What is Digg?102 Comments
- fallenone05, on 10/12/2007, -4/+59The terrorists are the excuse, this gov is taking away our freedom
- Sunwalker, on 10/12/2007, -7/+56The Terrorists are taking away our freedom.
President Bush has succeeding in gaining unprecedented powers of torture and indefinite detention. This is a sad day for America. - venir, on 10/12/2007, -3/+48This has been a sad 6 years for America.
- bigtimepelham, on 10/12/2007, -3/+36Im ***** scared
- mikeroySoft, on 10/19/2009, -1/+29I believe it was Einstein who said:
"I do not know what weapons WW3 will be fought with, but I do know that WW4 will be fought with sticks and stones" - funkpucker, on 10/12/2007, -3/+23I'm so sick from this, I just puked.
We create a country specifically to limit the powers of the ruler, to uphold the rights of the individual citizen. Then we pass laws to give a legal blank check to our ruler with almost complete power over the individual. - DollaDollaBill, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22just playing devils advocate a little, do you really think it would have made a difference if we did write our congressmen?
- sbrown123, on 10/12/2007, -1/+17>WHAT DID THEY EVER DO TO YOU!!!
By the wording in the law passed you could be considered a terrorist for littering or not recycling your trash poperly. Yes, this law covers Americans. Bush could detain and arrest all of the Democratic party tommorow if he so desired (Republican too, so he can avoid waiting to pass laws). He could just label that they were assisting terrorists. Actually, hell, he doesn't have to say anything because anyone who complains loudly enough is helping the terrorists and will be removed. Under this law, Bush can turn the U.S. into a full dictatorship and police state anytime he so chooses. Congress has just handed the president supreme control. - whiskeymb, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19Unless you wrote yoru congressmen to say that they shouldn't have signed this, then you don't have much to complain about. it's our job as US citizens (assuming you are a US citizen) to not just be pissed off about legislation that you don't agree with, but to actually do something about it.
I personally hate this. I think it's a disgrace. So for everyone who decides to comment and say that our congreemen suck for signing this, did you write YOUR congressmen and tell them that they shouldn't? - da5idblacksun, on 10/12/2007, -5/+19This discussion isn't about safer. Under Clinton we didn't lose our civil liberties and frankly, we were safer as well.
- Meadow113, on 10/12/2007, -2/+14I wrote my congressman and both of my senators and sent letters to the editor of our regional papers urging others to write congressmen and senators, neither letter has been published though.
- insinuate, on 10/12/2007, -3/+14@DollaDollaBill
Not no but hell no. They have their agendas set...noone just changes their mind over a few letters from concerned citizens. They probably don't even bother opening the letter. - Jadinlee, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12I have never been so disgusted with our government than I am today. I am furious at both Republicans and Democrats. At least with the Republicans... you expect this crap. But my sense of betrayal lies squarely with Democrats who obviously caved in and allowed these bills to pass. For me, this is no longer an issue of Republicans vs Democrats... this has devolved into a state of corruption and incompetence within our entire political system.
I love this country... but today... I am completely embarassed by what this government has become. This is quite literally making me sick to my stomach. - Brian48216, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you-
a sheep. - homerj1965, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Time for a revolution.
- FlaG8r, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10That's not quite true:
" `(3) LAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANT- The term `lawful enemy combatant' means an individual who is--
`(A) a member of the regular forces of a State party engaged in hostilities against the United States;
`(B) a member of a militia, volunteer corps, or organized resistance movement belonging to a State party engaged in such hostilities, which are under responsible command, wear a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance, carry their arms openly, and abide by the law of war; or
`(C) a member of a regular armed force who professes allegiance to a government engaged in such hostilities, but not recognized by the United States.
`(4) UNLAWFUL ENEMY COMBATANT- The term `unlawful enemy combatant' means an individual engaged in hostilities against the United States who is not a lawful enemy combatant."
It is true that the sections about who can be subjected to military commisions and habeas corpus matters both use the word 'alien' which would seem to protect US citizens, but sections 950fff through 950hhh all start with "Any person subject to this chapter who..." so I'm not really sure that US citizens are protected in those sections. - monkeywizard, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11@whiskey - That's where you're absolutely wrong.
It's no secret that politicians' motivations are funded by those who finance their campaigns overall before those who they represent.
The *only* difference here is THE AMERICAN PUBLIC is ignorant and stupid, and I bet you most didn't bat an eye. If anyone did write, trust me, it was such a small voice compared to the rest of the sheep that vote that it went unhead.
