies were often unavailable and discipline was harsh. “Even if you miss class for a good reason, you get beaten sometimes,” Ngong says.

Still, both hungered for a real education. In fact, Deng was drawn to Moorhead by the quality of the high school.

“Education is the backbone of human life,” he says. “If I don’t go to school, how can I survive? I can work by my hands, manual work, which is not a proper job for me. What will be my future tomorrow? I care about tomorrow, that’s why I go to school.

“I prepare my future now. I don’t want my future to be the way I am now. I want to change that lifestyle.”

Ngong says one of the first things he wanted to do after settling here was continue his education. “I have to do something good, for people I’m living among and for people back home in Africa,” he says.

Entering an American high school took some adjustment, but Ngong kept his perspective. “It was difficult, but it was not as difficult compared to the life I had in Africa,” he says.

It was sometimes hard to hear fellow students air relatively mundane gripes about things like disagreements with parents.

“I sometimes explained to a couple of my friends that you really don’t know how it is like to go without parents and live alone, doing everything alone,” says Ngong, who was orphaned at 4. “I used to tell some of my friends, but not often.”

Deng has had the same kind of conversations.

“I talked to those who are friends to me,” he says. “When they ask me, I’ll talk plain to them and then they can understand where I come from.”

Still, he understands that some of his friends who complain about their parents don’t understand what it’s like to be an orphan.

Betty Reyerson, the ESL teacher at West Fargo High School, says the Lost Boys’ work ethic is “unbelievable. I have never seen Alfred waste five minutes in school. If anything, he gets impatient with kids that waste time.”

And that doesn’t just apply in school. Reyerson, who along with Kathy Scott, a colleague, has become close to Alfred and his two cousins, once had the boys over to do some yard work. They wouldn’t stop for lunch.

“They said it was dishonorable to the family name to be lazy when they worked in refugee camps,” she said.

The Reyersons’ connection with Alfred and the other lost boys has gone far beyond the professional.

“(Today), it will be a wonderful but a hard day for me to see him graduate,” she says.

For all the differences between life back home and life here, Africa is never very far away.

It affected Ngong’s choice of a career, in fact.

He decided to become a civil engineer because he watched some Lost Boys drown as they tried to cross a swollen river to escape pursuing Ethiopian troops.

“If there was a bridge across that river,” he says, his eyes taking on a faraway look, “the kids would have crossed it easily. Maybe I’ll do some construction, where some roads and some things are needed.”

If it sounds like the Lost Boys are all work and no play … well, there’s at least a little bit of truth to that. They don’t talk much about having fun.

“We don’t have fun at all,” Deng says. “We go home and we start (studying). We think that fun is a wasting of time.”

Minnesota has long given immigrants new starts, dating to the 1800s with Germans, Scandinavians and Irish. Eastern Europeans displaced by World War II arrived in the 1940s.

Nothing was "given" to these immigrants...not only was there no welfare state, but in the 1800's there was barely a state at all. These people MADE Minnesota and the surrounding states out of prairie grass and snow drifts. Immigrants today are absolutely blessed.

"Some African-Americans don't accept us as black since they've been in slavery and all," Abu explained.

Ain't that a kick in the head. Shall we talk about current north African slavery?

This all depends on what she really wants to do with it in the real world. All the talk about "this one is better for such-and-such" and "that one sucks" isn't very productive when you can't get or give the file that is required for what you are doing.

I've done graphic design on PC for 12 years in an office environment, as opposed to in a creative industry where "everyone" uses Mac. The files I receive to use in my publications (on two ends of the spectrum) come from computer illiterates who only have MS stuff, or from high-end Mac users who don't believe that PC's actually exist. I get more MS stuff than Mac.

Files I send out, whether for printing, web, or by member request are usually going to someone with MS products on a PC. Outside of print house professionals, These people DON'T want to be bothered with Mac vs. PC conversion, or compatibility problems, or having the right type of formatted disk, or anything else that doesn't involve File/Open... and Print. After a few weeks of 'splaining things to Professionals Who Make Lots of Money and Don't Have Time For Something That's Your Problem, your wife may have second thoughts about whatever it is she's doing.

Print house professionals SHOULD have both operating systems to receive any kind of file, whether it be Pagemaker, Quark, or InDesign (or even Publisher *ick*). If they don't, get another print house.

Bottom line: If she will be dealing with creative Mac-types *exclusively* on all sides, by all means I recommend a Mac. If she's working in a corporate environment where every other machine is a PC...Macs are a hassle, go PC.

I'd be happy to expound further if you have any questions. Good luck!

Anyone who gets 25% of the vote wins, if we go by the history test standards in Palm Beach County.

You sully the good name of Hank Hill!

No really...isn't what he's doing also highly illegal? Don't ATF agents operate stings in gun shows and gun shops trying to get vendors and employees to tell them "how to make a de-milled gun back into an automatic" and then arrest them?

Someone wanna alert the ATF that this guy is showing people how to convert?

It's a shame that the NRA doesn't have the means to terminate the membership of any 'member' who is clearly opposed to the 2nd Amendment and uses that membership simply to add credability for his agenda.

Actually, they do have that means, and have used it many times against one particular anti-gun activist who keeps joining under different names and then using his NRA membership to say "I'm an NRA member and I'm for gun control."

Boom!

Follow the link above to leave your opinion at the Plano Star Courier.

My response (which, by the way "will be visible upon approval by our System Administrator"):

First they came for the sawed off shotguns, but because I wasn't a criminal and my shotgun was 1/4 inch above the legal limit allowed by my government, I said nothing.

Then they came for the machine guns, but because I wasn't a criminal and I held a Class III license, which made my machine gun A-OK by my government, I said nothing.

Then they came for the semi-automatic SKS and AK-47, but because I wasn't a criminal, and I had one that was non-Soviet marked with the original bayonette, and I had another one that didn't come with a bayonette but I had no intention of attaching one, my government allowed me to keep them, and I said nothing.

Then they came for the Saturday Night Specials, but since I wasn't a criminal, and I only purchase high-end collector's firearms and my government had no problem with my interests, I said nothing.

Then they came for the mail order firearms parts, but because I wasn't a criminal, and had no use for scopes, parts kits, or other accessories that I could get through my well-known acquaintances in my own town, and my government allowed that, I said nothing.

Then they came for my collectible WWII-era British Enfield rifles, even though I wasn't a criminal and had no intention of using it in a crime...and there was nothing I could do, and nothing I could say, because there was no one or nothing left to convince my government otherwise.

Total load of hooey.

International homicide comparisons from Guncite.com.

Great place for good information.

Re your post #4, that's not in Miami, that's in the courtyard between the old capitol and the new capitol building. FYI.

Thanks for all your hard work!

Hey....don't I know you...?

Of course sitcom characters are not true to life. What makes something funny is having truth IN the humor.

But it's only a TV show....(get a life?) :-)

imagine how much they love their mom and then double that

Whoa...that's uncanny. That's what my son thinks about his dad....

What's wrong with him?