This rant is directed to Americans, specifically Americans who support Bush.
I just don’t get it. I really don’t. You talk about freedom as a political argument in itself, as the most important thing, as the foundation of your nation. When someone suggests that a federal ID card might be a nice thing to have, you go apeshit. When someone tries to take away your right to carry guns, you go apeshit. When someone wants to raise taxes, you go apeshit. But when your government gives itself the right to detain anybody anywhere in the world without due process, without allowing access to a lawyer, without showing them the evidence, without allowing them any rights whatsoever or any way to protest the detention… you cheer.
This is America taking a big crap on the entire world, including itself. Why doesn’t this worry you? Your government is turning the US military into an international KGB, and you applaud. Even if you think this administration is perfect and Bush can do no wrong, why don’t you stop to think that maybe some day there will be another administration with another President that maybe doesn’t do everything exactly the way you like it… but he’ll still have these powers? He’ll still be able to pick up you or your family or your friends or any innocent person anywhere, just because it struck his fancy. Does this sound good to you? Is that the kind of world you want?
I just don’t get it. Freedom, you say. This isn’t freedom. This is the opposite of freedom. I think Lib’s been right all along: Bush is a tyrant.
[sub]The url is to LA Times which requires registration. Use bugmenot.com if you don’t want to register.[/sub]
As long as they don’t use it on white people. Or at least, just on scary-looking white people with beards and names with “bin” in them. Then that’s fine. :rolleyes:
Hey, I voted against Bush twice, but apparently the GOP’s adoption of torture and the slow diminuition of free speech appeals to the unwashed yahoos in this country.
No, no - see the US was founded on freedom. So if you love freedom, you support the US. If you don’t support the US you hate freedom. The President of the United States is the Leader of the Free World, and He knows freedom. Freedom is what He tells you it is. The US military enforces freedom. If you hate freedom, the military may come after you, and it’s your own fault.
As long as you love freedom, you have nothing to fear.
Just as leftists have ruined the word “liberal”, so rightists are ruining the word “freedom”. Before long, the notion of being free will scare people to death. Freedom ought to mean the absence of coercion, but rightists are making it into the absence of justice.
You vile and despicable Tory. Only cowards support tyranny. By welcoming their overlords, they hope the pain that they endure will be less severe than that of their neighbor whom they have reported for sedition. If you want to be butt-fucked by elephants on a stampede, that’s your business. But at the very least, do not impede those who put up a fight.
Y’know, part of me is generally sympathetic towards people on this board who did vote for Bush. A lot of shit does get tossed around unfairly. People are using BIIIIG brushes to tar others. However, this is just a bullshit argument in and of itself.
The right of habeas corpus, the right to a lawyer, the right to be innocent until proven guilty… these are not flimsy little quibbles being blown out of proportion by the “liberal elite”. They’re a bedrock of truly democratic societies, whether enshrined in a common law or social tradition. They are not American rights or the rights only deserved by those fortunate enough to live in a republic… they are human rights. People have started revolutions, people have fought and died demanding these rights. And you call the erosion of these rights on any front a “waste of time”? I say shame on you. This touches the heart of what has ever made the United States a country worthy of emulation.
There are people sitting in Guatanemo Bay who have been taken from their homes, taken from what is now possibly years of their lives, without stated cause or hope of ever seeing it again. If the Star-spangled banner didn’t fly above them, I’d expect to hear about it on the Castro side of Cuba. Are these people prisoners of war? If they are then treat them as such. Are they prisoners under law? Then you must treat them as such. The President of the United States should not stand for, and should never act as though, he has fiat to imprison at whim. For down that road does lie tyranny, whether he wishes it or no.
And down that messy, deadly path are engraved the words sic semper tyrannis
How? With some ridiculous non-sequitur that has nothing to do with anything in that post you quoted? I may not agree with Lib much (most?) of the time, but at least he normally makes cogent and on-point arguments.
Or to use terms you might understand: u r teh suxx0rz.
If you’re an enemy of tyranny, you’re a friend of mine. Whatever differences we might have, we can set them aside long enough to fight for each other’s right to have them.
Agreed. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call Bush a tyrant. per se; after all he’s not operating alone or with governmental autonomy (which is probably a good thing), but as a whole his administration has many of the characteristic traits of the quintessential tyrant.
But for the most part, I admit that I don’t “get” politics. I’m still scratching my head over why more of the Patriot Act hasn’t been challenged as unconstitutional. There was that one section, but the Act still has teeth. i consider it a dangerous piece of legislature - not so much in and if itself, though there is that, but for the precedent it has set.
I hope it’s not directed at me. I voted for Kerry, and I’m a card carrying member of the ACLU, an organization actively working to stop civil rights violations.
I don’t get this either. What’s wrong with a federal ID? Every other country has it.
I know you’re not addressing me, because I never voted for him, but as always with these types of threads I feel I must speak up for the other half of the country.
And this too. Keep in mind that the most ardent gun control advocate suggests absolutely prohibiting firearms. It is after all stated in the Constitution that we can keep and bear arms. All they suggest is reasonable regulation and limitations, like the idea that it might be a good idea to ban automatic weapons.
It does worry the rest of us, you can be sure of that.
I agree. I voted against this Bush twice, and all without effect. At the very least this time I can rejoice that I got to see my Senator, Russ Feingold (he’s the only one to vote against the Patriot Act) get re-elected. But that’s only lukewarm comfort compared to the big picture for me.
Now I’m just keeping my head down and trying to ensure the health, safety, and prosperity of my family.