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Thread ID: 3755 | Posts: 8 | Started: 2002-11-29
2002-11-29 20:57 | User Profile
[url=http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/columnists/colgreenberg11292002.htm]Greenberg: New ground rules needed to secure homeland[/url]
By Dan Greenberg / Guest Columnist Friday, November 29, 2002
A great deal of fuss is being made these days about alleged threats to the civil rights of American citizens, arising from measures being taken by the government in the emerging war on terrorism. Over and over again we hear on TV and on radio, and read in newspapers and magazines, that this or that law or regulation will diminish the constitutional protection that every citizen enjoys in this country to pursue their lives without arbitrary interference by outside authorities.
The fundamental problem with the position of virtually all the critics and doomsayers is that they miss some of the most basic facts about the nature of government. Our founding fathers were clear on these matters. They understood the reasons underlying people's need for some sort of government, and they stated these reasons clearly in the preamble to our Constitution, which deserves being quoted in full: "We, the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
The above sentence is a gem. It is one of the most succinct summaries of the justification for the imposition of governmental authority on a citizenry that prizes freedom and liberty. Our government is there to create and preserve social order based on security, peaceful coexistence, and justice.
We, the citizens, expect it -- indeed, demand it -- to carry out this mission successfully. We are satisfied when it does so, and we demand improvement when it does not. If there is domestic unrest -- riots in the street, or rebellion in any state or region -- we want this quelled, and we want to know why it happened in the first place so that its recurrence can be prevented.
If we are no longer secure in our homes and work -- if we are engulfed in crime, threatened by outside aggressors, or living in fear of random acts of terror -- we want our government to take adequate measures to restore our sense of security, and we demand an explanation for the events that led to a breakdown in our security.
This, then, is the underlying mission of government, and everything else -- including the Constitution -- is subordinate to this mission. The vast majority of our fellow citizens understand this, and happily most of our political leaders do too.
The best known example of this happened during the Civil War, which was a rebellion by a group of states whose purpose it was to tear apart the fabric of the nation. As one of his actions in suppressing the rebellion, President Lincoln suspended the right of habeas corpus, which in effect forbids the imprisonment of a person without an established legal cause. The right of habeas corpus is one of the earliest and most sacred rights obtained by British subjects in the course of English history, and was extended to all places that the British held sway.
By suspending it, Lincoln was allowing Union authorities to hold suspects without due process for as long as necessary until the rebellion was suppressed. When the civil libertarians of the time protested, Lincoln's classic reply was that he would, if necessary, suspend every provision of the Constitution in order to save the Constitution -- a remark that showed an exceptional grasp of the fact that the individual protections listed in the Constitution were there solely for the purposes outlined in the preamble -- purposes that transcended any particular article in that document.
Federal courts have recognized this throughout our history. The Supreme Court has repeatedly taken the position that the guarantees spelled out in the Bill of Rights, and written as if they were absolutes, are not in fact as simple and pure as they appear, precisely because the higher purpose of the preamble overrides them.
Probably the most famous instance in which the Court circumscribed a basic right was when it declared that the right of free speech does not allow a person to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater just because he feels like doing it (in the absence of a fire), because of the chaos, deaths, and injuries that would ensue from the panic that such an exercise of free speech would create.
We are all aware that it is illegal to incite people to riot. And no one thinks that the right to assemble freely means that a bunch of armed men and women can march on a destination that they are openly threatening with destruction; the Constitution does not guarantee them the freedom to do so up to the point that they actually fire the first shot and kill somebody.
The international war on terror is a new reality for us. We have had random acts of terrorism perpetrated on our soil before, most of them from right-wing organizations (militias, local klan groups, etc.) which the government has moved effectively to suppress. What we have not encountered before, and what is indeed new to the world, is a global effort by a loosely connected network of individuals and cells to create havoc on a massive scale in every society that does not accept their radical beliefs and practices.
