RoR: Forum

Post 0

Saturday, June 11, 2005 - 11:10am

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Why does the Left always seem to see Man as the bad guy in their inter-species analogies?

The Patriot Act is just applying the same powers that they've had for years against drug dealers onto terrorists. Yet most lefties want to focus on stopping the terrorist part of the law instead of focussing on the part that involves people that aren't hurting anyone else (dealers). If you can't change all the laws in a day, it is more rational to start with the most egregious violations first (i.e. violations of rights that have no impact on national security).

It makes me question whether this is really about civil liberties, or whether many on the Left just don't want America to defend herself against terrorists, because deep down, they want the terrorists to destroy this evil capitalistic hyperpower.

Post 1

Saturday, June 11, 2005 - 12:25pm

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Scott D,

LOLOLOL...

In Brazil, they call that "establishing a precedent." That is the whole game in politics for expanding power. You establish a small "precedent" and then work on making it grow.

I personally get really uneasy with precedents. the Patriot Act was not a "small precedent" either. that one was a HUGE MOTHER.

btw - I have been bitching about the Patriot Act ever since it was drafted (when I was still in Brazil) - on precisely these grounds.

Michael

Post 2

Saturday, June 11, 2005 - 1:20pm

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Scott S.

It's not the powers vested in authorities that bother me, but the nebulous definition of a terrorist in the Act. It leaves the door wide opens for authoritarianism.

Post 3

Sunday, June 12, 2005 - 2:16pm

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Sarah:

You hit the nail on the head. You know how you cna become defined as a terrorist under the act?

BE A SUSPECT.

Now, the thing about being a suspect is that there is only suspicion. Not necessarily proof. Maybe you hang around the wrong people, maybe your ethnicity is wrong, maybe you wrote something suspicious on the internet, whatever. Our entire system of criminal justice is built around the concept of suspicion not being enough. That's why cops need a warrant signed by a Judge before they can rifle through your home, need probable cause before they can stop and search you. You actually need to be convicted before they can throw you in jail forever. But not with The Patriot Act. Suspicion is enough, and you cna be held in jail FOREVER without ever being charged, on suspicion.

I think Scott thinks that I represent "The Left"--LOL!

Post 4

Sunday, January 28, 2007 - 1:44pm

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Michael was so right when he spoke of it being a precedent. (Something about not letting the camel putting his nose into the tent? And this is a BIG camel).

Scott talked about drug dealers being an excuse for government violations of rights.

Sarah talks about the scary part being not just the power vested in authority but the vagueness with which it can be used.

I certainly agree that it is a LARGE precedent, which is vague enough to guarantee abuse, and that creating real or imagined bogey men (terrorists, child molesters, drug dealers, etc.) have become an obvious subterfuge.

But what frightens me the most is how little opposition there is to the government's crushing of habeas corpus, to the total disregard for the principle of probable cause, and a complete willingness to ignore or subvert existing laws and the constitution. Hardly a peep is heard.

I figure that potentially harmful politicians, like potentially harmful bacteria, are ubiquitous. Given the chance they will always be ready to infect the body politic. The danger is when the immune system no longer works. That is what I see now.

Post 5

Monday, January 29, 2007 - 12:03pm

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I figure that potentially harmful politicians, like potentially harmful bacteria, are ubiquitous. Given the chance they will always be ready to infect the body politic. The danger is when the immune system no longer works. That is what I see now.

Biomedicine calls this an opportunistic infection ...

;-)

Ed

Post 6

Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - 5:07pm

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Steve,

Thank you for bringing attention to this old thread once again. One of the aspects of Bush that has bothered me is the number of precedents he has tried to establish. For instance, the Terry Schaivo debacle where he tried to castrate the judiciary. (I despised that attempt even as I was in favor of letting what was left of the poor woman live and be cared for by her parents.)

Then there was his prosecution of the Iraq war (which I am not entirely against), selling it to the American public on shaky intelligence if not outright deception (which I am fully against).

I could go on, but all anyone has to do is remember the headlines over the last few years and a number of executive attempts at setting government power-increasing precedents at the expense of individual rights come to mind. I can't prove it, but I have a gut feeling Bush even had a backstage finger in the Intelligent Design thing that was floated.

Still, the Patriot Act is, by far, the most dangerous encroachment on individual rights at the present.

Hugo Chavez was just awarded vast executive powers in Venezuela through an "enabling act." The act is valid for 18 months only, but I don't believe he will relinquish that power if he manages to keep it the full 18 months. (I personally think he will be fiercely opposed and will only keep it if he does a major purge of his own supporters, which I do not rule out. Then anything goes.)

But if anything like an "enabling act" ever happens in the USA, it will have roots in the precedents of the Patriot Act. At least the USA system of checks and balances has kept some horrible things from expanding. It seems like the checks and balances policy was designed specifically with Bush in mind.

Michael

Post 7

Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - 7:15pm

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It seems like the checks and balances policy was designed specifically with Bush in mind.

This made me laugh (and cry, at the same time).

;-)

Ed

Post 8

Wednesday, January 31, 2007 - 11:56pm

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Bush scares me.

The biggest precedent may be his overwhelming disregard is for the constitution, for consensus, and for individual rights.

The checks and balances don't seem to be checking or balancing very well. He makes dictatorship in America seem possible.

Post 9

Thursday, February 1, 2007 - 12:23am

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I still maintain that there may well be martial law declared before end of his term - especially if Dems win in November...