Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would sacrifice essential liberties to purchase a little temporary security, deserve neither freedom nor liberty for themselves”.
c.f. also Representative Thaddeus McCotter refusing 600 billion pounds of dung quoting former U.S. President Andrew Jackson in 1837 Bank Panic and The Grand Inquisitor by Fyodor Dostoyevsky in The Brothers Kamarov “if you want to subject the people, give them miracle, mystery and authority but above all, bread”.
When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out not to be true, I expected the American People to RISE UP. (Humph!) They didn’t. Then, when the Avograb underground torture surfaced, and it was revealed that our government participated in Rendition, a practice in which we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then that the American People would be heard from – we stood mute. Then came the news hat we jailed thousands of so-called “terrorist suspects”; locked them up without offering them right to a trial, or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly we wouldn’t stand for that – we did. And now it has been discovered, the Executive Branch has been conducting massive illegal domestic surveillance on its own citizens: you and me. And I least consoled myself, that FINALLY, FINALLY, the American people will have had enough. And Evidently we haven’t. In fact, if the People of this Country have spoken the messages, we’re okay with it all – Torture, Warrant-less Search and Seizures, Illegal Wiretappings, Prison without a fair Trial or any Trial, Wars on false Pretenses, … we are as a citizen apparently not offended. There are no demonstrations on college campuses; in fact there’s no clear indication that young people even seem to notice. Well, Melissa Hews noticed. Now, you might think instead of withholding her taxes, she could have protested the old fashion way – made a placard, demonstrated at a Presidential or Vice Presidential appearance. But we’ve lost the right to that as well: The Secret Service can now declare “Free Speech Zones” to Contain, Control, and in effect Criminalize protest. Stop for a moment. And try to fathom that.
At a Presidential rally, parade or appearance; if you have on a supportive T-shirt, you can be there. If you’re carrying or wearing something in protest, you can be removed. THIS in the United States of America! This in the United States of America – is Melissa Hews the only one embarrassed?!!!
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
What I’m most sick and tired of, is how every time somebody disagrees with how the government is running things, he/she is labeled “Un-American”.
(Quote from contemporary official: “…Evidently, Speech Time.”)
And speech is supposed to be free. Free for Hack, free for me, free for you, free for Melissa Hews, to stand up to her government and say, “STICK IT!”, “OBJECTION!”, “I OBJECT to government abusing its power to squash the Constitutional Freedoms of its citizenry.” And God forbid, anybody who challenges this runs the risk of being viewed as a heretic.
Melissa Hews is an American. Melissa Hews is an American. Melissa Hews is an American.
Last night, I went to bed with a book. The book contained a speech by Adolesce Stevenson – the year was 1952. He said, “The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live, and fear breeds repression. Too often sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind, are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-communism.”
Today it is the cloak of Anti-Terrorism.
Stevenson also remarked, it is far easier to fight for principles, than to live up to them.
Following are examples of freedoms which Bush and Congress have already expunged (as reported by the Associated Press)；
FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION (集會聚集的自由權): Government may monitor religious and political institutions without suspecting criminal activity to assist terror investigations.
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION (資訊流通開放公開的自由權): Government has closed once public immigration hearings, has secretly detained hundreds of people without charges, and has encouraged bureaucrats to resist public record questions.
FREEDOM OF SPEECH (言論自由權): Government may prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone that the government subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation.
RIGHT TO LEGAL REPRESENTATION (法律發言代表人的權力): Government may monitor federal prison jailhouse conversations between attorneys and clients, and deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes.
FREEDOM FROM UNREASONABLE SEARCHES (拒絕非正當理由遭搜尋的自由): Government may search and seize Americans’ papers and effects without probable cause to assist terror investigations.
RIGHT TO A SPEEDY AND PUBLIC TRIAL(案件公開迅速交付審判庭審查的權力): Government may jail American indefinitely without a trial (未審先 判/枉法裁判).
RIGHT TO LIBERTY: Americans may be jailed without being charged or being able to confront witnesses against them.
“… The Bush Administration has done more to dismantle
Constitutional protections of our liberties than any president in modern memory. It seems that these people believe that until Federal Storm Troopers knock down the doors of their homes and drag them off to the Gulags, they have lost no freedoms. Nothing could be further from the truth.” – Chuck Baldwin, Baltimore
Chronicle.
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