Forward, Young Pioneers!
Posted on 11/14/2002 3:44:40 PM PST by Arthur Wildfire! March
William Safire's editorial today is heating up an important debate. There are two camps: "This is war." vs. "This is Orwellian." I want to open a third camp. "This is ridiculous."
Our borders are wide open. Terrorists could blindside us at will. The foreign threats are much greater than the domestic threats in this war of terrorism. So naturally, we do NOTHING about that. Instead, we strip away our privacies. Sorry. That doesn't fly. If it were truly important to take away our privacy, the borders would have been secured a year ago.
It appears that it is easier to ask us to live in fish bowls than to tell illegal immigrants that we cannot afford to have such loose border control anymore. It appears to be a political calculation. Does that not reduce the lost privacy aspect to nothing but political calculations? Which is more important? Our safety? Or as Dick Morris says it, the 'browning of America'? But hey, the 'browning of America' ends when the borders are secure. Thus, the ridiculousness aspect only grows.
GW Bush is well intentioned, I'm sure. But his political calculations reveal that taking away our privacy can't be all that important, if he isn't willing to tick off parts of the Hispanic community by securing our borders.
This is my suggestion, for what it's worth:
1. First seal the borders.
2. Mention a timeline for this lost privacy. No 'continuation triggers' either. Settle for 4 years of this lost privacy. Then destroy the data of all non-suspects. Only keep data of suspects that is deemed worth keeping by a warrant.
3. Non-citizens can be monitored and that info can be filed at will. Americans generally would like that idea.
4. Put someone in charge other than Poindexter. Why give ammo to the desperate DNC? It makes no sense.
If GW fails to heed this advice, I forsee political havoc. And I will be a part of it.
And over the last couple of days on FR, it's been called bogus. I've seen at least four different threads on this, and some of the comments on those threads say Safire is all wet.
Our cities are over crowded, our highways and freeways are jammed, most all of our schools are over crowded, our social services are being choked off, our jails and land fills are full, our energy resources are being strained, jobs are being lost.......while our so called leaders and politicians stand in stone cold silence in the face of this titanic immigration "free for all".
Two years from now, people will be well conditioned and ignore the fact their every breath and keystroke is being monitored "for our own safety."
And why would you get so foamy about something you read in a newspaper column, without reading the bill for yourself or looking for the otherside of the argument?
1. First seal the borders. Isolationism never works.
2. Mention a timeline for this lost privacy. Let's not bury our head in the sand and hope they don't hit us again just because we feel a little nervous/worried when downloading pron. This requires sacrifice from all. Compared to what Lisa Beemers husband sacrificed, I don't mind my packets being sniffed.
3. Non-citizens can be monitored. From terrorist nations? AGREED.
They already made that joke when Buchanan suggested a wall on the Mexico border. Guess what? They tried walls in some parts already.
I no longer find humor in the fact that year in, year out, decade in, decade out our elected officals run this country further and further into the abyss. Can they all be ignorant, or is the payoff(s) just too tempting to resist?
Forward, Young Pioneers!
Questioning Bush's two-fisted Hitlerian dictatorship is grounds for dismissal around here.
Like I wrote earlier, the data base on foreigners can remain. Rather than track citizens forever, we track foreign students/etc. forever.
And why would you get so foamy about something you read in a newspaper column, without reading the bill for yourself or looking for the otherside of the argument?
If you got the facts, please lay them out. Safire would not write an editorial like this, IMHO, if there was a chance it would backfire on him. I don't think he's eager to get drummed out of the political scene.
GW Bush, on the other hand, wants to keep us safe. I believe that. And like all good, effective presidents who see potential dangers, he wants to increase his power. It is only natural. But the long term consequences could be severe.
Oh and BTW, they already have Orwellian survelliance, such as Echelon. Half of what Safire wrote is already going on even before GW. Did they ever shut down Carnivore?
Maybe I'm a barometer.
I don't think you understand the Code here very well. Personal privacy is a conservative goal. That is one reason why so many here support the national sales tax, so the IRS could be abolished. If I were to post nonsense about GW being 'the sniper' or something, I would hope they banned me.
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