--- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > So when Ashcroft and the administration attempt to > abrogate basic citizens > rights that have existed for a long time that is > "the american way"?  When > Ashcroft accuses anyone who disagrees of being > anti-american, this is the > american way? Come on Gautam. As to taxes,  > this is a economic decision. What > does the tax cut have to the american way. As you > have so eloquently stated, > americans can honestly disagree about these issues. > So why does one side feel > it has the right to declare its way the american > way.
Bob, we keep running into this. Just because you believe something _doesn't mean that it's impossible to believe something else honestly_. I don't think Ashcroft has done any significant abrogation of the basic rights of citizens, and he has _never_ claimed that everyone who disagrees with him is un-american. That's nothing more than Democratic Party propaganda created as a smokescreen to disguise the total ideological bankruptcy of Democratic Party foreign policy. It's a lie, pure and simple, that you've swallowed whole, Bob. Low taxes _are_ the American way. The Boston Tea Party was, after all, a tax revolt. So one side gets to make that claim because there's a lot of historical support _for_ that argument. Taxation _isn't_ just an economic argument. Sure, there can be pressing reasons for higher taxes. But that doesn't mean that, all things being equal, low taxes are the same as higher taxes. They aren't. Low taxes are preferable to high taxes because low taxes giving Americans more freedom to do as they wish. High taxes erode freedom, low taxes expand them. We keep coming back to the same point, over and over again, Bob. You're really the perfect liberal :-) I don't know any other way to put this. I've run into this with people on the left over and over again, and I've never been able to effectively communicate this point - it is something that seems to crop up much more often on the left than the right (not that the right is immune to it, it's just a lot more common on the other side of the fence). People can disagree with you without being evil. I can oppose affirmative action without being a racist and think that anti-terrorism legislation should be strong and enforced without wanting to restrict basic rights. The difference, Bob, is that I'm not claiming that the fact that you oppose laws that (I think) are vital to protecting the US from terrorist attack means that you're in favor of the terrorists - but that's the equivalent of what you're doing to people who support the PATRIOT Act. I'm willing to acknowledge that reasonable people can differ on such opinions. ===== Gautam Mukunda [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Freedom is not free" http://www.mukunda.blogspot.com __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Finance: Get your refund fast by filing online. http://taxes.yahoo.com/filing.html _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
