[extropy-chat] Impeachment of President Bush What odds amI offered?

Herb Martin HerbM at learnquick.com
Tue Dec 20 13:11:18 UTC 2005


> David Lubkin
> gts wrote:
> 
> >Strange how the good news about the voter turnout in Iraq 
> and the relative
> >peace on that day appeared at about the same time that we learned our
> >president was spying on his own citizens.
> 
> Separate, largely unrelated thoughts in each paragraph:
> 
> Or, strange how the New York Times reportedly had the story for a 
> year, and printed it at about the same time that we had good 
> news from Iraq.
> 
> One of the most offensive aspects of life in these times is how 
> commonplace activities are trumpeted as dramatic and unprecedented. 
> Behaviors that are routine in Washington, in US history, and in world 
> history, call for banner headlines.
> 
> With specific regard to "our president was spying on his own 
> citizens" -- read a bit of history, particularly The Puzzle Palace.

In the entire discussion (news media, politicians, not just here)
on "rights violations" it is completely overlooked that every time
a citizen or legal resident boards a commercial aircraft that
citizens rights are violated far more egregiously than those
who were monitored due to contact with a known/suspected terrorist
phone or email.

The public may find warrant-less body and luggage searches 
MERELY for traveling to be justified, but this affects some
500 individuals within minutes at every significant airport,
while the monitoring was limited to about this many at any
one time.

Funny that the same people MOST likely to object to 
the monitoring of those in contact with suspected foreign
terrorist phone and email, are most likely to be the same
people who have no problem with the government keeping 
firearms sales records on law-abiding citizens, contrary
to law.

The right to keep and bear arms is one of the oldest 
recognized rights of free human beings, arguably the
oldest, and the right which ultimately protects all 
others yet most so-called civil liberties groups in
the US cannot even count to ten when discussing the
bill of rights without skipping 2, 9, and 10.

While almost no one would seriously discount that
a right of privacy exists despite it never being
enumerated in the US Constitution, those most likely
to argue for all sorts of convoluted interpretations
of that right invent whole cloth arcane arguments
for dismissing right to keep and bear arms which
existing within the Constitution PRIOR to the Second
Amendment which merely offered specific enumeration
and further protection while explaining the States on
well-being was (indirectly) predicated on this 
fundamental right.

--
Herb Martin





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