Otherwise they wouldn't back such a thing.
Second, there are SO many bills being passed that it is impossible to keep up on them all unless you devote a good portion of your life following it. There's plenty of bills sneaking in left and right.
Our political system is corrupt, and if you really think writing to them will change a thing, you're highly mistaken. That was a thing of the past. - Tantrum, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11Being able to imprison indefinitly a US Citizen, Us Visitor or Legal US resident for no reason other than being labeled an 'enemy combatant' is utter BS. You have no right to be seen in front of a judge to plead your case (because we all know how perfect their record has been so far with labeling people terrorists). Didn't Hitler do this same crap?
- da5idblacksun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Do you know how stupid you sound? Supporting a government that is screwing you over?
- Matrix_Prime, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Of course Congress is wrapped around his finger, the GOP is running the country, and the Democrats are the minority.
- fallenone05, on 10/12/2007, -6/+12Don't worry, it will all be over soon with World War III. It's a triology that you are not have to go to the movies to experience it, and World War III is the end.
- Mardala, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7The big flaw with what you are saying is who is to decide who is an enemy combatant? There is now NO way to determine that. Its TOO much power by the executives. No one wants to see someone who has attacked our country go free, but that is just not the case. Its well known that a good percentage of the detainees were never "enemies" and it was a case of the wrong person with the same name on a watch list or they were rounded up and sold to CIA.
The big problem with this is its following down the path that people like Pinochet, Hitler, Stalin ... all these rulers we historically deem "horrible monsters" well ... this is the kind of crap they started doing. Do you really want to start heading down that path? Im not saying Bush & co. will start executing millions, but torture and illegal prisons with no legal help and no possibility of release is NOT something we should ever condone as being American. This is what dictators do. - Matrix_Prime, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8no, he thinks he's a dictator....the Congress seems to agree, and the American public again turns a blind eye. You people better wakeup come Nov.
- macfanboi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Terrorist have won at every level. Bush has just been a pawn in all of this. Sad day for American wasn't today it was back in 2000 when Bush was implanted.
- gimpbully, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5are you completely serious? are you really trying to point the "fear mongering" finger? Have you lived under a rock for the past 6 or so years? I'm sorry to be so flustered, but your statements are completely dismissive of an entire administrations history.
- kingcam, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." ~ Benjamin Franklin
- FlaG8r, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Everything is relative shanealeslie. Some of us bundle up when it gets down to 70.
- SimonGray, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Christianofascist, to use a wording of his own ;-)
- Wongeroo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Idiots debate the merits of the law as a tool for protecting The Homeland from the invisible-yet-lethal terrorists. "Give Dear Leader" more power they say, "then we'll be safe." As though vesting power in a singular sovereign with unchecked power over the military and domestic police forces will circumvent the inherent corruptibility of man.
Fools believe that the next President in '09, or the new Congress in '07 will somehow learn from these dark times and usher in a new age of political discourse. As though a wedge issue like the threat of impending destruction will disappear because the social consensus says "we are too good to even acknowledge this as an issue." Maybe in academia, never in America.
The terrorists won. They didn't do it by killing 3000 innocents in NYC or damaging an unused portion of the Pentagon. They did it by instilling fear in our society. We fear them, the threat of them, more than any possible method of destruction that they are capable of. We fear them like a cancer. But instead of thinking through our fear, working intelligently and clearly, we've reduced ourselves to the lowest common state of faith... just as they knew we would.
Why spend money and men to attack an enemy one hundred times your size and power? Why waste resources inflicting minimal infrastructural damage when you can bait them into trap to destroy themselves? Evidently, the best weapon of terrorism is doing nothing at all. Because the people who fear them will do more work for them than they could have ever done on their own.
It's times like this that I hope I get nuked quickly than live on in a world ruled by warmongering authoritarian megalomaniacs. - streetstealth, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5That upcoming protest march next Thursday was looking good, but then I started thinking...
1.) The president has called such exercises of free speech "giving comfort to the enemy."
2.) The president can now legally make you disappear if he thinks what you are doing is "giving comfort to the enemy."
Am I ready to take that kind of risk for freedom? Are you? - OralCavity, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5go to http://thisamericanlife.org/ and check out their archive for '06. do a find for an episode titled "Habeas Schmabeas" and you'll see how real people are impacted by this.
the government is out of control anyone who denies this is a fool and must be completely ignorant on the (relatively) recent past. - lwdallas, on 10/12/2007, -5/+8There has been an attack on our soil by a group of people that have declared war on the United States of America. (Btw, *not* just George Bush)
Sounds like an invasion to me. - greymaxcat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4naw... to ***** cold...
