roofguy
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posted on June 13, 2001 09:02:33 AM new
If a "patriot" in the American lexicon is defined as "One who loves, supports, and defends one's country"
That is clearly not the original New England definition. An American patriot was one who wished to break the tyrannical chains of a perceived oppressive government. "One's country" in those days was England.
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roofguy
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posted on June 13, 2001 09:06:20 AM new
I'm sure some feel Oswald, James Earl Ray, and Sirhan Sirhan are patriots.
None of these people appealed to Liberty in the American patriotic sense as their motivation.
Any group that uses McVeigh as a posterboy is making a mistake.
In your mind, and mine. But there are minds beyond ours.
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gk4495
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posted on June 13, 2001 09:11:14 AM new
Beyond that, roofguy, how does one define "one's country?" Is it "patriotic" to defend the status quo with all its problems and inequities regardless of how far it has drifted from the design of the founders? Or can one define "defending one's country" to mean that you defend the original values, and original purposes even if it means upsetting the status quo? I think far too many people have adopted a philosophy of defending the status quo even if it means slowly losing rights and freedoms.
In truth, had the 13 colonies lost the American revolution, those "patriots" of the revolution would have been tried for treason against the crown and hanged. You see, "patriot" is usually defined by who wins.
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roofguy
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posted on June 13, 2001 09:23:30 AM new
Here's another statement of the problem.
I believe I felt McVeigh's outrage upon comprehending the Ruby Ridge and then the Waco stories. We followed the same path for a while. We shared the feeling that our own government had become tyrranical.
However, we then parted. I stuck with words. McVeigh turned to extreme violence.
We, myself and McVeigh among us, who shared that feeling numbered millions. Many of us momentarily imagined ourselves as the fightback messenger, the old time patriot.
For reasons which I think are worth exploring, I and most of those millions never came close to implementing a violent plan. Why not? If McVeigh would have encountered the analysis of why not, would he have gone about life as I have, and the tragedy would have not occurred?
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gk4495
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posted on June 13, 2001 09:46:13 AM new
Exactly the point. Why weren't more people outraged to the point of action? Like you, I was outraged but chose to do nothing. After all, short of violence, what can you do? Could you get elected to public office to effect change running on a platform that sounds like it came from 1776? Not likely. People talk about reform being needed, but proceed to elect the person who sounds most likely to keep things as they are. My most radical response to the whole chain of events was to join the NRA. Lets face it: on a scale of 1 - 10 for outraged reactions that rates a "2" if that high. Does that make me a patriot or a sell out? Am I one of the very ones I get disgusted with for doing nothing?
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spazmodeus
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posted on June 13, 2001 09:49:09 AM new
Sorry, but I see little difference between McVeigh and the fired employee who returns to his workplace with a gun and executes his former coworkers. Or the guy who gets despondent because his wife left him and starts shooting up a McDonalds.
There are so many other avenues for these individuals to explore in order to "get back" at the establishment or the people whom they feel have wronged them. Non violent avenues. Problem is, it requires hard work, determination, and the courage of your convictions to toil at a goal for months and years and there's never any guarantee that you'll make the kind of difference you work so hard for. But that's what quests are about.
You speak of patriots. I'm no Revolutionary era expert, but it seems to me that the colonists protested England via political avenues before resorting to armed insurgency. It was the last resort.
But McVeigh ... he just went out and killed people right off the bat. Why should anyone respect that? Why should anyone dignify it by calling it patriotism? I have seen no evidence that McVeigh made any effort to resolve his problems with the government through other avenues. He took no political stand against the perceived oppression.
Any bozo can go out and kill people. Doesn't make you a patriot or a hero. Just makes you a murderer.
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Antiquary
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posted on June 13, 2001 10:06:20 AM new
Any bozo can go out and kill people. Doesn't make you a patriot or a hero. Just makes you a murderer.
Exactly right, spaz. And such acts will only lead to greater government control and surveillance, not less.
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krs
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posted on June 13, 2001 10:16:46 AM new
"He took no political stand against the perceived oppression".
Actually, he did. He had joined and aligned himself with militaristic political groups of the type often refered to as 'militia' in several states, and for a number of years. His, and their politicl expressions of a perception that there was a need for radical action preceded the Waco incident, but that incident crystallized his (and other's) resolve to both make a dissenting statement and penalize the agency(s) which had orchestrated the Waco killings. His primary problem with that incident was the following justifications which were issued for it, as his statement above makes clear.
Whatever he was, his act in bombing that building was not one of a person reacting like a jilted lover or an unfairly terminated employee.
