Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Censure President Bush

Senator Feingold has introduced a measure into congress to censure President Bush for willfully breaking the law by wiretapping American citizens without the proper warrants.

It is a great breath of fresh air to see a member of the Senate stepping up to the plate and holding this administration accountable. If we want to continue to see this kind of strong leadership it is essential that we show our support for this measure. Moveon.org has set up a petition to be sent to the members of the Senate asking them to support this measure and to hold the administration accountable. Please click here to sign the petition and join the fight for our freedom.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

Israel attacks Palestine it's okay, other way around it's not.

Alright I think I finally got this down. If Israel attacks Palestine and kills people it is alright. If they order the killing of Palestinian leaders it's okay. But if Palestine does either of these the entire world should condemn them as terrorist and their elected government should be forced to step down. Man I love our version of freedom.

The Israeli government today attacked a Palestinian prison and demanded the release of 6 prisoners into their custody, the prisoners crime? They were supposedly responsible for the assassination attempt on a few Israeli leaders, mmmmmmmmmm what's that remind me of....oh yeah the killing of key Palestinian leaders by Israel. Now I am not condoning either one of the Countries actions, but I think we should as a nation not be condoning Israel's and not condoning Palestine. It is very hypocritical of us to say it is okay for one to kill the other but not the other way around.

Now you may be wondering why a blog which professes it's purpose as being to spread the word on issues dealing with Constitutional freedoms would talk about this or many of the issues I talk about regarding other countries.

The reason is simple. When I do talk about them I am normally discussing issues of their freedom. In this case the freedom that we give Israel to run their government and military but refuse to give to Palestine to do the exact same.

I feel that if we are going to put on this facade of being the beacon of Democracy for the world then damnit we should live up to that name and support real freedom around the world, not freedom as long as it goes with our plans. That means that if a government is doing something that may not suite our fancy, but it is the will of the people that that government be in office and doing that, then we butt out and let them do as they wish. As long as it does not directly effect the safety of the American people it is none of our damned business. Now if a country is effecting the freedom of another country and that country ask for our help that is something all together different. We should then do what we can to help. The same holds true in a situation like Sudan were the government is committing atrocities towards the people and are obviously not working for the best interest or will of the people then we should attempt to help those people, but that is it, otherwise we should stay out of it.

A great example of this is the newly elected government of Palestine. The moment Hamas won we showed our true disdain for free elections. I mean that is all I can see us immediately saying we would not recognize them as bieng.

Without so much as giving them a chance to prove themselves, even as they were saying that they wanted to continue peace talks, we immediately said that they were terrorist and not to be taken seriously. That's not democracy. Democracy doesn't say anything about forcing one particular government on a people, as a matter of fact it says the exact opposite, and it is time that we learn that.

Saturday, March 11, 2006

Civil Liberties Crown/Duncehat


Well I am bringing back the Civil Liberties Crown/Duncehat.

The reason is simple, a very large need for the Duncehat to be awarded to the State Legislature of South Dakota.

Ah South Dakota the pioneer in the destruction of a women's right to choose what happens to her body. The most basic right of all human beings is to decide what we do with our own bodies, to take this away is a direct slap in the face to the rights of all people.

The close second goes to the U.S. Congress/Senate that this week passed the continuation of the Patriot Act. I have given more than enough reason for this in the past so I will leave it at that.

The crown this week is impossible for me to give, simply because I cannot find anybody worthy of the award. Their is nobody who has stood up for the rights of the American people. If anyone knows anybody worthy please nominate them here.

Edit: A friend pointed out a typo in which I stated North when I intended on saying South Dakota. I have since corrected the misstatement. Thank you.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

Iraq free?

One subject which I have not talked about in much detail on this blog is the Iraqi war. I have not in the past for two reasons. One is that this blog's main purpose is to spread the word about civil liberty issues something not effected by the Iraqi war, except for the torture cases which I did cover. The second was that almost everybody was covering it so I saw no need.

Well I am breaking my silence.

On a regular basis I will chat on Yahoo Chat in there political rooms to get a feel for peoples thoughts on current affairs, and because I really enjoy debating politics.

The last 2 or 3 times that I have gone on this one chatter has posted that Bush is a "True American Hero". When asked why he believes this he simply post:

Iraq=Free
Afghanistan=Free

This got me thinking, what is the definition of "FREE" and can we really describe Iraq or Afghanistan as free. Afghanistan I think can at least be labeled as close to free.

Iraq on the other hand, in my opinion, is far from free. Any country were and average of 20-30 people die daily in war violence, were women can not speak out freely, and were entire religious sects are fighting for control because they feel as if the other will oppress them is not free.

Yet we hear over and over again how Bush "freed" the Iraqi people from the tyranny of Saddam. We hear over and over again about the hundreds of thousands of people who were killed over the course of Saddams 30 year reign. What we don't hear as much about are the 33 to 38 thousand Iraqi citizens, not military, citizens that have died in the last 4 years. That's about 8,000 a year so if you multiply that by 30 that would be 240,000 innocent people. Not that I am in favor of Saddam, but it doesn't seem that they have it much better right now. At the very least, they are far far from free.

Patriot Act Renewed, Civil Liberties in Danger


Today the U.S. Senate passed the renewal of the Patriot Act of 2002. Although there have been some changes from the original document in an attempt to calm fears of infringements on civil liberties these changes are far from enough as stated by Congressman Kucinich,

"I rise in strong opposition to this legislation because it offers only a superficial reform that will have little if any impact on safeguarding our civil liberties,"

As you all know I have been in strong opposition of the Patriot Act since its deput in 2002. Even then, when I was still a far right wing conservative who supported Bush on almost everything, I saw that it was a danger to our freedom and that it could be misused, and history has shown us that if something can be misused it will be.

There are those however that continue to say that the Patriot Act dose not infringe on our rights in any way however. As shown here:

"Intense congressional and public scrutiny has not produced a single substantiated claim that the Patriot Act has been misused to violate Americans' civil liberties," said House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis. "Opponents of the legislation have relied upon exaggeration and hyperbole to distort a demonstrated record of accomplishment and success."

What he is saying here could technically be true. The Patriot Act has been used exactly has it was designed to be used, the problem is that in it's design it violates the civil rights of all Americans. It clearly goes against the Constitution on matters of Search and seizure, Freedom of Speech, Fair and Speedy Trials, ect. I have gone into great detail on this in the past and so anyone wishing to read that can look in my archives.

What scares me here is that Congress, as well as the majority of the American people seem content to stand by has it is done, and not just regarding the Patriot Act. For a week straight all I heard about was the issue of spying on the American people, and then it just seemed to disappear. Before that was the torture issue, and then it disappeared, and so on. Even now the reason that Congress passed the Patriot Act again, because of the fear of terrorist action. Although the Patriot Act has yet to be proven to stop terrorism we still look the other way has our rights are taken away because we are afraid of terrorist.

When are the American people going to realize that giving up our freedoms is not the answer to ending terrorism. I do not claim to have all the answers on how to fight terrorist, but the one thing I know is that getting rid of the thing that we has a country have fought to keep for so long is not the way.