Take a Stand
October 4th, 2006 by MarkFrom the time I started writing this blog, my intent has been to make an apolitical blog. Truth be told, I’m not a very political person, and I don’t like politics. There comes a point, though, when I feel I have to take a stand, and my one vote back home isn’t enough. Just continuing to write letters to my representatives isn’t enough. About hundred and fifty people read this blog each day, and from what I can tell from sitemeter, about 40 or 50 are Americans. If I don’t speak up now, it may be hard to forgive myself in the future.
What’s been happening back home has gone too far. It may even have passed the point of no return. I’m a patriot. That’s right, a patriot. I have the deepest respect for the people and ideas that created the US. I’ve found Jefferson’s, Franklin’s and Madison’s own writings not only educational, but even inspirational. Sadly, it appears that few of the current generation of political leaders feel the same.
If only copyright and patent law still operated as Jefferson originally laid out, we wouldn’t be seeing record companies sue tens of thousands of people, some innocent, and then bully them into settling for thousands of dollars each. Thanks to the DMCA, signed by former President Clinton, we now have less freedom about how we use our own purchased media than ever before. Right now, the number of people made criminals by current IP laws is more than the number who voted for our current president (assuming no election fraud). Think about that.
Franklin would have been aghast as I was to learn that what was labelled a “Patriot Act”, involved giving up our essential liberties in exchange for the promise of security throughout our “War on Terror”. It actually extended the deplorable Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of the previous administration. Among other things, the Patriot Act gave the government the authority to conduct roving warrantless wiretaps on its citizens and to demand information on their reading habits from libraries and bookstores. Several months before the passage of the Patriot act, police officers went to my favorite bookstore, The Tattered Cover and demanded a patron’s records. The owner, whom I had met before during my many visits to the store, refused.
Police are demanding that the Tattered Cover bookstore turn over the name and address of the purchaser so that they can link that person to the alleged illegal lab. The case is currently in court after Joyce Meskis, the owner of the Tattered Cover refused the cops’ demand on the grounds that turning over customer information violates the customer’s privacy as well as the First Amendment.
Meskis has a good point. While once upon a time the War on Drugs many have been a war on pills, powders, and “evil” plants, today it is far more than that. It is now, more than ever, a battle over the mind – a war over what sort of consciousness is approved and what sort is considered criminal. Going after books takes things to yet another surreal level, evoking images out of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, where firemen raced around the city burning offensive books.
Are we really ready to make reading certain books evidence of crime?
Richard Glen Boire, JD: When Reading Becomes A Crime: The War on Drugs Goes After Books
Joyce Meskis pushed on. She argued that very purpose of the First Amendment was to protect unpopular speech and expression, and that by turning over customers’ reading records, this protection would be side-stepped. In 2002, the Colorado Supreme court agreed with her and I breathed a sigh of relief. Little did I know, that soon afterwards, the Patriot Act would make the ruling moot, and that she would still be required to turn over customers’ records to law enforcement officers.
Even more than than Franklin’s or Jefferson’s libertarian ideals, it’s Madison’s vigilant prevention of the concentration of powers that we need most. As bad as the Patriot Act was, and still is, it pales compared to the Military Commissions Act (nytimes), popularly known as the “Torture Bill”. With the passage of this act, President Bush now has the powers to:
- detain people at his discretion
- ignore the Geneva Conventions
- torture detainees
- avoid Judicial Review
- … and admit secret evidence to military tribunals
The act effectively nullifies Habeas Corpus, a cornerstone of legal justice systems ever since the time of the Magna Carta. Basically, that means that people detained in the president’s new court system won’t have any right to claim that they are innocent and demand to either be charged or released. Instead, they can be held indefinitely without being charged for any particular crime.
This bill is not a national security issue—this is about torturing helpless human beings without any proof they are our enemies. Perhaps this could be considered if we knew the administration would use the power with enormous care and thoughtfulness. But of the over 700 prisoners sent to Gitmo, only 10 have ever been formally charged with anything. Among other things, this bill is a CYA for torture of the innocent that has already taken place.
