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pecuniumOk, so the "lock 'em up and pound 'em 'til they talk" bill is pretty much a done deal.
What can we do about it?
They didn't allow time for real review and debate. Let's try to take it to them.
Write letters, call the radio shows. Phone your representatives, send e-mails to the television news.
What, you ask, shall I say in these communications? You ask a question. It might help to have the text of the law handy. The best I have is this pdf so it will have to do.
Ask them what defense an american citizen has against being declared an enemy combatant, and further, what one should do if one is so accused.
Be polite, but be firm. Don't let them bamboozle with what the bill is supposed to do (i.e. "provide legal means to interrogate 'terrorist'") but insist on an answer to the actual question.
If this can be pushed out there, if the Republicans can be shown to be behind this kind of blatant power grab (yes, there were feckless dems who supported it, but apart from Lieberman the only choices are worse, so hold your nose this cycle, and look to findig more Lamonts for the next one. Wars are rarely won in battles, but only after campaigns) they can be put back on their heels.
So long as all three branches of gov't are owned, root, rot, and branch, by the same party (and this incarnation of that party) there is no way to roll back the damages to civil liberties.
We can do other things. We can use good rhetoric. We can ask when we becamae a nation of cowards, willing to sacrifice essential liberties for small (and fleeting) security.
We can proclaim the moral high-ground. We can say that, even if this makes a repeat of That Tuesday more likely, we would rather face that death, than this moral decay. We can say, as the Right is fond of saying, some things are so wrong they can never be countenanced.
I, for one, am willing to risk the minor chance at death (6/1,000, over five years, based on the last successful attack by the "jihadists" this is supposed to be saving me from) to be free.
Patrick Henry said it, and I agree with it, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
Shall we sacrifice our honor, our morality; as well as our rights and freedoms, in the vain hope that promises of mere safety are fair value for them?
I fear death less than I am willing to sacrifice human decency, I have more scruples than that.
What can we do about it?
They didn't allow time for real review and debate. Let's try to take it to them.
Write letters, call the radio shows. Phone your representatives, send e-mails to the television news.
What, you ask, shall I say in these communications? You ask a question. It might help to have the text of the law handy. The best I have is this pdf so it will have to do.
Ask them what defense an american citizen has against being declared an enemy combatant, and further, what one should do if one is so accused.
Be polite, but be firm. Don't let them bamboozle with what the bill is supposed to do (i.e. "provide legal means to interrogate 'terrorist'") but insist on an answer to the actual question.
If this can be pushed out there, if the Republicans can be shown to be behind this kind of blatant power grab (yes, there were feckless dems who supported it, but apart from Lieberman the only choices are worse, so hold your nose this cycle, and look to findig more Lamonts for the next one. Wars are rarely won in battles, but only after campaigns) they can be put back on their heels.
So long as all three branches of gov't are owned, root, rot, and branch, by the same party (and this incarnation of that party) there is no way to roll back the damages to civil liberties.
We can do other things. We can use good rhetoric. We can ask when we becamae a nation of cowards, willing to sacrifice essential liberties for small (and fleeting) security.
We can proclaim the moral high-ground. We can say that, even if this makes a repeat of That Tuesday more likely, we would rather face that death, than this moral decay. We can say, as the Right is fond of saying, some things are so wrong they can never be countenanced.
I, for one, am willing to risk the minor chance at death (6/1,000, over five years, based on the last successful attack by the "jihadists" this is supposed to be saving me from) to be free.
Patrick Henry said it, and I agree with it, "Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
Shall we sacrifice our honor, our morality; as well as our rights and freedoms, in the vain hope that promises of mere safety are fair value for them?
I fear death less than I am willing to sacrifice human decency, I have more scruples than that.
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no subject
Date: 2006-10-01 11:38 pm (UTC)