No debate-just hand over those rights!

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Here is a link to an article with Ron Paul pontificating on what is really going on in Washington with our lack of a Constitution.It reveals many distressing things abouot where we are headed.

Insight Mag article

-- Doreen (animalwaitress@yahoo.com), November 28, 2001

Answers

Hi Doreen:

To me, I guess the question boils down to are we able to trust our government officials to weed out the criminals from the law abiding and leaving the honest alone. That would call for a judge to decide who is worth pursueing, and who is worth leaving alone. Judging from what I have seen from previous years of government abuse of powers, I would say that a little paranoia might be justified.

On the other hand, allowing the terrorist constitutional protection seems unwarrented too. I sure wish the bad buys would just break down and wear T-shirts which say "Yes, I am a bad guy". Sure would make things a lot easier.

Hang in there folks. And thanks Doreen for the heads up; it is an interesting article.

-- j.r. guerra (jrguerra@boultinghousesimpson.com), November 28, 2001.


Well here's the thing to me:

"We hold these truths to be self evident; that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among these rights are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...."......and so on. Either it's true or it isn't. Either we have a Constitution or we don't. Either we are a nation that upholds the law of the land or we are a nation of expediency and stand for nothing other than the easy way out of troubles.

The quandry to me is that if we have no Constitution, we have no country, but we have a Banana Republic where our securities and everyone elses are subject to the stroke of a pen and we are under tyranny. Which of course we are-but this solidifies it. How can any representative vote yes on something they haven't even read or debated? That sure doesn't sound like the ideas espoused in our founding documents. Secret tribunals, extended arrest powers, even secret executions, secret trials, no warrants being served, no attorney client privacy, etc. etc.

Kind of brings you to the point of saying we need another Declaration of Independence...at least that's where it leads me.

-- Doreen (bisquit@here.com), November 29, 2001.


Amen Doreen, you tell them sister!!! The whole thing speaks of disaster for our country to me. When you speak of it you get a Paul Harvey sort of reaction (I say this because my husband listens to him all the time and when I mentioned to him my concerns his response was "THEY, (meaning whoever THEY are) are trying to kill us." Somehow questioning this total abuse of power makes you a traitor.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), November 29, 2001.

Tee shirts would be a big help. I had heard that this bill wasn't available for reading prior to the vote but I thought that was really unlikely, even in Sodom on the Potomic. Bipartisan treachery and treason. "Now boarding for Orwell's 1984!"

Something for all of you who come here, or to any other sites that dissemble "unorthodox" ideas (truth, Constitutional ideals and thought, nongovernment dependence, self sufficiency, etc)to consider. YOU COULD BE DANGEROUS AND BE INCLUDED IN THE DEFINITION OF "DOMESTIC" TERRORIST.

I know that sounds paranoid, but think about all the ways the goverment circumvents the Constitution already. If you ever pissed off your local officials, had any business w/ a militia member, recieved any questionable publications (like Backwoods home or Countryside), you are not like "us" and so, you are like "them".

The government makes it mandatory that banks report anyone who "acts suspicious" and gives guidelines on what to look for to tellers. They also offer a percentage of any monies confiscated from "illegal" activities to encourage tellers to be dillegent. Large cash transaction? Sell your old 59 vette for 15,000 and deposit it in your savings? Automatic trigger to the mandated computer system banks have tying them to big brother.

Think your Doctor keeps your info private? Guess again. You don't even OWN your own medical records. EVERYTHING now goes to a federally managed "collection" of state records. You can request a copy and maybe get one. You will not get the originals anymore.

The FBI circumvents the constitutional issue of a citizen database by using a private company (funded by us) which collects data from all the states and outside sources. Yep, all the mailing lists your on now, what you buy with a credit card, what 800#s you call, your SS info, IRS info, Credit info and history, business and professional licenses, everything.

Now, ALL of this kind of activity was going on BEFORE this new Patriot bill. Geez, I feel safer knowing my government caes.