…
The bill simply removes a suspect’s right to challenge his detention in court. This is a rule of law that goes back to the Magna Carta in 1215. That pretty much leaves the barn door open.
source: Habeas Corpus, R.I.P. (1215 - 2006), Molly Ivans
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has already warned federal judges not to “substitute their personal views for the president’s judgments in wartime”. This is how a police state is made.
Don’t give up. Make your voices heard now, before it’s too late. If you have a non-political blog with a greater reach than this one, I implore you to speak out on this topic.
:
October 4th, 2006 at 11:28 am
we’ll have to wait and see how it plays out in the courts. Like I said the other night, my feeling is it’ll eventually reach the US Supreme Court which will find this bill (soon to be law) unconstitutional.
The judiciary is currently our final branch of government that seems to be adhering to the Constitution with regards to checks and balances. The legislature may/may not depending on the November elections.
Worst of all is how the US media has abdicated its traditional role of watchdog on all three branches. This likely has the most far-reaching implications for the future of our democracy, because without a functioning Fourth Estate, the electorate will be woefully uninformed come balloting time. We’re already suffering the results.
October 4th, 2006 at 3:45 pm
Good for you, Mark.
October 4th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
I don’t really have access to US media here in Shanghai except online, but from what I can tell The Daily Show is doing exactly what the media is supposed to do: pull back the curtain on the people in power and also on other media outlets who have sold their souls. It’s more than a little pathetic that a comedy show, on comedy central no less, is among the last places people in the states can go for good information. But still not quite as pathetic as what passes for news on CCTV.
October 5th, 2006 at 3:47 am
L.J.D.:
It pains me to admit it, but you’re right. The Daily Show is one of the best news sources on TV, right now. Thank God for the web.
October 5th, 2006 at 4:01 pm
iTunes Music Store baby..
The only problem is, I paid for all these episodes, so I don’t want to just delete them… But what good does it do me to keep gb’s of dated videos that are really only worth a 1-time viewing…
October 5th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
L.J.D - isn’t it scary that already, we reflexively remind ourselves that we have more civil liberties than the Chinese? Should we be comforted by this?
October 5th, 2006 at 10:01 pm
Frightening video — I’d like to get some references, though. Nicole (my wife) saw the video and asked the question “if the video is all true, what should you do about it?” We had a long discussion about it, but in the end I just said that it is not bad enough yet for me to respond. The best I could think of was to write more political entries in my own blog and hope that people read them.
I do wonder, though, how the current situation compares to similar ones in the past. I see some very strong parallels to the Nixon years, but don’t really know what it was like to live during that time. Some people left the country, some students protested, but mostly people just kept doing what they were doing before. Nixon resigned, Ford served a short term, then Carter came through in 1976 and cleaned up the mess. I believe it was during the Carter time that the original domestic wiretapping law was passed — the one that Bush Jr has been trampling all over.
My take is this: things are bad, but not yet intolerable. Hopefully Bush’s ratings will be low enough in 2008 so that a Democratic candidate (maybe Hillary…) could come in and clean up the mess, hopefully with stronger laws to protect against the next dictator president.
October 6th, 2006 at 12:12 am
Well, Matt, I do remember you proudly telling Jason and I that you “don’t vote” several years back. Maybe that’s something you could do. I’d sure prefer people like you deciding the fate of the country than those who did get out there and vote the last couple of times. I plan to vote against every single person who signed the “Torture Bill”, at every opportunity I ever have. Joining organizations such as the EFF and ACLU does some good, too.
Which issues in the video would you like references for? I’ve been bookmarking quite a bit of information related to things in this post.
October 6th, 2006 at 12:26 am
Matt:
there’s a very important difference: in the Nixon years, his own party stood up against him. It was Goldwater and Dole who went in and told him the jig was up. It was Cohen and other GOP who played a key role in the House impeachment hearings.
