I believe that Maureen said she'd stay here "until she's hauled off to Gitmo" for helping people think. Which I took to mean, its not there yet but sure does look like its heading that direction, *insert diety here* hope we don't get there. And I don't think we are there yet. But I'd agree that the omens don't look good. A contraversial statement, to be sure, but one that I think has supporting data.
For example, take Operation Pipe Dreams. This was War on Drugs, not War on Terror, but the ideology and methodology seems to wander between the two pretty seamlessly. I knew a guy in Eugene that was a glass blower. He made some "fuctional glass art" i.e. pipes but also made quite a bit of stemware, decorative art, etc. He had a shop in town across the street from my office and he did a lot of business on the web. We talked web development and such but I never did any work for him. All around a pretty decent guy. One day he wakes up at 6 a.m. when a swat team breaks down his front door. ATF and FBI, full body gear, semi-automatic guns. No knocking and showing them the warrant once they answer, we're talking storming his house while he, his wife and his two young kids are in bed, scaring the living shit out of everyone. You see, John Ashcroft decided that paraphenalia was an induction to illegal behavior and against the local mores of certain locales (I believe they made purchases of pipes from Iowa via the Internet) and therefore made them illegal drug paraphenalia. To everyone's knowledge involved, this had never been illegal before. Until Ashcroft decided it was and didn't even bother telling people it was now illegal. So they break down his door, drag him onto the front lawn, hold the family at gun point while they search the house. They found no weapons, no drugs, not a single joint. He still got hauled to jail and later was sentenced to a fine and home probation after spending a great deal of money on lawyers and having his business shut down. What was the point of the action? Did it result in any felony convictions and sentencing of hardened criminals to prison? No, it didn't. But they busted enough people that it scared the crap out of the folks in the industry. They didn't know what was legal and what wasn't legal. And they knew that Ashcroft was ready to bust heads even if there were no convictions involved. And the feds seized the customer records of the businesses which of course put fear into anyone who did buy or may in the future buy from a business of that sort. It's called a chilling effect and you can damn well be certain that it is done with great calculation. Or for a free speech example, how about the government demands in 2005 that libraries in Conneticut deliver patron records on what books they checked out? And the Patriot Act provision that put a gag order on libraries and book stores from disclosing even the existence of a request turn over patron records? Or perhaps the case of Brandon Mayfield who was detained by authorities as a material witness in the Madrid bombing cases in spite of Spanish authorities saying that he almost certainly couldn't be involved, that the fingerprints did not in fact match and that after a further review the FBI admitted they had no real cause and it sure looks like the only reason he was grabbed is because he is Muslim and did legal work for people charged in previous terrorism related investigations. Anyway, this is overly long, but my point is that there are plenty of incidents to point to the scary erosion of personal liberty in the United States and unless we do something about it, things will continue to go south. The further consolidation of power into a unitary executive is a dangerous trend. And yes, facism comes by a matter of degrees. So lets be vigilant. Judah On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 7:01 PM, Robert Munn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Being hauled off to Gitmo for exercising your First Amendment rights. > > On Tue, Sep 16, 2008 at 5:16 PM, Maureen wrote: > > I am not now, nor have I ever been a liberal. And just what about my > > statement do you find not factual? > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;203748912;27390454;j Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:269623 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