-- John in S. IN (jsmengel@hotmail.com), November 29, 2001.


Yes, John, they've been at it for a long time. Our saving grace with all this is plain old human ineptitude. The more data they collect, the more inept they will become. They can't even keep track of the criminals on probation or keep guns out of felons' possession, they can't even keep drugs out of congress.

I think us bumkins still have a little more time of freedom left. God will take care of his own when judgement falls on our nation.

-- Laura (LadybugWrangler@somewhere.net), November 30, 2001.



Yes Laura, the "bumbling" is one thing that will help us all.....IF.......you stay below their radar screen and don't do anything that draws attention to yourself (like participating in these "subversive" forums). Claire Wolfe has a couple of books that outline different things individuals can do to protect their privacy, there by limiting the amount of data collected.

Her books also have all kinds of info and references for whatever level of freedom one would attempt, from semi passive resistance to outright subversiveness. You choose. I'm not really into being too radical anymore. Somehow I just don't see myself being the "Desperado" type. Although, if it ever happens, I hope I have the presence of mind to say (in my best James Cagney impression) "You'll never take me alive, you dirty copper" I just wish they'd leave us all the Hell alone. I hate that feeling that their's somebody standing over my shoulder all the time.

-- John in S. IN (jsmengel@hotmail.com), November 30, 2001.


I have a big problem with the idea of being a 'desperado' as well...aside from it being desperada;}. The best thing about bueaucracy is it's inefficiency, but this is just so Orwellian and perverse that it does make one want to just fade into the background. But that won't slow things down or wake anyone up, darn it.

Claire Wolf has some excellent ideas in her books. I have read all but her most recen and highly reccommend them for anyone who has a free bone in their body. All the folks that would rather have someone tell them everything they should and shouldn't do and when can skip it.

I know God is in charge....it just grieves me to see all of this happening and the cult of Shrub growing by leaps and bounds.

-- Doreen (bisquit@here.com), November 30, 2001.


Cult of Shrub=Arbusto Oil Co.

-- joj (joj@home.org), November 30, 2001.

From the Moscow Times.com 11/23/01

GLOBAL EYE--A THIRSTY EVIL By Chris Floyd

Are you a terrorist? If you don't know, you'd better find out fast. Because Uncle Sam's made a list and he's checking it twice -- "40 to 50 countries" targeted for possible "U.S. action," according to America's securely-located vice president, Dick "Chicken Hawk" Cheney. As the man says, a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

So here's a simple test to check your moral worthiness and see if you can escape God's -- sorry, Bush's -- all-devouring wrath. Have you ever gone out for a beer and bought a Stella Artois instead of a Bud? Then you, my friend, have engaged in a conspiracy to cause "adverse effects" to the economy of the United States. And that makes you one of the evildoers.

So says the great Oval Object in his latest executive order, in which he grants himself the power to have anyone he designates as a terrorist to be tried by secret military tribunals and executed without appeal. Bush's dread edict -- which of course takes effect without any input from that useless appendage of a bygone era, the U.S. Congress -- covers anyone who "causes, threatens to cause" or even "has as their aim" to cause "adverse effects" on, among other things, the American economy or U.S. foreign policy.

As always, Bush alone retains the right to decide who is and who is not a terrorist, just as he alone decides what constitutes an "adverse effect" on the United States. Could be a bomb, a boycott, a protest, a tariff -- or the wrong beer: it's his call.

The edict gives him the power to seize any non-U.S. citizen, in any country on earth, and to subject him or her to secret summary justice. There is no outside check or oversight of this exercise of universal dominion, and no legal recourse for the accused -- not even to the laws of their own country.

Never has a single person in the history of the world laid claim to such absolute power -- and commanded the military might to back it up. For we should also note that Bush now has the authority to launch attacks against any nation he chooses, at his own discretion, without a vote by Congress or that other withered appendage, the United Nations.

