Posted on 08/06/2013 6:16:35 AM PDT by libertarian neocon
To call growing concerns about the size, depth, history, ways and operations of our now-huge national-security operation "esoteric" or merely abstract is, simply, absurd. Our federal government is involved in massive data collection that apparently includes a database of almost every phone call made in the U.S. The adequacy of oversight for this system is at best unclear. The courts involved are shadowed in secrecy and controversy. Is it really wrong or foolhardy or unacceptably thoughtful to wonder if the surveillance apparatus is excessive, or will be abused, or will erode, or perhaps in time end, any expectation of communications privacy held by honest citizens?
It is not. These are right and appropriate concerns, very American ones.
...
The concerns of normal Americans about the new world we're entering—the world where Big Brother seems inexorably to be coming to life and we are all, at least potentially Winston Smith—is not only legitimate, it is wise and historically grounded.
...
So Christie is wrong that concerns and reservations about surveillance are the province of intellectuals and theorists—they're not. He's wrong that their concerns are merely abstract—they're concrete. Americans don't want to be listened in to, and they don't want their emails read by strangers, especially the government. His stand isn't even politically shrewd—it needlessly offends sincere skeptics and isn't the position of the majority of his party, I suppose with the exception of big ticket donors in Aspen.
And Christie's argument wasn't even…an argument. It was a manipulation. If you don't see it his way you don't know what 9/11 was—you weren't there, you don't know how people suffered. If you don't see it his way you don't care about the feelings of the widows and orphans.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
For his good and bad traits, Christie is proving to be a typical NY/NJ authoritarian. Like a Bloomberg or any other brand of northeastern official, they know better and welcome the opportunity to ‘take care’ of us, no matter what the infringement of freedom. It’s for our own good, you know.
Peggy Noonan is right. I don’t agree with her much anymore, but she gets a hit with this article.
Christie is ignorant. To think that sweeping up every communication by every American and saving it for later processing is even close to constitutional is what’s ignorant.
Apparently, what Christie needs to do is read the 4th Amendment (the entire Bill of Rights, actually) after taking a reading comprehension course.
Christie’s a whole lotta wrong.
Noonan is missing the more important issue. Christie attacked Rand Paul at the behest of the neocons who are his major donors. The neocons, who favor a very proactive foreign policy are frightened by Paul’s evolving neoisolationism. They fear it is getting traction with hard pressed Americans who are beginning to question the cost of human and material treasure that comes with foreign entanglements. The struggle between the neocons and the neoisolationists for the control of the Republican Party will be a key issue over the next decade.
Noonan = irrelevant
Noonan = irrelevant
“Noonan = irrelevant”
I don’t like Noonan much anymore but I can’t really argue with the logic and reasoning of her piece. Which was outstanding.
“For his good and bad traits, Christie is proving to be a typical NY/NJ authoritarian. Like a Bloomberg or any other brand of northeastern official, they know better and welcome the opportunity to ‘take care’ of us, no matter what the infringement of freedom. It’s for our own good, you know.”
Yup. If Christie turns out to be the GOP nominee in 2016, we’ll once again have a Nixon vs. McGovern type choice in the election. A Christie administration will do nothing to rescue this country from the fiscal destruction to which it is heading.
I think reason and logic went out the window for Noonan when she stated she voted for and supported Obozo in 2008...
People can change their minds, and maybe something has gotten her attention. In any case, we've got to stop shooting people down when they're right just because we didn't like them when they were wrong. No wonder conservatives have so few spokespersons: we destroy our own.
I thought she made another good observation:
[Christie's]comments on surveillance were an appeal only to emotion, not to logic and argument and fact, but emotion. This is increasingly the way politics is done in America now. It’s how they do politics at the White House, where the president usually doesn’t bother to make a case and instead just tries to set a mood.
Good observation about the new politics of manipulation - well, not that new. Every dictator has known how to do it.
“I think reason and logic went out the window for Noonan when she stated she voted for and supported Obozo in 2008...”
Yup. But right now the battle needs to be to keep people like Chris Christie and Jeb Bush (as well as Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan) from becoming the nominee. We need someone who might actually change something if they get elected. So Noonan was on the wrong side recently, I still liked her piece.
It may be time to dust off and paraphrase Gerald Ford's famous saying:
A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to know everything about you.
Noonan is back. She has been on a roll since last October. She accurately gauged the countries attitude, if she misjudged the election.
She has been devastating on ObamaCare this year.
Meh, sorry...not willing to give her a pass. She was wrong then, stabbed those of us who thought she was a comrade in the back when we needed her most...no forgiveness here.
I read her book about being RR’s speech writer and loved it. She really connected. Then 2008 came around and she jumped ship in a big way, all too fast. No conservative compass then...why should I believe her now?
I’m from New Jersey, and I will not support Chris Christie for President after these statements. They show a profound misunderstanding of the relationship between the Citizen and the Government.
Heck, I’m going to be searching around for an alternative so I don’t have to vote for him for NJ Governor in November...
Anybody who swallowed that lure back in 2008 is certainly of questionable intelligence. But an awful lot of people did (present company excluded, of course)
Hence you should be much more suspect of jail house conversions from the likes of Noonan...
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