I think everyone's facts and sources are different, but there are a few things in this I wanted to respond to, in a good spirit.
Has the Patriot Act impacted the average citizen in any way? I know of none. I know of people who have screamed from the mountain tops about abuses, but I've yet to actually see this dreaded abuse. One would think with the multitudes of activists constantly trolling for another imaginary toe to be stepped upon, we would have heard something by now
But are you a lawyer, and have you read the Patriot Act with a legal frame of mind? Obviously people are seriously concerned about the abuses that can be enacted within its framework. People are up in arms about this because of the potential for oppression, and the potential for the government to take unheard of amounts of power and secrecy. This is completely justified!
I mean, people are fighting potentials all the time. Religious fundamentalists in Amerika are terrified that homosexual marriage will lead to pederasty and bestiality. Has this happened in other countries that allow it? No of course not - then why are they still concerned? I don't mean to say they are right to be concerned about this, but that potential matters.
When faced with individual freedom vs survival of the Republic, the leadership of the United States has always chosen security. Lincoln suspended habeus corpus and censored newspapers. Wilson helped pass the Sedition Act (which was declared constitutional by SCOTUS, BTW) and jailed people for inspiring treason in time of war. Roosevelt censored, lied and put thousands of Americans into internment camps.
Yes, but in these times, there was also vocal dissent. So the dissent is in the same tradition, and just as valid. And by the way, do you think newspapers will ever be censored again in the same way, that is to say, overtly? Of course not, because the voices of dissent won. So all those who dissent - never shut up. Keep going, and the voice of the people will win. This has been proven time and time again.
And we're worried somebody is listening to your overseas phone call...
Knowledge is power, and why should any government, especially one that claims to be by and for the people, have unlimited access to personal business? The majority of people don't want this, and it won't happen. When it was leaked that some phone companies provided records of every single call to the federal government, the country was outraged, the phone companies were sued, the government had to spin it and take a few steps back... if people want this, the government never would have apologized. Ths is a government by and for the people, and this is the essence of Amerika.
Do tax cuts make the rich richer, and the poor poorer? I don't think they do, do you have empiracal data? Do you know who pays the lion's share of taxes in the United States? Do you know where the cutoff for federal taxes is for a family of four? Have you ever considered that many of those tax cuts kept some middle income families from paying any tax at all?
This sounds weak to me. I've never met any family that pays 0 tax, unless they make so little they don't have to. Anyways, the logics of economics are open to "robust" debate.
(1) Iraq? (2) You do understand the geo-strategic importance of the Euphrates River Valley, don't you? (3) You undertsand that Sadaam was financing terrorism on the West Bank just before we invaded Iraq? (4) Do you know that Abu Nidal was being cared for in Iraqi hospitals and given sanctuary? (5) You do know that every intelligence service in the West (plus Russia) was convinced Sadaam had WMD? (6) You are aware that just last week, that conservative bastion The New York Times wrote that Hussein's nuclear program could have easily been reconstituted and produce a bomb in approximately 18 months? (7) Are you also aware of the rumors that much of Sadaam's WMD may have been shipped to Syria before the war?
You ask a lot of questions here, and I have numbered them for simplicity in answering!
(1) Yes?
(2) I don't know, do you?
(3) Who financed Saddam?
(4) Who is that?
(5) The intelligence reports that reach the President, and the work that goes into them, are apparently two vastly different things, which we have learned from recent documents released by the Freedom of Information Act. It actually turns out a lot of intelligence discrediting WMDs in Iraq was suppressed, and more circumstantial evidence was "cherry-picked" as they say.
(6) If it is so easy to build a nuclear bomb, why doesn't Iran have one, and why doesn't North Korea have one that actually functions? You can't suggest that Iraq is more technically savvy and has more resources than Iran without provoking serious fits of laughter.
(7) No, but I am aware of rumors that say the Bush Administration wanted to invade Iraq before September 11th. Which is true?
I feel personally that if the Iraq invasion was justified because Iraq was "financing terrorism" (who doesn't do that these days?), and nursing a terrorist, then these things should have been mentioned as a reason for this war of choice. But frankly, they were not. We were told one thing, and when that turned out to be false, we were told something else. And the standard has gotten lower and lower. It leaves one wondering why other countries, who represent real threats that were only imagined in Iraq's case, are left to do their thing. Well, one doesn't have to wonder that much!
As the current administration says, we must have a "robust debate" about these topics!
Walter Ramsey
Topic: USA Midterms: Democrats in da House, pregnant cat!