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reamond
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posted on June 13, 2001 10:22:17 AM new
How do we differentiate between what McVeigh did and what bomber pilots did in WWII and Vietnam ?
If one's "government" condones and demands the killing, does that make it OK ?
Does the utilitarian argument of killing innocent people in order to shorten a war and cause less killing of your own people make it OK ? Then I guess we must accept that some lives are more important than others.
Is killing OK to maintain one's freedom ? Hmmm... that sounds familiar.
How was dropping a nuclear weapon on a city different from what McVeigh did ? Are Ruby Ridge, Waco and other actions by the US Govt acts of war ?
The difference I see between what McVeigh did and the American Revolution is in the difference between actors. The disaffected "group" McVeigh represents is a fringe minority. The American Revolution was represented by a cross section of inhabitants and institutions. Had we lost the American Revolution, our "hero patriots" would have been publicly hanged or shot with even less dignity than McVeigh received.
So it is terrorism if done by an unsuccessful fringe group and it is patriotism if done by a successful cross section majority.
But in any event, you're just as dead no matter who blows you up, but the living majority's opinion determines who was a patriot and who was a terrorist.
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spazmodeus
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posted on June 13, 2001 10:30:44 AM new
Whatever he was, his act in bombing that building was not one of a person reacting like a jilted lover or an unfairly terminated employee.
The people who shoot up offices and fast food restaurants aren't reacting like jilted lovers or unfairly terminated employees either. They're reacting like psychos, sociopaths, etc. Which bill I believe McVeigh also fit.
re: "he didn't take a political stand" -- I wasn't aware of the info you provided. Thanks.
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chum
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posted on June 13, 2001 10:31:25 AM new
Lee harvey Oswald wasnt on the sixth floor as shots were being fired. He was in the lunchroom on the second floor waiting by the phone. Also the single bullet theory was a hoax. The bullet at the hospital was planted by Jack Ruby. I have a book that shows him at the hospital. I dont know anyone that actually thinks Oswald did it lol.
Sirhan Sirhan is another fine example. Like krs said his gun held only 6 rounds, but many other bullets were recovered in the ceiling, and walls. Unsolved mysteries did a good report about it a few years back.
And James Earl Ray is another patsy. They tried to say he stood on a bathtub and shot out a small window. Experts tried it, and failed saying it was impossible.
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spazmodeus
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posted on June 13, 2001 10:34:31 AM new
How do we differentiate between what McVeigh did and what bomber pilots did in WWII and Vietnam ?
Acts of war represent the will of a nation (at least they're supposed to). Acts like McVeigh's represent the will of just one man.
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krs
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posted on June 13, 2001 10:39:28 AM new
In most of the cases of spree shootings the killer turns out to be either a disgruntled and/or terminated employee, a spurned lover, or, of course, a Vietnam Vet, and now we have insecure and socially misfitted adolescents, but certainly no psychotics or sociopaths advance that far. Religious zealots of one sort or another do occasionally.
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reamond
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posted on June 13, 2001 10:44:26 AM new
Spaz- that's what I said in my other post.
To make a hero out of a terrorist is just a matter of putting more zeros behind the number of his/her supporters.
edited to ad- So the more people that agree with a certain act, the more moral the act is. Hardly an objective standard, not to mention it got Jesus and many other minorities killed.
The final result is that a moral act is only what those in power say it is. Might makes right, and determines who writes the history.
[ edited by reamond on Jun 13, 2001 10:51 AM ]
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jamesoblivion
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posted on June 13, 2001 11:05:03 AM new
We, myself and McVeigh among us, who shared that feeling numbered millions.
Just curious, why do you feel that it numbered "millions"?
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krs
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posted on June 13, 2001 11:52:34 AM new
Republicans joined in, James. They were predisposed by blaming Clinton for their leaky faucets.
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Antiquary
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posted on June 13, 2001 12:18:20 PM new
The only connection that I can see between the destructive actions of a jilted lover and those of someone like McVeigh is the attachment of a political cause to the action. The jilted lover could easily blame any of a number of social ills in the society as the cause for his situation and trace it to the current political landscape. Those rationalizations, however, do not constitute a coherent political philosophy which will justify random acts of killing to the majority of the society. These actions are not meaningful political ones if the purpose is to effect change. They are simply a blind striking out at some invisible but perceived enemy.