This is a wholly new phenomenon. It seeks to capture, by intimidation, the institutions of one of the world's major religions (a religion that has threatened no one for the past several centuries), and thereby win a virtually limitless number of fanatic adherents. It has incorporated the practice of self-sacrifice to an extent never before experienced. And it has shown itself capable of wreaking death and destruction on a hitherto unimaginable scale.
The stated goal of this new global enemy is the de-stabilization of social order virtually everywhere, and the downfall of all governments established to maintain the principles summarized in our Constitution's preamble. They aim to create chaos not only in Christian countries, but in Moslem countries, and indeed in countries dominated by any religious or non-religious group. Their vision is one of Armageddon, in which they, and they alone, represent the forces of Good, and the rest of the world represents the forces of Evil.
In this context, we must expect that traditional interpretations of individual rights will undergo re-examination and revision, at least until the war on terror is won. I do not want to give the impression that we have to expect our civil liberties to be thrown out of the window lock, stock and barrel, but I do believe that before the self-proclaimed guardians of our rights rail and rant against the government's attempts to fight the war on terror successfully, these critics should at least present us with alternative procedures that would be as effective as the ones they are attacking.
we want our government to take adequate measures to restore our sense of security, and we demand an explanation for the events that led to a breakdown in our security...I do not want to give the impression that we have to expect our civil liberties to be thrown out of the window lock, stock and barrel, but I do believe that before the self-proclaimed guardians of our rights rail and rant against the government's attempts to fight the war on terror successfully, these critics should at least present us with alternative procedures that would be as effective as the ones they are attacking.
LOL! Adequate measures? Like the very necessary and accurate racial profiling and closing the borders and deporting those who have come in since the passage of Ted Kennedy's 1965 Immigration Act? Explanation for the events? Like the fact we have a foreign policy that puts Israel instead of America first--which is what gets OBL recruits who want to attack us in the first place? There are measures and explanations that paleoconservatives have offered, such as those above, but apparently the Greenbergs of the world don't like the answers they get. We paleos have the most effective solutions, but none of Greenberg's revered politicians will dare to implement them since they're not politically correct.
This, then, is the underlying mission of government, and everything else -- including the Constitution -- is subordinate to this mission. The vast majority of our fellow citizens understand this, and happily most of our political leaders do too.
I thought that the idea of a Constitution was that it was a basic, fundamental document, not something to be tossed aside when "the vast majority" decides that liberty [a concept that truly pre-dates the Constitution] is no longer inviolable.
The best known example of this happened during the Civil War, which was a rebellion by a group of states whose purpose it was to tear apart the fabric of the nation.
Yeah, the South's only desire was to "tear apart the fabric of the nation." I guess they were bored one day and one of them said, "Hey, Bubba! Let's break up the Union, it'll be fun." I can't believe the Boston Herald is publishing this as a guest column--the motive he cites for the South desiring its independence wouldn't even fly if written on a high school history exam that was based even on the most PC of Yankee text books.
**We have had random acts of terrorism perpetrated on our soil before, most of them from right-wing organizations (militias, local klan groups, etc.) which the government has moved effectively to suppress. **
Ah, yes, the obligatory reference to evil "right wing" terrorists. No bootlicking article would be complete without it.
we must expect that traditional interpretations of individual rights will undergo re-examination and revision, at least until the war on terror is won.
I think Bush has implied the war against "evil" will never be won. I guess I shouldn't hold my breath waiting for this "re-examination and revision" to end.
2002-11-30 17:37 | User Profile
**The fundamental problem with the position of virtually all the critics and doomsayers is that they miss some of the most basic facts about the nature of government. Our founding fathers were clear on these matters. **
Mr. Greenberg must mean his founding fathers. His have an entirely different objective. There's is to subvert the culture. There's is to break the cords of unity. There's is to sit on the side as a cohesive group in a sea of individuals.
Our government was established to maximize the liberty of white men, by restraining the natural tyranny of man. Yielding power to a state whose interests are clearly only to increase its power is not consistant with the intent of those who formed this nation.
