Compassionate Conservatism.

[Darth Wong]

Typical right wingnut bullshit, isn't it? Point out how some of the most visible, influential, and highly rated media personalities on the right are absolutely batshit insane, and they go and find quotes from people that are either obscure or have no daily media presence whatsoever in order to back up their idiotic "Tu Quoque" fallacies.

[Glocksman]

You know what? It would be almost worth Bush winning just to hear you howl on November 3. You used to be a reasonable liberal, but you've long since spiraled into DU fanatacism. I've been called a racist and a racist by association because of my politics before, but I never expected it from you. Because we all know, favoring free trade, gun ownership, low taxes and a strong military means you want to hang niggers who get uppity.

That's the way the two-party system works. You want low taxes, you gotta get the racism too. You want more civil liberties for more Americans, you gotta take progressive tax increases.

Talk about a black/white (pun intended) fallacy.

The only liberal or conservative who voted against the USA PATRIOT act was Russ Feingold (one of the liberals I respect) of Wisconsin.

So much for the liberals (with the exception of Feingold) protecting our civil liberties.

[Coyote]

The list I presented was not intended as "proof" of anything, nor as a rebuttal. It was the only example of "Nazis=Right Wing" that I knew of, and as I pointed out, it was primarily anti-Bush in particular, with only a few references to the Conservative political viewpoint in general.

Right off hand, I can't think of any "Big Time" liberal spokesperson who has said that the Right Wing=Nazis. Mostly the big speakers on the left are calling the Bush Administration and the involved individual members of that administration names. Nothing new there.

I think Rush Limbaugh is a blowhard, I've never read anything by Ann Coultier and so I can't say one way or another what her opinions are or how close they come to my perception of truth.

However, when the book "Treason" came out, I was rather apalled at the accusation. Like I said, liberals are people with views different from my own in many ways, but their views are valid nonetheless. Condemning them with the label of "Traitor" is over the top. As its been pointed out, it is a death-penalty offense, not something to be tossed about lightly.

America was formed by people who, at the time, were considered freaky liberals. It's a fine tradition to be aware of and touch base with.

These days the "Conservative" label is being used as a blanket term for Republican Party-- which is also being infiltrated and influenced overmuch by religious elements. The longer this continues, the more alienated I am from them. It is now at the point where if the Democrats would drop gun control and trade protectionism, I'd pretty much jump ship and be with the left full-time.

[Andrew J.]

Talk about a black/white (pun intended) fallacy.

The only liberal or conservative who voted against the USA PATRIOT act was Russ Feingold (one of the liberals I respect) of Wisconsin.

So much for the liberals (with the exception of Feingold) protecting our civil liberties.

Just another two-party symptom. In the liberal one you get people that really care about that sort of thing, and you also get people that ehh, not so much.

[Petrosjko]

Protecting our rights...

Power Over the People
olitical observers often have wondered why Democrats, especially liberals, didn't put up more of a fight against the Patriot Act, which passed the Senate with only one dissenting vote. Many thought it was because Dems didn't have the guts to stand up, and were afraid both to look unpatriotic and to risk defeat at the hands of the mighty Bush. But there may be another reason: The Patriot Act enhances major incursions into civil liberties that were sponsored by Bill Clinton in 1994 and 1996, including the setting up of secret courts and the launch of mass deportations.

The 1996 Antiterrorism Act gave the secretary of state the authority to decide which organizations are terrorist. Anyone supporting such an organization for humanitarian reasons is liable to criminal prosecution. And, of course, under Clinton the FBI was allowed to continue building files on people and organizations based not on the likelihood of their committing a crime, but on grounds that an FBI agent thought they should be investigated. This act, directed at international terrorism, was pushed through Congress in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing, which the government had no reason to believe was caused by foreign terrorists. These measures were opposed not by rank-and-file Democrats, but by the ACLU, per usual, and conservatives who feared they might be the targets of the next investigation.