Almost everyone today feels that the state is too intrusive and controlling in some aspect of our lives and at least a mild distrust exists. Actions like McVeigh's, however, only serve to further the argument that the government has to assume more control in order to protect us from an actively destructive minority. One piece of evidence used in the McVeigh trial was the tape from a security camera located at an adjoining financial institution. The truck could be identified but details were fuzzy. If only it had been clearer...if only more had been located in the vicinity...if only....there could be universal surveillance????? Innocent lives could have been spared. The only lasting effect that I can see from McVeigh's act is in an argument advocating more government control. The man was an idiot.
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krs
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posted on June 13, 2001 12:26:57 PM new
With surveillance a fact of life in major metropolitan areas such as New York City prior to his act, such an argument is superfluous. They are already doing extensive monitoring of the populace by several means, and have been for many years. I saw an article the other day that made the case that if you live in New York, Boston, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Chicago, and a few more places you are being observed and recorded any time you step out of your home, and in many ways are even while in your home. The technology keeps improving which makes the expansion of such capacities more economically feasable and it won't be much longer before all citizens in most areas are subject to continual scrutiny. They, the various agencies of government in this country have been working at it for quite some time.
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Antiquary
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posted on June 13, 2001 12:30:11 PM new
I think that most are aware of the surveillance that exists in society today. The argument is not superfluous because the degree to which it will be extended has not yet been determined.
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krs
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posted on June 13, 2001 12:34:31 PM new
It is, because the agencies will do the extensions according to their capacity and not with any increased furvor as a result of McVeigh's act.
It started long before his birth.
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Antiquary
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posted on June 13, 2001 12:39:39 PM new
And the argument to which it extends will continue for a good while after his death. Unless of course you have access to the masterplan for universal monitoring of the society as a whole.
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reamond
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posted on June 13, 2001 12:42:24 PM new
This week Supreme Court Justice Scalia sided with the majority and wrote the opinion that limits survilence.
In this case law enforcement was using an infared monitor/camera on a suspected grow operation in a house. The monitoring was done from a police car on the street.
Believe it or not, Scalia wrote the opinion throwing out the use of the infared monitoring.
Just when you think Scalia is a total Neanderthal idiot, he gets a good idea !
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roofguy
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posted on June 13, 2001 12:52:44 PM new
Just curious, why do you feel that it numbered "millions"?
I do accept that it was a minority of us who felt this outrage. However, it was far from just McVeigh and me.
I actively discussed Ruby Ridge and Waco in various contexts. It was never hard to find someone who essentially agreed with me (much as it is here). There's 250 odd million of people in the USA. While it is probably true that I interact with people who tend to think like me, I'd guess that maybe 5 of the 100 people I know best had essentially the same reaction as I did.
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krs
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posted on June 13, 2001 12:54:28 PM new
Right, I saw that. Maybe he felt boxed in by the blatancy of the type of result that equipment can give and feared a blanket WRITTEN authorization. Infrared is the next best thing to x-ray vision and the images are clear and readily observable. Police using it can cruise down a street now and know who's making love, but because of this decision they won't be able to prove it in court.
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krs
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posted on June 13, 2001 12:57:07 PM new
"And the argument to which it extends will continue for a good while after his death"
umm, huh?
No, I don't have the master plan, but I do know that they have one.
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Antiquary
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posted on June 13, 2001 01:12:12 PM new
Could you provide a link to your source?
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krs
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posted on June 13, 2001 01:37:32 PM new
There's several, and no. Ask Ross-he has even more than I.
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toke
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posted on June 13, 2001 02:10:59 PM new
I live in Mass...no longer the home of civil unrest. What I am hearing from the women I know, is fear of terrorists. They want the government to protect us. How will our government provide this fervently desired protection?
Increased control and surveillance...in our best interest, of course. You bet McVeigh was an ass.
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Antiquary
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posted on June 13, 2001 02:18:57 PM new
I'm somewhat aware of the continuing development of surveillance technologies, though I must admit that I am unaware of any specific plan that would allow them to be used to consistently monitor the activities of all citizens without their knowledge or consent. I had rather thought that the instances and scope of their use would be determined by legislation and court rulings. To assume then that McVeigh's actions would be superfluous in argument would be to assume that the will of the people is irrelevant. I'm reluctant to go that far yet. I still think that we have a few good years left, but actions like McVeigh's shorten them.
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BittyBug
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posted on June 13, 2001 02:22:47 PM new
So...
Was it in the best interest of the PTB to have this action happen? Does the fear caused by it result in the desire fore increased action and decreased limitations on the part of law enforcement?
You know...like the theory goes that FDR did not plan Pearl Harbor, but chose not to stop it because it would incite Americans enough so that they would want to enter WWI..
Just asking.
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