…More of an observation than a rant. Thank you.
(Oh, yeah. Ari Fleischer can blow me. Thank you. I think a lot of people are in favor of free speech until they realize it means people can say what they want.)
Kinda gotta go with you on this one. He really does have a strong authoritarian streak and his visible desire to whittle down civil liberties so cavalierly is disturbing.
and he’s against DANCING! Just like my dog!
What a drip
And he’s a member of an uncommon religious group.
Stone him to death!
I must admit his “more-opposed-to-terrorism-than-thou” attitude sends chills up my spine sometimes. It would be even worse if I lived in America, I suppose.
May I recommed the Onion article, “Freedoms Curtailed in Defense of Liberty”? Classic quote:
Too close to reality for comfort, really.
And, I feel I should point out that he lost the U.S. Senate race in Missouri to a dead guy. (no, not Al Gore)
There’s that, too. From the Baptist Standard:
It’s a good thing the US has a man like Ashcroft in those trying times, facing all these wacky, fundamentalist Muslims ;).
Now, remember all, the AG is a lawyer, and the top advocate for the United States.
That means he’s absolutely justified in treating his own fellow citizens as suspects and doing whatever possible to undermine their civil liberties.
After all, we have the Supreme Court to defend us if he oversteps his bounds.
Heh. Hehheh. Ha, hahaha. HA HA HAHAHAWWWW!!! EEE-heeeheeeheeeheee!!!
For those who are dissing JA here:
December, what does your little blurb have to do with people’s opinions that Ashcroft is a Fascist zealot who’s doing nothing but reducing Americans’ rights to a pile of rubble? Who cares if he went to a public school or Yale or wrote textbooks if his shenanigans smack of unconstitutionality and a violation of my civil liberties?
He’s wrong for the US, has been since he got the nod from Bush.
Sam
And Ashcroft is just the tip of the iceberg, the fucking prick.
Now look who is our ambassador to the UN? John Negroponte. And who is in charge of Latin American affairs (although his nomination is stalled in Congress)? Otto Reich.
What, are the Sandinistas back in power?
(My obligatory driveby about Latin America…;))
Seriously, what the fuck? Wire taps? Ashcroft can suck my non-existant wang.
Why did you call him “Crypto-”?
I’m not much impressed by the fact that the Atty. Gen. went to public school/Yale/Chicago Law School or that he was both Atty. Gen. and Gov. of Missouri. Jesse Helms, after all, has been elected to public office again and again. Even as progressive a State as Wisconsin sent Joe McCarthy to the US Senate.
Every thing I know about Ashcroft indicates that he is a reactionary zealot and a lot more inclined to his own take on public and private morality and the duty of the government to suppress real or imagined disorder by whatever means he can get away with than to observe conventional notions of the due process an equal protection of law.
The secret issuance and execution of search warrants under the new Antiterrorism Crime bill is a case in point. If the police can secretly obtain and execute search warrants in “terrorism cases,” then a defendant’s (suspect’s) ability to resist a search is hand cuffed. How can you prevent the government from doing something when you don’t even know that they are doing it? It is simply an authorization for what was once called black bag jobs. This, with the new authorizations for wire taps and E-mail searches, leads me to think that the Atty. Gen. is bringing up a whole laundry list of stuff that has been sought for years but thought too much for a free society to countenance. The slippery slope argument suggests that we should look out for an authorization to do interrogations under drugs and the most judicial use of cattle prods.
Ommmmmmm…ommmmmmmmm…ommmmmmm…
You had to know that I, at least, would catch the reference.
“Will you stop calling everything crypto-fascist? You sound like a total git!”
I’ve got some red paint and white vinyl lettering - who wants to help make Tension Sheets?
And do you know who’s back in government, in the National Security Council? Elliot Abrams, for Christ’s sake! I first saw that serpent, back in the mid-1980’s, telling an elderly couple that it was their late son’s own fault if he let his Peace Corps work put him in the way of “Freedom Fighters” (Contras), resulting in his being shot in the head, execution-style. I promised myself that, if I ever got to meet Abrams, I’d kick him right in the goddamned nuts. His specialty used to be “massacre denial”; God knows what exactly he’s doing now.
And your point is?
It’s a rant board. I don’t think he needs a point
I never had a point before; why start now?
JA must have done a remarkable job to hide his fascist side from all those Democratic and Republican attorneys general who elected him national chairman, and also hiding his fascist nature from all those Dem and Rep governors who electd him national chairman.
And, those people actually know him. **GaWd, Baldwin **, et. al., why can you judge the man more accurately than the AG’s and governors who worked with him can?