Indeed it is insulting for Greenberg to suggest that we native whites need to curb our rights to protect our liberty when he and his tribe have advocatated for the full equal rights of women, negroes, immigrants (both legal and illegal), and children. His tribe has done nothing but rip apart our social fabric in the name of equal rights arguing that one was not fully human unless they had miximum rights. And now they have the nerve to tell us that we must surrender our rights in order to gaurantee them?
2002-12-02 16:24 | User Profile
And now they have the nerve to tell us that we must surrender our rights in order to gaurantee them?
It's called chutzpah. Simply a hebrew term for overarching, arrogant self-confidence. As a matter of fact, the dictionary refrences it with gall, nerve, effrontery, and presumption. That fits, don't you think?
2002-12-02 21:30 | User Profile
If we are no longer secure in our homes and work -- if we are engulfed in crime, threatened by outside aggressors, or living in fear of random acts of terror -- we want our government to take adequate measures to restore our sense of security, and we demand an explanation for the events that led to a breakdown in our security.
What exactly does Mr. Greenburg think 25% of state and federal inmates being foriegn nationals, 13 Million illegal aliens currently running loose, hundreds of thousands of American citizens raped, robbed, murdered, and a half a million middle eastern criminals who are ignoring deportation orders amounts too?
I'm more than a bit unsure how suspension of civil liberties and any right to privacy insures my freedom and protects me when the most fundimantal measures to keep terrorists from waltzing across the border or just applying for a visa are ignored.
2002-12-02 21:37 | User Profile
Originally posted by jeffersonian@Dec 2 2002, 15:30 I'm more than a bit unsure how suspension of civil liberties and any right to privacy insures my freedom and protects me when the most fundimantal measures to keep terrorists from waltzing across the border or just applying for a visa are ignored.
The fact that our government blatantly disregards native born American's civil liberties while doing everything short of serving cocktails to illegals pouring across our Southern border ought to tell each of us something very fundamental about our government.
2002-12-02 21:44 | User Profile
It's called chutzpah. Simply a hebrew term for overarching, arrogant self-confidence. As a matter of fact, the dictionary refrences it with gall, nerve, effrontery, and presumption. That fits, don't you think? **
A condition so inherently alien to gentiles that one must look to the Jews for one single word that encapsulates the concept.
2002-12-02 22:55 | User Profile
The fact that our government blatantly disregards native born American's civil liberties while doing everything short of serving cocktails to illegals pouring across our Southern border ought to tell each of us something very fundamental about our government.
It does, quite. Also shows what a sham all the rhetoric about "homeland security" really is.
Meanwhile we're treated today to garbage like this
[url=http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/12/02/national/main531433.shtml]http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/12/02/...ain531433.shtml[/url]
Seems our economy simply can't do without immigrants. Gosh, maybe we should just move out of the way and let 'em all come here!
2002-12-03 01:13 | User Profile
Originally posted by MadScienceType@Dec 2 2002, 18:55 > The fact that our government blatantly disregards native born American's civil liberties while doing everything short of serving cocktails to illegals pouring across our Southern border ought to tell each of us something very fundamental about our government.**
It does, quite. Also shows what a sham all the rhetoric about "homeland security" really is.
Meanwhile we're treated today to garbage like this
[url=http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/12/02/national/main531433.shtml]http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/12/02/...ain531433.shtml[/url]
Seems our economy simply can't do without immigrants. Gosh, maybe we should just move out of the way and let 'em all come here!**
I was just thinking about that immigration situation today, and where the trend might end up. If it keeps up this way, all the Mexicans will be living in the U.S., and Mexico will basically be empty. Maybe we can switch countries and move there and keep it for ourselves. Of course, the former U.S. will then turn into a pesthole, since it's the people that make the country, not the lines on a map, and then the Mexicans in the U.S. will start flooding South of the border to cash in again at our expense.