So I woke up this morning and before going out and demolishing the rest of my deck (carpenter ants and rot) I read this article.
http://www.dailycamera.com/bdc/insig...262164,00.html

I was appalled (I mean even more so than I would have been had this not been the case) to find that this sort of imprisonment extends to citizens as well as illegal imigrants. What gives? Don't we, here in the US, have a constitution or something? I go to protests everyonce in a while. I don't want to be tossed into jail for owning a gas mask or holding a sign. Now, I can be.

DeSoya

They've been wanting to do this since his father was in office...it was all just a matter of time.
If this country has any sense and its not too late already, we should make sure we get Jr. out of office the next election.

Now were is Oswald when we need him?

You folks might like to look at this, too.

America - land of the free ;)

Yeah, and soon to be: land of the not so very free. :D

Yep, since 9/11 we are expected to give up a lot for our safety. The questions are:

1)What freedoms would you be willing to part with to be safe?
2)Do you think it would make a difference? If some group wants to inflict harm, won't they be able to do so no matter how much you try to protect yourself?
3)Will we get the freedoms we lost when (if) the "War" is over?
4)Will we get our freedoms back when the administration changes?

Tough questions that we all need to think about and we all desperately need answered.

Mark

One thing dude, there will always be terrorists, take out Bin Laden, and 5 new ones will take his place. So therefore the war on terrorisme is a never ending war, and also one that can never be won !

There's an answer to terrorism and war, but it's (widely regarded today as) a dirty four-letter word...

Starting with the letter 'L'...

Love ??????

Uhhh... Yes...

You're not one of them "turn the other cheek" kinda people, are you, couse that's not gonna work. Those guys want your blood only because Allah tells them so. I can feel no love for such animals, and i'll gladly volunteer to personally slit his throat.

[ 07-15-2002, 10:40 AM: Message edited by: johnny ]

any idea why Iraq is being targeted when there is no evidence suggesting that this regime has any links to organised terrorism?
Isn't Jnr just trying to punish someone for a crime he thinks they are going to commit?
Has he got precogs we don't know about?

Are you kidding or what ? Saddam's middle name IS terrorisme. I say, blast the place !

Read up a bit more on the history of the Middle East, friend.

And I'd like to know just what kind of life form you are that you would even call innocent women and babies 'animals', who have had nothing to do with the acts of terror.

Not that I think you'd change your highly educated views on the matter -- I'm just expressing a couple thoughts.

KT Ong, i was talking about those groups that are running around these days trying to blow up everything that's not Islamic, you didn't read my post well either dude. I have nothing against women and children in the middle east, did you hear me mention them ?

[ 07-15-2002, 11:52 AM: Message edited by: johnny ]

I think he just wants to get back at Saddam for surviving Desert Storm. I think that most terrorism that Mr. Hussien sponsers, if in fact he does, would probably be targeted at our operations in his country.

DeSoya

<font color="#55ccff">I understand the concern here but the president acted within his rights and untill Congress and the Judicial branches say he is wrong...he can do it. Thats the system we have, checks and balances. Im not completely sure but I think President Bush is acting under the "war powers" act which grants him special powers during times of war and national crisis. If you want to worry about someone or thing with too much power...worry about the IRS...a completley unconstitutional nefarious entity which even congress is powerless to fight....or darn near......</font>

Read up a bit more on the history of the Middle East, friend.

And I'd like to know just what kind of life form you are that you would even call innocent women and babies 'animals', who have had nothing to do with the acts of terror.

Not that I think you'd change your highly educated views on the matter -- I'm just expressing a couple thoughts.</font>[/QUOTE]<font color="#55ccff">Looks like you and I are destined to never agree [img]smile.gif[/img] ..and by the way..I have read about the history of the middle east. Israel never belonged to arabs, there is no such thing as a "Palistinian People" there was never a country of Palistine and Arafat in the 1970's said as much in an interview...that since Arabs could not take by force what they want, they would do it by fraud and deception. In the early part of the last century the UK owned most of what was called the transjordan area the UK decided to give the Jews a large portion of this land as their home...Jordan, Syria/Lebanon and Egypt all masacred the people now called palistinians and forced them off their lands into what are now the west bank and gaza strip ...basicly forcing them to invade land given to the Jews..... as for innocent women and children, Isralies and US forces along with UK forces sacrifice their own lives to go out of the way to TRY to keep innocent casualties to a minimum.

Not to mention that in the last several wars between Israel and Jordan, Egypt and other arab countires, the jews kicked ass and took huge amounts of land....and freely gave it back in attempts to secure a long lasting peace for themselves. I do not blame them for trying to preserve their existance.

but that is just my self educated take on the situation. Obviously you see it differently.</font>

[ 07-15-2002, 02:07 PM: Message edited by: MagiK ]

<font color="#55ccff"> How you taking care of those carpenter ants? Do you have to totaly demolish the old deck and rebuild?? I hear those lil buggers a nasty :( ....make sure they didn't infest your wall next to the deck too....</font>

you lefties are funny.f.d.r.,the patron saint of the left in america,used the same powers in the second world war.and guess what?we got those rights back.

