posted on February 12, 2003 04:58:24 AM new
colin - you have made your point very well; actually you have done it several times here, and I don't understand why some people just don't get it. You don't side-step issues like some of the posters
Actually you write much better than I do, but express the same things I try to - seems mine don't come across as well as yours.
By the way, I visited your site also. I especially enjoyed "The Path to Peace" - very refreshing For those of you who haven't seen it, it is definitely worth a few minutes. As is this one...
posted on February 12, 2003 12:10:19 PM new
I had no idea that being a minister in the Universal Life Church gave one a particular insight on political ideology.Interesting.
I've been one since 2-20-2001. My husband has been a minister of the ULC since 1971.
posted on February 12, 2003 05:23:45 PM newI had no idea that being a minister in the Universal Life Church gave one a particular insight on political ideology.
I remember your ordination here on this very board. One of many historic moments.
posted on February 12, 2003 07:24:20 PM new
KRS, You may call me Goddess....that is one of the options for title and the one I am using at the moment.
Antiquary, seems like just yesterday doesn't it? They are down to ordaining in just 3 minutes now and you get a print outable certificate in full color. I didn't get a print outable certificate. I had to order one. Oh well.
posted on February 12, 2003 07:48:32 PM new
Several of us had a whole business plan going with that, to cash in on the faith-based dole. We should have stuck with it. Who would have guessed that it was really going to pan out.
posted on February 12, 2003 07:54:08 PM new
I was just doing some research on Emma Goldman who was a hell raiser during World War I.
There was a similar document to Patriot I, The Espionage Act, in foce then. Americans were imprisoned for just speaking against the war. Golding was exported to Russia for obstructing the draft.
Eugene Debs was sentenced because his words also obstructed the draft.
After the jury found him guilty of violating the Espionage Act. Debs addressed the judge before sentencing:
Your honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison I am not free."
Then, the American Defense Society was formed to put an end to seditious street oratory
And the Department of Justice sponsored an American Protective League, which by June of 1917 had units in 600 cities and towns.
The League claimed to have found 3 million cases of disloyalty.
It's interesting that today, there is a similar trend developing now with Patriot II.
posted on February 12, 2003 10:18:14 PM new
>Given the reaction Patriot II is receiving, maybe it's a good thing...nobody noticed Patriot I..
We've already voiced our objections or support for this draconian legislation. While it is in the works, it has to progress farther to get more mileage out of it. It is an extreme bill, and extreme bills in the past have never made it, except for the Patriot Act and Homeland Security. With public awareness at an all-time high, this bit of legislation may never make it to the floor for passage. Wait and see.
posted on February 12, 2003 11:12:10 PM new
The situation is looking up. That venerable conservative William Safire lays it out directly and clearly, including a warning to Ashcroft that he is being watched. From the NYT
Privacy Invasion Curtailed
By WILLIAM SAFIRE
ASHINGTON — Readers with keen memories will recall a blast in this space three months ago at the proposed "Total Information Awareness" project, which the Pentagon proudly described as "a virtual, centralized grand database."
In the name of combating terrorism, it would scoop up your lifetime paper trail — bank records, medical files, credit card purchases, academic records, etc. — and marry them to every nosy neighbor's gossip to the F.B.I. about you. The combination of intrusive commercial "data mining" and new law enforcement tapping into the private lives of innocent Americans was described here as "a supersnoop's dream."
My even-tempered objection stirred the ire of uncivil anti-libertarians. "Blather, nonsense, piffle, and flapdoodle," argued the judicious Stuart Taylor in National Journal about my "hyperventilating." The Washington Post also thought my reaction a tad "fast-breathing." William Kristol's Weekly Standard sneered at "the ravings of privacy fanatics like the New York Times columnist William Safire, who triggered the anti-T.I.A. stampede."
With the nation rightly worried about a new terrorist strike, and with Washington supermarkets stripped of duct tape and bottled water by residents dutifully following Homeland Security warnings, the privacy-be-damned crowd casting its electronic dragnet seemed invincible. "Strangling this new technology with a procedural noose is no answer to the threat of terrorism," intoned the Heritage Foundation.
Then the strangest thing happened. Those of us on the flapdoodle fringe — from Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum on the right to People for the American Way on the left — found wide and deep bipartisan agreement in the usually contentious Congress. An amendment to the budget bill by Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, co-sponsored by Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, put a bit in the mouth of the Pentagon's runaway horse.
The Wyden amendment held up funding for the Total Information Awareness penetration of the American home until the administration (1) explained it in detail to Congress, including its impact on civil liberties, and (2) barred any deployment of the technology against U.S. citizens without prior Congressional approval. One hundred senators voted in favor.
Why? One reason was that two respected old bulls, one on each side of the Senate aisle — Alaska's Ted Stevens and Hawaii's Daniel Inouye — distrusted the executive power grab, and would not be panicked by the pitch of those zealots who held that the war on terror required the subversion of constitutional oversight.
Another reason was the blessed stupidity of Pentagon officials in entrusting this dangerous surveillance to one Adm. John Poindexter. He was convicted of five felony counts of lying to Congress about Iran-contra, but the jury's verdict was overturned because Congress had immunized him. This was hardly the person to ask elected officials to trust with unprecedented, unchecked power.
Belatedly, the Pentagon tried to get House leaders to kill the bill in conference. But the House agreed with the Senate that enforceable limits must be set on snooping into the private lives of innocent Americans.
Think about that: Even as the nation braces for more terrorist murders, a Republican-led Congress absolutely refuses to give carte blanche to a Republican war president to treat all citizens as suspects. These legislators are attuned to the views of their voters; this means that a courageous constituency exists to defend personal freedom.
The next assault will come from Attorney General John Ashcroft, whose lawyers are drafting a law to enable the Justice Department to wiretap citizens for two weeks before bothering to ask a judge for a warrant.
Among other abominations, Ashcroft's "Patriot II" would computerize genetic information without court order or our consent. As in the Pentagon's Poindexter project, Justice's aim is to avoid judicial or Congressional control. President Bush, preoccupied with planning a just war, should shoot down this unjust proposal before he is embarrassed again by a Congress capable — on a personal-freedom issue — of rising above partisanship.
Am I breathing too fast again? We hyperventilating, raving privacy fanatics may deal in piffle and flapdoodle, but we are not alone.
posted on February 13, 2003 12:12:17 AM new
NO, Antiquary, that's not me. I USED to be a columnist, but not anymore!
>We hyperventilating, raving privacy fanatics may deal in piffle and flapdoodle, but we are not alone.
We who are fighting for our liberties have been called worse here at the Round Table.
"My even-tempered objection stirred the ire of uncivil anti-libertarians. "Blather, nonsense, piffle, and flapdoodle,"
Well, well. Now we have a label for these flag-wrapped, ignorant, blind-sighted, finger-pointers! Uncivil, Anti-Libertarians. Yah! Has a good ring to it, don'tcha think?
