"nobody" wrote :

Listen, its not a return to fascism. Not by any stretch, so unbunch your panties.

unbunch(panties);

cranium.reboot( COLD_START | RESET_DEFAULTS ); yerself. Some are scared, some are angry, some are manipulators. Instead of valuing and protecting our freedoms, talking heads spewing fear blamed the terrorist attacks on those freedoms and proceeded, 99 out of 100, 357 out of 423, to attack what they pledged to defend when they took office. The weakness shown by our legislators over the past weeks is more than fertile enough ground for fascism to take root and bloom.

Some Americans are tired of being stepped on. Me in particular. Its way different than the inferrence you infer. I am sure that we agree on the same stuff, we just dont agree on how to get there. I would love to meet in the middle someplace, as long as my beloved fellow unblamed citizens remain free and unharmed in the process.

There is no middle. The Bill of Rights is not an arcane document no matter what guild members would have us believe. It was written for everyone to read. I see no differentiation between citizens and residents.

If a foreign guy ends up in a cell someplace because of some questionable activities, like LYING about knowing one of these terror mongers, LYING about knowing particular details, like having screwy immigration documents.... that shit adds up. It may not MEAN the guy is guilty of something, but dang... its preventive medicine. If a guy happens to get waxed, then a guy happens to get waxed. That happens in prison. It happens to innocent people in prison. It happens to guilty people in prison. It shouldnt happen but it does. Deal somehow with it.

Those who wrote the Bill of Rights attempted to provide the tools for succeeding generations to deal with exactly those problems. Only the abandoning of the rule of law on the part of each of the three branches of government can explain what I see. Those who have no respect for what were and still are good basic principles of government and justice are a threat to everyone's safety. In all fairness the third branch has yet to be tested on the USA PATRIOT CRAP but I don't expect much considering their past behavior.

Anyways, I dont think this will effect mainstream Americans and the odd cypherpunk thrown in among them. Unless that cpunk happens to be Middle Eastern, and guilty of something previously determined to be suspect.

Somehow or other it seems that "intent of the law" is used to justify it and the letter of the law is used to prosecute. The temporal separation of cause and effect, like that of copulation and birth for animals, seems to evade our collective ability to learn. Case in point : the war on drugs. You're not critical enough of who determines what is worthy of suspicion.

But in the long run will we, considering ourselves Freedom Advocates (believe it or not, I consider myself one), hang ourselves with the collective rope we inadvertently meant to provide to our ropers?

Bet on it. The ropers are not all good actors. I haven't watch or listened to a single one of them that I would share a dinner table or a camp fire with. And I'm not sure I agree that WE are providing the rope to the ropers. It seems rather that the ropers are taking the rope while everyone else stands by without objection, blinded by tears, anger and fear.

My position: I am not willing to give up ANYTHING for my freedom... But then again, I dont have screwy immigration documents that would cause anyone to want to usurp my individual freedoms.

I will not give up encryption, or privacy.

You sound very sure that you have them to give up.

Ya know its weird, because I hear the Freedom folks say: "Oh yea, thats what -they- always say to you, 'if you have not done anything wrong then you have nothing to worry about'" and now I feel thats not far from the truth, in a strange zenexistential way. Someone tell me why thats a bad statement.

That sounds overly trusting of the motivations and loyalties of those who you entrust with the power of life and death.

I mean, if I HAVE done something wrong, I should be afraid, right?

Assigning attributes of right and wrong is a personal matter. Fear comes from the knowledge of risk. That is unless you are running one of those old-time Christian plug-ins that has a default ~/.guilt-list-self-destruct

Heres the message we should try to send with our words and our actions:

Dont fuck up and try to kill Americans. Because we will fuck you in your ass with a greased lightning tomahawk missile that will gut you and your camel, and the 5 wives you both rode in on... along with those 15 little terrorists a year you keep pumping out, in your own words. By the way, forget about sex for fun with those broads... apparently there is a mandate to 'copulate to populate, not just to fornicate'. SNAP, after lookin at some of 'dat shit, I would rather masturbate. No wonder they wear veils, dey breath must stank to High Heaven.

While I agree with operating from a position of strength, after that you've lost it. Demonizing the enemy is a standard phase in conflict. I guess that's what it takes to convince oneself that it is OK to rip people into little pieces and avoid the emotions that invariably go along with that. A simple self-administered psychoanalgesic as it were. In the footage of Afghanistan that I've seen everyone appears to be pretty much human.

Unfortunately, the civilized world is counting on us to hold shit together for financial stability. So we have to catch up the guys who have sorta fallen behind and made a mess of things for us in a way. Smacks of New World Order, dont it? I dont like it either, but hey...

hmmm. Yes, the US does have more than a faint touch of megalomania.

From a distance, this is al-Hatfields and Wal-McCoys, and we(USA) are Sheriff Andy Taylor and Israel is Deputy Barney Fucking Fife, and he keeps shooting himself in the foot every time we try to draw down on that stupid family feud that we now gotta clean up after cuz the SAUDIS (or the REST of the arab contingent) cant TCOB, cuz they dont wanna get their hands dirty just to protect their status quo, tally ho, lets get the Americans to do it.

Rambling crap. Somebody's been watching too much television. My vote is for Ginger at night, Maryann in the morning and Jeannie for a nooner.

Come on, say it... say what you feeeel man :) Dont blame the 'extremist right' of America for this clamping down on our beloved freedoms.

I blame weakness and opportunistic fascists-in-our-midst.

now... Are you still free? Can you say what you want in this political climate? Could you ever? Does it matter? Are your papers in order?

Yawn. Mike