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Knees were jerking, knuckles were dragging, mouths were wagging, and jaws were slacking as the reflexive mob from the middle of the bell curve reacted to the events of 9-11 and pushed through the USA Patriot Act. The Act twitched its way to being law just six weeks after the World Trade Center buildings crashed to the ground.  The
Act was passed by law makers who seemed to be acting like drunken sailors
just before closing time at a floozy bar who wanted to be sure they had
something...anything...to make them feel warm and cozy. But, perhaps I
unnecessarily impugn drunken sailors by comparing them to our lawmakers.
At any rate, in their 9-11 intoxicated state, even this snaggletoothed
hag of an Act looked good to those who only wanted to score and feel good.
As is often the case under such circumstances, law makers may have gotten
more than they bargained for as they forgot, in their haste to get a little,
that rush judgments made under such conditions often lead to social diseases.
Ahh, but never fear for the health of our lawmakers; the way it works
in American politics is that the law makers get the action and the citizens
get the disease. |
 It's
been about a year now since the Act was passed and many citizens seem
to be developing a rash and a burning sensation from that hasty judgment
made a year earlier by Congress. In fact, the Act and its progeny are
causing a growing number of good, decent citizens all across the country
to jump up and say that the Act is stomping all over the Bill of Rights
and has brought into America the specter of 3 a.m. door knocks and worse,
all carried out by the equivalent of Secret Police who can, among other
things, cause citizens to disappear based on an anonymous tip from a crackpot
neighbor with a grudge. In truth, the Act was well intended and was supposed to make it easy for law enforcement to find and arrest terrorists. Instead, it seems that it is allowing a highly politicized law enforcement establishment and bigoted whack job haters of freedom to claim that those they don't agree with are terrorists. Intellectuals, dissidents and non-conformists on the left and the right can now be labeled terrorists and have a home grown political, social, and religious fatwa issued against them. |
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Lost
in the PR spin coming from D.C. about the Act is the fact that that
real problem we have with terrorism is a result of open borders and
the massive Third World invasion of this nation. Instead of closing
our borders and stopping this immigration, many of the same people behind
this dangerous and falsely named USA Patriot Act mouth the usual clichés
about America being a nation of immigrants and how it's just plain American
to have open borders. So, with this attitude as a backdrop, what's really
going on is that citizen rights are under attack while a nonexistent
right by non-citizens to enter our country, remains intact. What should
really happen is that our government should take away non-citizens'
phony non-existent right to come here and then it won't have to take
away the genuine rights of citizens. Don't count on that happening though,
we've got too many goof-balls in charge of our government. Welcome to
post-American America; a land made strange to traditional American values
and to American citizens. 
Yes,
1984, Animal Farm, and the KGB all come to mind. In reaction to the
potentially repressive nature of the USA Patriot Act, citizens in 45
U.S. towns and cities have now started committees to defend the Bill
of Rights. Fifteen of these towns and cities had passed resolutions
defending the Bill, when I started writing this column. Now, it's seventeen.
By the time you read this, it may be higher and more are on the way.
While these resolutions are mostly just symbolic, the thought is that
if enough of them are piled up, they could send a message to D.C. that
citizens don't want the Bill of Rights messed with.|
The Bill of Rights Defense Committee's Web site http://www.bordc.org
has information about the concrete steps that people can take in their
local communities to let the government know that the Bill of Rights
is about as sacred as any secular document can be. Although the site
has a definite lefty twist to it, those on the right shouldn't be too
put off by this, and should edit as needed. The site has some of the
petitions and resolutions that have been used and passed in various
communities and these, with a little tweaking, can be used by people
of all political persuasions. Substitute "citizens" for the
lefty lumpen
term "residents" which lefties often use these days to blur
the line between citizens and illegal aliens and many of the petitions
and resolutions are fine. Clearly, what the lefties are trying to do
with many of these petitions and resolutions is to retain both unbridled
immigration and the Bill of Rights. The problem with this is it doesn't
give us the real protection we need from terrorists. It would be better
to simply stop immigration. Then we wouldn't need the Act and we'd have
both our rights and our safety. |
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Even with the aforementioned lefty twist to much of
the organizing to protect the Bill of Rights, it appears from news reports
that citizens from all parts of the political spectrum are concerned
about various provisions of the Act. And, they should be. If this Act
is used to take away the rights of |
some
leftists (which some rightists might incorrectly think is a good thing)
it can also be used to take away the rights of some rightists (which
some leftists might incorrectly think is a good thing). It is better
to let everyone keep their rights equally. It may be worth saying, in
case some are not clear about this, that it is the Bill of Rights that
has kept petty tyrants, who arise in every generation like weeds in
a garden, at bay in this country. When honored, the Bill of Rights protects
all citizens from the political whims, fashions, and jerking knees of
the moment.|
And the knees of freedomphobes are now jerking. For
this reason, there is an increasing urgency to protect the Bill of Rights.
We're already seeing many of those who want to repress American citizens
using the anti-terrorist aura of the Act to label others as terrorists
in order to push their hatred and their agendas. The Act helps these
petty tyrants act out their hatred and gives the color of law to their
repression. An Arizona newspaper recently carried a column by a writer
with a clear bias for an open border with Mexico. The writer was quick
to label as terrorists those who want to protect our borders. In California,
several people including a woman who collects clothes for poor white
kids were called domestic terrorists. And, these are just two examples
of the type of mischief that will be done unless the Bill of Rights
is protected. If good, decent citizens from all parts of the political
spectrum don't start speaking out, "terrorist," may soon be
as commonly and as incorrectly used today as was "witch" in
the Salem of the 1600's. And with similar results. Once, it was easy
to destroy anyone by calling them a witch. The word terrorist may take
on that task today, if we're not careful. |
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Without the Bill of Rights, petty tyrants in government
may use the might of the U.S. government to |
force
their particular social, religious, and political views on others by
using the pretext that these others are terrorists. Remember Ruby Ridge
and how the government killed Mrs. Weaver and her son? Remember Waco
and the immolation of men, women, and children? Those are the types
of things that can happen even more frequently if the Bill of Rights
is allowed to be weakened. |
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