Yeah... ripped out the whole deck. Sigh. Fortunatly the ants were at the far end of the wood from the house. So no damage to our foundation or anything. All the damage near the house was just dry rot. Now it's all at the dump. :D

DeSoya

<font color="#55ccff">I understand the concern here but the president acted within his rights and untill Congress and the Judicial branches say he is wrong...he can do it. Thats the system we have, checks and balances. Im not completely sure but I think President Bush is acting under the "war powers" act which grants him special powers during times of war and national crisis. If you want to worry about someone or thing with too much power...worry about the IRS...a completley unconstitutional nefarious entity which even congress is powerless to fight....or darn near......</font></font>[/QUOTE]As far as I can tell we aren't at war. The semblence of a war that was really a police action in Afghanistan is effectively over. Why are we still allowing the president freedom of action under the war powers act? Granted the spectre of a national crisis looms large but there is legal precedent for situations of this nature. The article mentions the Classified Information Procedures Act. Seems like we could give a reason, even a general one such as conspiricy, in order to satisfy our constitution. The fact that some number of people, for offenses as small as visa trouble, are being held without bail, charge or right to a lawyer is going a bit far.
I understand the argument that some freedoms must be given over to protect the people. I disagree with the idea that this means turning into a fascist state.

As for the IRS..... I wonder what would happen if we didn't pay any taxes. I was just thinking about that and it's an interesting dillema.

DeSoya

Personally, Khazadman, I don't see any of this as very funny. One of the ideas behind having a Holocaust Awareness week is to keep the horror of genocide alive and kicking in world conciousness. Already we've seen how ineffective this has been.
I bring this up because if what you say is true and FDR did in fact use detainment as a strategy during WWII then there is precedent for a great deal to happen. We had our own concentration camps here, including one in Colorado that went by the name of Manzanar. I'd rather not see Muslims or anyone else herded into camps to prevent terrorism. There has to be a way to make a few sacrifices with out sacrificing hundreds.

DeSoya

I qouted this from the article because I party agree with it. Citizens should NOT be detained for any reason. IMHO if you go through the proper chanels to earn citizenship to ANY countrie then you are entitled to ALL of the rights and benefits that citizenship provides. Last time I checked the only way they could detain a citizen here was by arresting them and chargeing them with a crime.

As for ILLEGAL immigrants , well they can all rot!! It is kind of like being a burgler only on a larger scale. What do you do with a robber in your house?? Most people have them arrested. Illegal immigration is such a huge problem that some states have totaly cut them off from any kind of social programs. I remember a while ago California had a proposition on the ballot called "Prop 81" that basicaly stated that unless you could prove citizenship you couldnt recieve ANY social programs. It cut illegal immigrants off from welfare,public schools and socialized medicine. I totaly agree with that. Why should people who sneak in be allowed to drain the public systems that the rest of the comunity pays for??Its bad enough my taxes feed all the useless mouths on welfare now !! We dont need more from other countries!!

Back to terrorism , fighting that is like lashing out at the night. Punching the darkness wont do anything but make you tired and make you look foolish. It cant be helped or realy prevented. I wish my numbskull government would learn from Ireals and Northern Irelands mistakes. Pumping money into anti terrorism campagins is useless!! ALl you can do is deal with it when it happens and try to find the bombers before they set the bombs. Since you can build a basic bomb out of Sugar,lye, and bakeing soda finding bombers is like finding needles in haystacks. If they want to pump money into an anti terrorist campaighn then they should monitor the things used to build bombs, NOT the people.

You're right, i was forgetting that white christian americans are more american than the others. The imprisonment of germans and japanese-aemricans was a crime which required apologies from the government later on, but now that the true americans shiver again, we can repeat it?
Nice way to fight for freedom.

[ 07-16-2002, 12:33 AM: Message edited by: flibulzbuth ]

The real problem is that these laws do not really help the fight against domestic terrorism. If the police (or FBI, CIA...) has enough knowledge identifying a terrorist, these new laws don't really help. It's just good for racial and political profiling in a mcarthiish way... bolstered by the constent threatening of the population (they'll blow the statue of Liberty... yeah right! as if any terrorist gives a damn about the statue of liberty...)

Even worst, these new laws haven't helped fighting terrorism, but local dissidence. These laws were written long before 9-11. Since Seattle and other such events, the gvt and their supporting lobbies (or better, the lobbies and their supporting gvt) need more muscle and threat to fight against public opposition which scale has been growing alarmingly fast.

More or less, the same laws have been passed in Canada after 9-11, thanks to right (liberals) and far-right (reform party). These laws have institutionalized repressive police practices that were usual, but nonetheless not legal. By that i mean: arbitrary imprisonment of manifesting people, not allowing them to access lawyers, unnecessary use of violence and abusing the definition of a "dangerous mob"/"unlawful assembly" (an assembly is a group of 4 or more people).