Problem with Bush

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Problem with Bush

Kerry admitted he commited war crimes. To me that is not heroic, it is cowardly!

You keep talking about the right wing. Democratic Senators Joe Lieberman, John Breau, Mary Landrieu, Zell Miller, Evan Bayh, and former NYC Democratic Mayor Ed Koch, are not right wingers and they have all condemned Kerry for his flip flops, attitudes about Iraq, and other things.

Some of these have come out for Bush.

 

Does the Judiciary have to allow this? Can the President prevent the courts from exercising their power? No. Not even if he wanted to. The courts and Congress -- as equal powers -- will step in if it becomes necessary.

 

What rights have you lost?

Jimmy,
The Patriot Act takes away:

1.) The right to privacy. The government can now tap your phone and ISP. They can use cameras in public places and write down detailed documentation about every minute of your life.

If someone is always monitoring you, are you ever really free?

Jimmy your very freedom will be lost because of the Patriot Act.

2.) Judical review- I believe others on this thread have covered this for you.

3.) The right to free speech- The Patriot Act can label you a terriorist for speaking out against the government. The way the Patriot Act is written will allow the government to virtually arrest anyone.

4.) Illegal search and seizure. The government can enter your home and take your property for no reason. They can serve you the warrent after they have destroyed your home.

5.) The right to a fair trial- The government can detain you indefinitely without trial.

Jimmy a vote for Bush means you vote to have your telephones tapped by the government now and forever. It means your children and your children's children will be monitored through all the days of their life if they stay in the USA.

Why would anyone vote to have their phones tapped?

 

Laser,
You've yet to explain why the Patriot Act is a part of the Democrat platform???????????

BLD

 

Re: What rights have you lost?

To me, when we start losing freedoms it means that 9/11 worked for the terrorists. Our knee jerk reaction was a better outcome than they could have dreamed. We have to be smarter about this.

 

Re: What rights have you lost?

With all due respect, Laser100, you really need a political education. The American government has been tapping the phones and spying on American citizens for decades.

Most of these activities have been condoned and authorized by DEMOCRATIC administrations (JFK, LBJ). Martin Luther King, Jr. was wiretapped by RFK with permission from JFK!

Muhammad Ali was wiretapped.

Malcolm X was wiretapped by a Democratic administration. Vietnam War protestors were spied upon in every conceivable way under the Johnson Administration as well as the Nixon White House.

Now, would I be willing to have some of my civil liberties temporarily suspended to prevent another 911? You bet!

 

BLD, those clauses of the Patriot Act are not part of the Democratic platform; what the Democratic platform supports is a new, revised bill, still technically called the Patriot Act, that streamlines some law enforcement powers without doing as much damage to civil liberties. I've already shown you the relevant quote from the Democratic platform twice, so this is beginning to look less and less like an honest mistake.


Cheers,

 

Tom,
It isn't a mistake at all. I keep hearing Democrats saying that they are against the Patriot Act and that John Kerry is going to get rid of the Patriot Act (not necessarily on this forum). But the fact is, the Democrats are FOR the Patriot Act. They might want to make some minor changes, but they are FOR the Patriot Act as a whole.

BLD

 

Re: Re: What rights have you lost?

If we agree to renew the Patriot Act as written and the Supreme Court continues to approve it, then some of our civil liberties will be permanently suspended. Please don't kid yourself into thinking that any administration, Republican or Democrat, will suddenly give us our freedoms back just because the original reason for removing those freedoms no longer exists.

I know about the MLK story. I never claimed that everything any Democratic president has ever done was right, but right now the Democratic Party is more libertarian than the Republican Party. If there was a candidate running who actually reflected my views and stood a decent chance of winning, I'd be out there campaigning for him/her. As is, I'm settling for John Kerry because the prospect of four more years of Bush scares me.


Cheers,

 

Despite his rhetoric, anti war to combat Dean in the primaries, pro war now to have a realistic change to beat Bush (keep dreaming, Johhny "we do know ye" boy), Kerry will bog us down in Iraq, we will have another Vietnam, protesters and demonstrators similiar the '60's will hit the streets, and Kerry will not seek another term, if elected.

This is why the Left is so opposed to him. He supports the military-industrial complex even though he says he doesn't.

 

That is a common statement that many are making Tom. I've yet to meet one person who is enthusiastic about Kerry. It is purely an "anti-Bush" or a "no one better running" attitude that is not a good sign for Kerry at the polls.

BLD

 

The question is -- would Kerry join them in demonstrating against his own war?

BLD

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Problem with Bush

"Condemned" is too strong a word to attribute to your list above. Would it help if I found some Republicans who disagreed with Bush? What does it prove? Are you somehow claiming that the “condemnation” of Kerry is universal – coming equally from the right and left wings? Are you denying that the SBVFT is a right-wing funded smear campaign that is led by a man who has been trying to get Kerry for nearly 40 years?

As far as the war crimes issue. Kerry spoke generally about what happened in VN. Was it a war crime to destroy a village? Perhaps, in a moral sense, but then many thousands were guilty of the same crime. Should they all be prosecuted as war criminals? If you think Kerry should be prosecuted, then you have to include a great many others, including the still living members of the Johnson and Nixon Cabinets who were responsible for the continuation of that war. I suspect you would just like to see Kerry prosecuted alone.

The conservatives like to portray Kerry as a traitor to other vets for his testimony in 1971. If you read it, you see that he passionately defends veterans. It is the Administration that he condemns, and rightly so. It was their agenda they were forced to carry out.