- rocketryguy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Yes I did.
- da5idblacksun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Exactly. You say "enemy combatant" like its a clear cut thing of who that might be. Keep in mind that Bush alone has the power to decide if you are one. And if he does, you will no rights.
Why is that there enough sheep in the world that we actually have to argue for basic civil liberties? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+6It is called threats for votes.
like people said mcccain was in danger of losing his presidencial asperations.
I am sure rove inc has no problem telling senators, they will be swiftboats, ingored, or even campaigned against if they dont play ball.
After all remember this admins motto
"if you aint with us, you are against us" - stmiller, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/09/28/BL2006092800790_pf.html
Ad-free version. - mad1stl, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@insinuate.. you sir are an idiot.
- sundancekid503, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3"Canada has lots of room, civil liberties, a relatively uncorrupted government, and better beer."
Canada does NOT have better beer. Canadian beer is crap, come to the Pacific Northwest if you want to try some real beer. You can insult our president and insult our politics, but I wont sit here and listen to you insult our beer.
Other than that Canada is ok though ;). - ncelani00, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@IronDio
I also dugg you up even though I disagree with your opinion. I've only been visiting this site for a month or so, and this is my first post, but it's not often you see real rational argument.
First, I take issue with whether you know someone or not that this has happened to. The rights of the individual are often shunned by the mainstream and the masses. The first amendment, for example, does not exist so that people can voice common points of view. Those views don't need protecting, they are alreay protected by their general acceptance. It is the uncommon, way out there thinking, the kind of thinking that enflames normal people, that uses the protection of the first amendment.
So to is it with the amendments that protect our citizens from unreasonable searches and seizures, self-incrimination, and due process. When polled, over 70% of your average american would reject a hyptothetical law with the same text as the fourth amendment. Why? Because it sounds like it is soft on crime. Because they figure they are not doing anything wrong, and therefore it's okay to screw over people who do (the criminals). But this is a dangerous milestone to cross, because if you have an ordinary citizen who is frightened from doing something perfectly legal, like pick up a telephone, then society as a whole is harmed.
How can you claim to be a country of the free where some people are afraid to call their relatives back home, because someone might be listening in? How can that person then walk down the street and not consider every cop, every governmental official, the people who are supposed to protect them, as someone to fear? Maybe you're not worried because you're white, or you live in the suburbs, or your family has a lawyer in it or something, but someone else easily could be.
Second, I'd like to point out that a law cannot be based on one person doing their job fairly. Even if you were to assume that this president is both competant and fair, and I think many would question both of those qualities, you must consider that whoever is elected in 2008 and 2012 and 2016 will have those same tools to use. Tools which allow one person to jail someone without judicial review and without the judgement of his peers. By refusing Habeus review to prisoners the President has made himself judge, jury and executioner. By designating someone an "enemy combatant" at his choice, he essentially pronounces someone guilty, because you need not even have a trial when the person cannot petition for Habeus. I have not read his power to deem someone an enemy combatant, but if it is fully within his discretion than he is literally no different from kings of old who could jail someone for anything they wished and leave them there to rot. The very essence of the American system is to keep power from the hands of the few, and rather than all three branches conspiring to place someone behind bars (as well as consent from a jury of his peers), the power to place someone behind bars now resides in only one man. If this law passes I hope it is struck down.
Finally, I want to say something about war and invasion. Someone earlier said that we are being invaded because of 9/11. No, that's not even close to the definition of invasion. Invasion means to occupy and hold a country and force them to your will. The terrorists don't have the power to do that. Rather, you do move us toward being occupied by saying that: the fear that we will be oppressed by our own government - which I argue this law moves toward.
I also want to point out that we are not at war in the true sense of the word. "War" is a very specific state of affairs, and it far more complicated than mere "armed combat." War is a state of relations between countries. And I stress "countries." There is a reason for this. In war the powers of the government expand. The power of any government over it's people, since even tribal times, comes from it's mutual protection and defensive powers. The reason you must be at war with a country is because a country is organized in such a fashion that you know when you win. When you park your tanks outside someone's Congress and they sign a piece of paper saying you win, that is when the war has ended. And it has ended because you can trust that the armies of said country will follow what their leaders have agreed to. In other words, you have an object of a war, you know who you can capture or kill to win. In our current state, it does not matter if we kill bin laden. He cannot bargain with us. If he were to say tomorrow that he was wrong it would not end the hostilities, because the terrorist network is not top-down in structure. Capturing the king will not stop the pawns from attacking. Thus there is no end to our "war" since it is impossible to kill every single person who would attack us (and even impossible to know if there are any more people who would attack us). Terrorism, by it's very nature, is not an act of war. It is a crime. Just like it's a crime to spray graffiti on the side of a building. Imagine the logistics of the government trying to do a "war" on vandalism. It's no different.
