Posted on 09/24/2001 4:24:58 PM PDT by Rebeckie
Unfree Republic
by Jeff Elkins
Let the stench of Middle East flesh reach Paradise reassuring them that these filth have gone to hell permanently."
The quote above is representative of many posted on the FreeRepublic.com site in the wake of the WTC attack, and unfortunately its like is not uncommon elsewhere. Americans are angry, predictably and rightly so, but just as predictable are the side effects. As always, that righteous anger will be accepted as a beloved gift by the state and molded into tools of oppression.
It’s funny how that works. Every single state-sponsored war the US has become embroiled in has resulted in an inexorable increase in the power of the state.
It’s also funny that it’s always assumed that human behavior in the past has no relation to how we behave today. Why those people were old-fashioned, we’re modern, educated, etc.
The beginning of this repeating pattern has already become public with the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security. It has an ominous sound, that name, almost Germanic. (I can’t wait to see the uniforms.)
On April 13, 1917, days after our entry into World War One, President Wilson created the Committee on Public Information to promote the war domestically while publicizing American war aims abroad. Bush has replicated that step, with this new cabinet-level department.
Under the leadership of journalistic muckraker George Creel, the CPI was a propaganda apparatus unparalleled at that point in world history. The CPI functioned as a de facto public censor, vetting nearly all published material about the war and helping to draft legislation such as the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. In the months prior to our entry into the war and especially after our entry when they were nearly criminal, antiwar viewpoints were rarely heard.
The same pattern emerges now: Penn. Gov. Tom Ridge will be President Bush’s George Creel, and just as in those dim days of yesteryear, he’ll have plenty of willing civilian accomplices. And after all, there’s so much more to censor -- Ridge will need all the help he can get. In seeking warriors for the front line of Internet censorship, Ridge needs look no farther than FreeRepublic.com. The atmosphere there is now poisonous.
Again, look back to Wilson's CPI. It encouraged businesses to spy on their employees, parents to spy on their children, children to spy on their parents, neighbors to spy on neighbors, and above all to report "disloyal," pro-German sentiments. State authorities banned the teaching of German in schools and changed German street names. As the madness mounted, those regarded as pro-German were hounded from their jobs, pressured to change their German names, beaten, and in a few cases lynched. Almost all cases of violence, while incited by the state, were carried out by "civilians" in the grip of war hysteria.
Along with this anti-German hysteria, Congress passed several measures designed to rigidly suppress criticism of the war. In particular, the Espionage Act, passed in June 1917, specified a fine of $10,000 or twenty years in prison for "whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States, and whoever, when the United States is at war, shall willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States, or the military or naval forces of the United States, or the flag."
The Espionage Act was very popular in its day. It was cheered on by mindless lemmings under the influence of state propaganda. Their great grandchildren now inhabit FreeRepublic.com, viciously attacking anyone who questions the wisdom of the state.
Our Congress is considering similar measures under the rubric of "anti-terrorism," and as it was at the beginning of the 20th Century, the FreeRepublic lemmings of the 21st are cheering the morally corrupt politicians along.
It’s not just message posters on the site. The management of FreeRepublic has instituted a "loose lips sink ships" campaign, with new moderators patrolling the forum to delete posts that in their opinion are detrimental to the "war effort."
The FreeRepublic mission statement claims "We're working to roll back decades of governmental largesse, to root out political fraud and corruption, and to champion causes which further conservatism in America."
Sanctimonious hogwash. Everything old is new again – the keyboard warriors of FreeRepublic would be right at home in 1917 shilling for Wilson.
September 24, 2001
It is necessary to: Set up the internment camps.
It is necessary to: Print the Government ID cards.
It is necessary to: Put the picture recognition software on every street in America.
It is necessary to: Make it easier to wiretap everyone.
It is necessary to: Get Carnivore up and running at 110 percent.
It is necessary to: To know and control everything about everyone to keep everyone safe from "THE ENIMEY"
Don't be fools and give away our God given rights as proclaimed by the Constitution
Remember, it's as true now as it was then.
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human liberty; it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves." -- William Pitt
I understand that we really need to take the evil bastards out that caused the terror of 9/11. I also understand that not thinking through exactly how we're going to do this could very well lead to the deaths of 100's of 1000's of innocents across the board. I understand that many of these dead innocents may very well end up buried under huge piles of rubble in our major cities if the correct steps aren't taken to weed out the evil bastards that caused the terror of 9/11. I understand that it is my duty and right as an American citizen to educate myself to facts of America's foreign policy and speak my mind if I see our government either preparing for or taking actions that I deem as irresponsible, immoral, or just plain stupid.
Our ultimate goal should be peace and I mean peace for all the citizens of this planet. Up to 9/11 I really don't believe our foreign policy gave a flying rat's butt about peace. On the contrary, I saw America's foreign policy making stupid mistakes that only encouraged a terrorist attack against us. I spoke out against these policies prior to 9/11 and I will continue to speak out against these policies as long as I see them continue.
Below our a few quotes from me from another thread.