Two examples of what Clinton, and now Attorney General John Ashcroft, have brought the nation in the hunt for terrorists:

First, federal grand juries have become potential investigative arms—not just of the Justice Department—but of the CIA, formerly banned from operating within the U.S. Under the Patriot Act, testimony before a grand jury can now be sent to the intelligence agencies, which under various treaties can share it with spook agencies of foreign governments. Let's say a U.S. attorney wants to prosecute a businessman with a Middle Eastern passport because he has an informant who says the businessman was dealing with Saddam's Iraq. No one knows who the informant is. It could be a competitor, a jealous suitor, an irate neighbor, anybody. But the prosecutor, using the FBI or other investigative agencies, can then conduct surveillance, secretly tape the suspect's conversations or telephone calls, and take hearsay testimony. Since a criminal indictment is already two-thirds of the way up the river for most people, the grand jury in effect functions as a secret court. And if the information is shared with spooks around the world, in a very real sense they get to determine the verdict.

Second, anti-terrorism laws are being used to prosecute those with no interest in taking down the American republic. As part of North Carolina's own little war on terror, Watauga County DA Jerry Wilson focused on the state's antiterrorism laws to hammer people accused of producing methamphetamines. Ordinarily a meth producer might get six months, but under the new code, Wilson can send a convicted producer to jail for anywhere from 12 years to life. In the first case of this sort, Wilson is charging Martin Dwayne Miller, 24, on two counts of making a nuclear or chemical weapon in connection with the manufacture of methamphetamines. To get a connection between a nuke and meth, Wilson refers to the toxic nature of the chemicals involved in making the drug, noting that firemen and police officers responding to cases involving meth risk lung damage and other serious injury.

"I understand the title of the statute is antiterrorism, but the statute is much more broad than that," he said. "There's nothing in the statute that requires any organized terrorist effort. There's nothing in the statute that requires that these chemicals be used as a weapon."

Wilson may well not be far off the mark, for federal law classifies as a weapon of mass destruction, among other things, a hand grenade. "When you define the term so broadly, then it could be used to mean any number of things, including possessing the chemicals used to make methamphetamines," Graham Boyd, the ACLU's director of drug-policy litigation, told the Voice. "You end up shifting the power to prosecutors and sheriffs to define weapons of mass destruction according to what they think they are."

Political parties are machines designed for the purpose of getting their candidates elected. To ascribe moral motives to either major American party is naive. If the fundamentalist base woke up tomorrow and decided abortion was no big deal and boys kissing was a-okay, watch how fast the Republicans would turn on a dime to accomodate the shift.

Neither party as a group cares one whit about 'protecting our rights'. It's just a part of the required rhetoric for the job.[/url]

[Glocksman]

Talk about a black/white (pun intended) fallacy.

The only liberal or conservative who voted against the USA PATRIOT act was Russ Feingold (one of the liberals I respect) of Wisconsin.

So much for the liberals (with the exception of Feingold) protecting our civil liberties.

Just another two-party symptom. In the liberal one you get people that really care about that sort of thing, and you also get people that ehh, not so much.

Apparently only one of the Senate's liberals (and yes, there are Republican liberals.) cared enough to vote against it. So much for the Senate liberals standing up for individual rights

As far as John Kerry goes, his record proves he's no friend of civil liberties

Both Bush and Kerry are power hungry swine.

Russ Feingold in 08

[Andrew J.]

As far as John Kerry goes, his record proves he's no friend of civil liberties

Wasn't that article featured in a thread and utterly destroyed months ago?

[Glocksman]

As far as John Kerry goes, his record proves he's no friend of civil liberties

Wasn't that article featured in a thread and utterly destroyed months ago?

Umm..I wouldn't call it utterly destroyed

Mike merely pointed out that the reason why encryption was liberalized had nothing to do with civil liberties and everything to do with big business.

No one even addressed Kerry's backing of asset forfeiture laws, proposals to monitor all electronic banking transactions, and his authorship of the money laundering provisions in the PATRIOT act.

Unless the author is making his facts up, Kerry is no civil libertarian.