The problem that we face is that while terrorism is akin to a crime, it's occuring over international borders. While that would be okay if everyone liked us (after all many crimes occur over international borders - copyright infringement, smuggling, etc) and would work with us to stop it. But we have some countries that don't like us, and are, as it has been called a "haven" for terrorists. However, declaring war against countries to try and root out terrorists there is not the answer (which is why I think the Iraq war was a stupid idea even based on the false allegations of a tie to 9/11) and as I pointed out before you can't declare war against an organization like bin ladens.
I think one thing a lot of people don't understand is that sometimes you're better off doing nothing. There's a comment I'm sure I'll get dugg down for. But it is true. Many times, the best move is to sit. In football teams will do it to end the game. In Chess, many strategies in the end game are based on the concept that the opponent MUST move one of his pieces. There happens to be a game theory dilemma based on it, but I forget it's name at the moment. When it comes to the idea of trading civil liberties for something of an edge in the "war on terror," the best move is to sit and do nothing. That doesn't make you a coward or stupid, it simply recognizes that the other person is more likely to screw up, that you need not expend unnecessary resources, and that action has it's own dangers associated with it. It was either Franklin or Jefferson who wrote "those who would trade liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security." I think the Republicans are misguided for giving Bush what he wants, and that the Democrats are just as bad for letting it happen. None of them deserve our praise. Instead, for their own selfish political reasons, they are putting all of us at more risk. - insinuate, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8Only 2 more years guys...we can make it. Hopefully if we don't invade another country soon.
- jellygraph, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ streetstealth :
It's worth it. Freedom is always worth fighting for. America overthrew one monarch, it can overthrow this one. It's the American way. Just don't let it intimidate you. You got to fight for what you know is right.
It will yet again be another defining moment in history if you do. - Jadinlee, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I wrote and therefore have a personal sense of satisfaction. But I don't fool myself into thinking that my letters made any difference. This political system knows all too well that individually, America is made up of great and intelligent citizens. But collectively, we are nothing but sheep. Our "individual" culture promotes this. We lose our collective identity when our culture is nothing more than "me me me".
Think about it. Sure other countries may have people and citizens who are oppressed but more often than not... it is by force and via cruel dictators. Here, all it takes is a marketing campaign. Kinda makes you wonder who the "stonger" and more responsible citizens are. - shanealeslie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ ildough
When I said freedom loving, I was referring to those that do not support the current administration. From what I have seen the American people are about this far (holds up first finger and thumb about an inch apart) from living in Orwell's 1984; and those that back the current administration are participating in their own subjugation as peons and surfs of the Military/Entertainment/Industrial Complex. I have a number of emigrated American friends, and they all believe that moving north was the best thing that they ever did for their families. - gimpbully, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"There has been an attack on our soil by a group of people that have declared war on the United States of America. (Btw, *not* just George Bush)"
see, that's not quite true. there has been no war declared, no sovereign nation has declared war. Too, the justification for this legislation is not connected to any attack on the US. No invasion has taken place. This matter of politicians re-branding words and their meanings is utter crap. - oxigen, on 10/12/2007, -9/+11Bush is a facist.
I've been saying it all along, but now people are starting to wake the ***** up. - shanealeslie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@ Sundancekid503
I'll admit that some of your microbreweries have a great products, but your major commercial brands are swill :P - Meadow113, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Habeas Corpus has always applied to anyone held by the United States. You are incorrect about this, and being as the Supreme Court recently ruled to uphold that, there is not a showballs chance in hell that they are going to uphold this legislation.
- shanealeslie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I may not agree with your points, but I'm digging you for a well presented argument.
You may not have encountered the effects of these laws and powers that have been given to the governemnts officials - but keep in mind that not using those powers, while adding to them incrementally, can lead to a situation in which there COULD be secret police that can do pretty much anything they want, to anyone they want, and no one will be able to counter or question them. - strangerzero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2We were not at war and economy was flying high and we learned a lot about oral sex during the Clinton years. What more do you want from a president?
-
Show 51 - 100 of 102 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is