Think about that. In 1974 the Democrats had a 56-42 majority in the Senate (with 2 right-leaning independents). It takes 66 votes to impeach the president. That means 10 Republican Senators would have had to cross the aisles. The fact that conservative stalwarts Goldwater and Dole broke the news to him is indicative that many more than that 10 were ready to indict Nixon.
Can you possibly imagine the same scenario happening today? Checks and balances are practically dead, and when they expire, so does our form of government.
October 6th, 2006 at 3:41 am
That video is a bit ridiculous. There is no vast right-wing conspiracy, Bush is not trying to become a dictator or form a police state. In reality, most politicians are simply doing what they feel is in the best interests of their constituants. The main problem with Bush and the Republicans today is not that their intentions are bad, it’s that they’re total fucking idiots. Clinton may have fucked a few idiots when he was in office, but at least he wasn’t a “total fucking idiot” like Bush. I mean, seriously, do you think that Bush is actually smart enough to consciously be an Evil prick? It’s much more plausible that he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing, and he doesn’t understand any of the consequences.
The only conspiracy theories that I can seriously entertain thoughts of being true are the religious ones, ie Christians vs Muslims vs Jews vs Everyone Else, and so on.
October 6th, 2006 at 11:51 am
Hey, I’ve always wanted to ask you US types: All the vision we get of Bush here in Australia gives the impression he is moderately to severely retarded. Is he actually that dumb, or is that just the joke? It’s hard to believe he can be as imbecilic as the stories we see and get to that position. Retarded like a fox?
October 8th, 2006 at 10:58 am
Laoban, I’m not sure if he’s technically retarted, but he’s definitely not very smart and definitely not good at thinking on his feet. Everything in his past, from his academic record to his performance in the corporate and political world suggests that he has no intellectual gifts. His only obvious gift is his ability to use his birthright to his advantage. Watching him in action is a joke, albeit one that makes many Americans want to cry rather than laugh.
October 11th, 2006 at 5:39 am
Bush is about as bad as it gets and frankly, I don’t care if it’s due to ineptitude or sheer malevolence. Sadly, Clinton did quite a bit to take away our civil liberties, too.
October 15th, 2006 at 3:52 pm
Yes, we took a hit under Clinton too. But fundamentally, Clinton was an Establishment politician, and the Establishment has always been committed to an open political atmosphere in the US. But Bush is a rightist that the Establishment either thought it could use, or, more likely, didn’t really understand and fundamentally misinterpreted.
That torture bill is a disaster, and unlike Roy, I don’t think a Scalia-led court is going to shoot it down. Scalia’s contempt for democratic norms has been expressed over and over again, in his public writings, speeches, court decisions, and other communications. No, I think the only thing that can save us is a wave of progressive dems entering the house and senate this year who will restore our civil rights.
Michael
October 15th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
Yes, Clinton and his Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act were the “lesser of two evils”. Still, that bill eroded the 4th ammendment, allowed the seizure of people (and their assets) without probable cause, criminalized even lawful interaction with organizations labelled as “terrorist”, and set up a system secret courts. Sound familiar?
As far as the current administration and the “Torture Bill”, I don’t think the administration would let the courts shoot it down. Did you see Gonzales’s statement? The judicial branch also ruled that the tortures were illegal, too. Did that stop anybody?
I think we need a strong number of civil libertarians. I’d strongly suggest looking at who voted for the torture bill, and never voting for any of them again, regardless of party affiliation.
July 6th, 2007 at 3:11 am
[...] Military Commissions Act, against the Iraq war, and he wants to end the war on drugs- all things I’ve written about before. Aside from the issues, I’ve had a great respect for Congressman Paul for a long time. [...]
June 2nd, 2008 at 4:17 am
[...] Post: Take a Stand Tags: [...]