And if you don't like it, pal, you can tell it to the judge. The military judge. Just before he puts a bullet in your brain.

But what about malcontents in what Bush now calls "the Homeland?" Hey, we got it covered. The U.S. government now has the power to prosecute any public expression of dissent as an act of "domestic terrorism," thanks to the super-duper new "U.S.A. Patriot" Act passed, in the dead of night, by Congress late last month -- a law which most of the dangling legislative appendages freely admit they never read before the vote.

Under the new law, you are a "domestic terrorist," subject to 25 years in prison, if you engage in acts intended to "influence the policy of government by intimidation or coercion." Which is, of course, the very definition of public protest: the attempt to force policy changes on reluctant governments through an unsettling display of popular will.

In this case, the Imperial Executive has delegated power to his most faithful minion: Attorney General John Ashcroft. It is Ashcroft -- the only senator in U.S. history to be rejected by voters in favor of a dead man -- who will now define the limits of freedom in America.

And Ashcroft -- a prissy religious crank like his boss -- has gone about his task with Christian zeal. (After all, your true believers know there is a higher law than that secular humanist rag, the constitution.) For example, just last week, Ashcroft stripped prisoners of the ancient right to confer with legal counsel in private, conferring upon himself the power to monitor any such conversation whenever he sees fit.

This also applies to people being held without any charge at all -- and there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, in that category now. We don't know the exact number, because Ashcroft no longer tells anyone - - including the Appendages -- how many people he's holding, or why he's holding them, or who they are, or where they might be, or what he's going to do with them. But not to worry; he's taking good care of his nameless captives. Why, only one has died in custody so far. At least that we know about.

Because Ashcroft's not telling.

Bullet Points

The terrorist attacks on American liberty are coming so fast these days you can't keep track of them all, and so your inundated Eye is reduced to making mere lists of a few recent developments:

Bush insiders begin pushing the idea of using regular Army troops to "keep order" among the general populace -- the kind of thing that once drove terrorist leaders like George Washington and Patrick Henry to violent rebellion.

A rightwing group founded by the vice president's wife, Lynn Cheney, issues a list of dozens of academics it considers "short on patriotism" for making critical comments about American policy. The group plans more "naming and shaming" of individuals who are "out of step" with the "Homeland."

Ashcroft orders the interrogation of an additional 5,000 young Arab men who entered the country legally during the past two years. With a straight face, Ashcroft denies singling out anyone on the basis of race, creed, or national origin.

And finally, some good news: Billy Bush, radio DJ and the president's first cousin, finds work after being canned by a small Virginia radio station for low ratings. He's been hired by CNN.

**********************************************************************

So much of this "New Normal" that is our current state of affairs is like reading a 10 year old Texe Marrs Prophecy book!

"It must be good for us, after all, Bush, Cheney and Ashcroft are Christians, aren't they?!??!!?!?!?

(IT'S A COOKBOOK!)



-- Laura (LadybugWrangler@somewhere.net), November 30, 2001.


Ahem. Ayup...sigh-gulp......... When do we march?

-- Doreen (bisquit@here.com), November 30, 2001.


Would we be talking marching to Zion???

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), November 30, 2001.

Most likely!

Maybe it would mean something to these folks who are destroying our Constitution if we all just walked across the Potomac and didn't stop or ask for permission or leave until they had admitted on the Teevee how out of touch they had become???? Dunno. Buy beans!

-- Doreen (bisquit@here.com), December 01, 2001.


Very troubling news indeed. Could it be that the dreaded "Anti- Christ" has arisen here in the USA?

-- Nexar (Arax7@mvn.net), December 02, 2001.

Yes. She's the jr. Senator from New York. How did you know?

-- John in S. IN (jsmengel@hotmail.com), December 02, 2001.

Nah, she's not it. She's just a doofus wannabe.

-- Nexar (Arax7@mvn.net), December 03, 2001.


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