Let's see, the conservative agenda re Kerry goes something like this:

1. He's a war criminal for things he did in VN.

2. He got medals for things he didn't do in VN.

3. He's a traitor for things he said after VN about things that happened in VN (were these the things he did, or didn’t do, in VN, according to the right wing?).

4. And now he's a hypocrite for having the temerity to defend himself from slimy Republicans who accuse him of the three things above.

 

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Problem with Bush

This is not the issue, Tom. You keep referring to right wingers who oppose Kerry and I simply stated many who are not right wingers oppose him and some of his views.

The Left (Greens, Socialist Workers Party, Workers World Party, Socialist Party, Socialist Equality Party, U.S. Marijuana Party, Pot Party, Grassroots Party, Liberal Party (Minnesota), Pan Sexual Party, Labor Party, etc., etc,. etc., are just as opposed to Kerry as the Right.

If you're going to mention those who oppose Kerry, don't be so narrow as to imply it's only the Right or only the Republicans!

I have been following politics since I was nine year's old. I cannot think of a single Democratic Presidential nominee, including McGovern, who inspires the rank and file of his Party any less than Kerry.

Most of the votes for Kerry will be votes against Bush, not for Kerry. I have a number of Democrats in my church. They are not that thrilled with Kerry. "He's better than Bush" or "Kerry is the lesser of two evils" is what I hear.

When Humphrey (would have been a good President), Mondale, and Carter were the nominees, people voted for them not just against Nixon (and Wallace) and Reagan.

Kerry may actually lose the Catholic vote to a Republican for the first time since Reagan.

No, he just doesn't inspire the rank and file of his Party.

 

Re: What rights have you lost?

The government has had the right to tap phones (with the appropriate court order) for almost as long as there have been phones. All the Patriot Act does is streamline that authority and expand it to new digital media.

One of the beauties of the act is that it basically amends existing laws. You can read in each section the wording that's being taken out and the new wording that's being inserted. Usually what it does is that it takes out 'voice and wire' and inserts 'voice, wire and electronic'.

Probably the most substantial change regarding wire tapping is removing the requirement that individual lines to be tapped be specified, and inserting that the individual to be surveiled be specified. That means that instead of having to get a separate court order for each communications line, and instead of being unable to surveil a newly discovered line until a new warrant is obtined, all of an individual's lines can be surveiled under one single court order, even if some of them are discovered after the order is issued.

But why would the government even care about constantly monitoring you? Why do you think that they would find you so fascinating?

Judicial review of what?

There have been allegations in this thread that the government can now tap your phone or snoop through your computer records without a warrant. But the Patriot Act says exactly the opposite. A court order remains necessary, just like before.

What sections say those things? If I thought that what you are alleging was true, I might agree with you. But I've seen nothing remotely like that in the Act.

For no reason? Where did that come from?

What the act does is allows investigators to take evidence pursuant with a warrant, such as information on bank transactions from computer files, without immediately informing the suspect. The obvious reason is that informing the suspects that they are subjects of an investigation would just make any conspiracy that might exist go to ground.

I'm not sure what it takes to declare someone an "enemy combatant". I don't think that the category can be applied to US citizens. My understanding is that the courts have ordered US citizens transferred from Guantanamo and that they must be either charged or released.

I agree with you that the spectre of holding people indefinitely without charge, whether or not they are foreigners, is very troubling. But the Patriot Act isn't what creates the legal authority for doing that. The authority to hold "enemy combatants" outside the civilian legal system was upheld by the US Supreme Court during World War II, when the Roosevelt administration successfully claimed that authority with regard to captured German secret agents.

Once again, the government has had the right to tap phones, with appropriate court order, for as long as there have been phones. The Patriot Act does nothing to change that.

Frankly, if John Kerry is in favor of preventing law enforcement officers from investigating serious crime and terrorist plots, then that's a good reason not to vote for Kerry. But that's not what Kerry proposes at all, though he allows some of his supporters to spread politically motivated paranoia about laws that he in fact supports.

 

Well, unless asked a question by someone, my comments regarding Kerry and the upcoming presidential election will now cease.

This debate could go (and is ging) around and around. Points have been made, debated, argued, and disputed by both sides.

I will come back to talk about the election after the election to help celebrate the reelection of a great President who governs with moral clarity, courage, and determination, not by polls and whims.

See ya November 3!

 

Why is it the administration is so reluctant to produce any evidence that the Patriot Acts have actually led to any arrests and counterterrorism successes...

The Patriot Acts certainly aren't helping the soldiers in Iraq right now either...

 

Re: Re: What rights have you lost?

Bravo! You saved me a lot of typing. Just about 100% of those who cry Chicken Little over the Patriot Act have never read it, or even have a first semester pre-law student's understanding of criminal procedure or how the law works in general.

But had "President Gore" signed the same piece of legislation, these same people would be all over how brave and courageous this Act is, and how it gives law enforcement the necessary tools to combat terrorism, which they already have had for years to combat drug lords and organized crime...

 

Why would they want to monitor you?

Bill,

They would want to monitor you for one reason....because they can.

There is voice recognition software that turns voice into text. This information is obtained from satellite and ground communication links. The text is monitored by super-computers and compared with a database of terms and phrases. The computer prompts a recording of your conversation if the correct words are spoken. The super-computers that are now used by the government can monitor several billions of channels at once. The system virtually can monitor every phone conversation in America. They can do this without judicial review.


The loss of privacy is a loss of liberty, which is a loss of freedom.

 

Re: Why would they want to monitor you?

If you sincerely believe this, here's a site for you!