Huddling behind the flag and disengaging with the process of being an American at such an important crossroads in our history makes absolutely no sense. Unfortunatly many are now using the current crisis to muzzle those that are opposed to the way they think. This blatant opportunism is disgusting. I've been speaking out against the terrorism that America has inflicted against other countries in the world since 1993 and I've been warning against this terrorism being revisited against us. While the globalists continued tossing their bombs whenever they felt the itch or a need to get a bump in their polls I spoke up and warned that what goes around, comes around. Just 3 weeks prior to 9/11 I was telling my boss that the people of this country have no idea what kind of terror America unleashes against others in its name. I told him that we live in Disneyland and Americans won't wake up to what the evils of globalism will bring until some terrorist unleashes some horrible attack against us. I even brought up the first bombing of the WTC and said that that was nothing. The next time we won't be so lucky and they'll succeed in killing thousands of us. Well they have. I was right and I'm not about to be quiet about it as we potentially continue down that same road to ruin.
.....
Actually Bin Laden hates us because we're occupying his precious Saudi Arabia. I suppose it's sort of how many of us would feel about the Chinese if they occupied our Pacific Northwest. Maybe I'm wrong but I think many Americans wouldn't be too happy if there were Chinese forces our on land.
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It takes our occupation of their land to stir that kind of hatred. Again, imagine how we would react to having the Chinese occupying our Pacific Northwest. Sure many of us may despise Communist China and its Godlessness and lack of freedom, but none of us want to see their people killed. Now imagine how many terrorist attacks would be made on Chinese targets by American fringe groups that formed out of our hate for the fact that the Chinese have invaded our precious United States of America and now occupy a large section of it.
Consider the apology graciously accepted. I too should apologize for playing the urban vs. rural card. That was a cheap shot and I'm sorry for it. I think I just lost my patience because so many people from Texas and Idaho were telling me that I was a traitor and should move out of the country or be placed in an internment camp because I wasn't being blood thirsty enough on other threads.
I'll end this post with a quote from another thread on just what I believe we should do to resolve this mess. I believe it would be a real stretch to call my views "pacifist". That being said, I will still defend anybody's right to either say "Give peace a chance" or "Nuke 'em all the diaper heads back to the stone age".
My opinion on how to deal with the horrible pain that has been inflicted on us is very similar to how Michael Corleone took care of his enemies at the end of the 1st Godfather movie. Take out the heads of the 5 families.
I think we should kick our intelligence into overdrive (it seems like we're doing a pretty good job of that right now) and make a list of all the major players that are behind this evil Islamic terrorism. We should then eliminate their presence from the face of the Earth. We need to be very careful in just how we do this though because once we've eliminated these enemies, we must then "make the peace". If we take out too many innocents we're just going to make a new puddle in which more terrorists larvae will be hatched with enough inertia behind it to cause more heartache and tears shed by us.
Our ultimate goal should be peace and this peace should not be felt just by us Americans but also by the neighbors and countrymen of the nations that these terrorists sprang forth from or the cycle will continue.
Last time it was bringing airplanes down and killing over 6000 people with the equivilant of pointed sticks and boxes of Cheerios strapped to their cheasts. The next time they may hit us with biological warfare or low grade nukes in a few of our major cities. Let's not end up like Sonny "They hit us so we hit them back" Corleone. Let's be reasonable about this like Michael was. I'd rather die of old age sitting in my lawnchair in my backyard then be gunned down on the causeway during some blood soaked cycle of violence.
Absolutely. The popular here at FR anyway seems to be "nuke them" which is just as wrong as the left's "Yankee go home".
I noticed that the author is not Lew Rockwell, belatedly, and stand corrected. However I also read Lew's piece, and it is was of Blame America First variety as well.
All that idiocy comes from self-described libertarians who don't understand libertarianism. Apparently, Harry Browne is in that category.
Defense of Liberty, for your comments.
Ditto....Yawn
"You are a moron." -- CWOJackson
"Karim Koubriti, 23, and Ahmed Hannan, 33, taken into custody Sept. 17, attended the U.S. Truck Driver Training School in Detroit this summer, said the school's president, Joseph LaBarge. Koubriti passed the state commercial drivers license exam on Aug. 22 and received a permit to transport hazardous materials. Hannan failed the road test, LaBarge said."
There's some terrorist out there driving around with a tanker full of hazardous chemicals who failed his driving test. Another government failure!
"We understand he was turned down" at the USDA "and they referred him to us," said Epling. A loan officer at the bank remembered a phone call from someone inquiring about crop-dusters, an unusual request because there are so few of the planes left in the area, Epling said. Nothing came of the inquiry from the unnamed person.
James Lester, an employee of South Florida Crop Care in Belle Glade, told the FBI that Atta was among the men who in groups of two or three visited the crop-dusting firm nearly every weekend for six or eight weeks before the attacks.
Atta was a persistent questioner and "I recognized him because he stayed on my feet all the time. I just about had to push him away from me," Lester said.
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But we wouldn't want to impose on your civil rights over something as trivial as this.
Son, don't you think it's time you put down the mirror and start learning a little something about the world?
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