Upholding civil liberties and true democracy is essential.
Uhhhhh....
Thats ALL they care about? The don't care about the First Amendment? Second Amendment? etc.? Essentially what they are saying is "As long as you're not mean to us, you can do anything you want" --- a recipe for tyranny!
Politics? YES.
A greater and greater percentage of the country are having problems with what Bush and Ashcroft are doing, including lots of FReepers. Now we're not about to start backing Jesse and NOW and the whole lot.
But someone who isn't as politically aware, and who doesn't know what NOW was and is, and what Jesse has done and is capable of, might look at the above news clip, and if they are already having problems with what's going on in this country, see these groups as their friends, and put all of that rabble-rousing talk about "race hustler" and "feminazis" in the discard pile.
I trust I don't have to explain why that's a problem. NOW right now has lost a lot of its power due to their unholy alliance with our past (insert-your-favorite-sex-crime-perpetrator-description) in chief. If they and PUSH manage to tie their name to something that people agree with, they could very well get people to forget about their past transgressions and start trusting them again, and from that start weilding real political power again.
So what am I saying here he should do in return?
Like a lot of political debates, I'm seeing signs in this one of people calling all anti-terrorism efforts across the board either an intolerable infringement or a necessary protection. I understand both arguments, but that kind of adamancy can let reasonable debate slip through the cracks, and if we don't pick it up, it's clear the left will (well, at least something that their followers will consider "reasonable").
So what I think I'm saying is that in order to combat this, we need to continually keep a clear focus of what is going on in this country, and not get overly dogmatic with each other regarding what we should do, and that includes our discussions here. In other words, don't either oppose or accept any individual efforts on the part of the feds just on face value, but clearly examine each one, and not label anyone here who disagrees with you. This is not an easy issue, and needs to really be approached with as much clarity as possible.
Sorry for the long rant, it's just that I like the fact that NOW and PUSH have returned to being sideshows, and don't want to see that change. If we don't play this one right, it very well could.
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All three of the NOW 'ladies'?