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Thread 7645

Thread ID: 7645 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2003-06-26

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Fire Pen [OP]

2003-06-26 21:55 | User Profile

Keep your eyes open and your guard up, folks. We are at war, and it looks like we will be for some time. History teaches that the enduring loss of our constitutional liberties occur most frequently during periods of war. Most violations of this protector of our God-given rights have come about under the guise of “national security.” So-called “temporary” wartime measures have a way of becoming permanent.

      “Government programs, once launched, never disappear,” observed Ronald Reagan.

      War is the ultimate big-government event.  During times of armed conflict government convinces Americans through a combination of intimidation and appeals to patriotism, that it is necessary to give up certain freedoms for security, (as if there could be security without freedom).  Our past wars -- some justified, some not – have generally left us less free than we were going in.

      The Civil War, for example, saw the unconstitutional denial of a state’s legal right to seek its independence from an overbearing government.  Lincoln’s war brutally crushed the will of a people desiring nothing so much as their God-given freedom to be left alone.  Upon Presidential orders, innocent civilians were targeted for retribution as combatants, including women and children.  Totally ignoring the constitution, Lincoln ordered the arrest and imprisonment without trial of loyal elected officials who simply disagreed with his policies.  He ordered confiscation of opposition Northern newspapers, the suspension of habeas corpus and the introduction of military conscription.  For the whole story, read *The Real Lincoln*  by Thomas J. DiLorenzo.

      Leaving us with a massive expansion of federal government power, usurped at the expense of the individual states, it has been said of the Civil War that it  fundamentally changed Americans from saying “The United States are...” to “The United States is....”

      World War I was a feel-good war which had unintended consequences.  No real threat to American interests had existed.  Woodrow Wilson, like George W. Bush, committed the nation to a war of empire to “make the world safe for democracy” and “to end all wars.”  Picking up Lincoln’s mantle, and his propensity for trampling on the constitution to achieve his goals, Wilson reinstituted the income tax, making it “progressive” (income redistributive) and the draft, and created the Federal Trade Commission, which appropriated the regulatory rights of the sovereign states.  We had come a good deal further down the road from a republic to a democracy.

      After promising a nation which did not want to go to war that its sons would not fight on foreign soil, F.D.R. deviously engineered us into a World War II by encouraging the Japanese to fire the first shot (somewhat as Lincoln tricked the South into doing at Fort Sumter).  It appears obvious to many that Roosevelt knew about the imminent attack on Pearl Harbor and did nothing to prevent it (read Day of Deceit by Robert B. Stinnett), as it would provide the impetus for getting us in the war.  In a similar “day of infamy,” he ordered all American citizens of Japanese decent imprisoned for the duration and their property confiscated.

      Yes, what has been referred to as “the greatest generation” courageously defeated this earlier axis of evil – the one that had, in fact, attacked us.  The greatest benefactor of WW II, however, was communism, which became entrenched in Europe for over forty years and would spread around the globe.  Assisted by both a depression and a war, F.D.R. dropped any pretense of constitutional law and advanced the unworkable cause of socialism to a new high.

      Now we have the Patriot Act, totalitarian legislation that authorizes the federal government to disregard constitutional safeguards in prying into the private lives of its citizens as never before, and without benefit of court order.  It also allows the government to imprison any American it has a mind to without due process.  President Bush wants to expand these government powers in a Patriot Act II.

      Others in our government are not satisfied with the fact that these dictates are temporary, due to expire in 2005.  Senator Orin Hatch (R-Utah) has proposed legislation making this police-state tyranny permanent.

      The war on terror is likely to go on for many years, in some ways like the “wars” on drugs and poverty.  Think how many more infringements on our liberties will be implemented under the heading of national security.  Our power hungry politicians need to be taught that the founders did not restrict the Bill of Rights to peacetime.