comments from family at Christmas eve get-together

--'we're in a war'

--90+% of Americans don't oppose spying on citizens

--only those with something to hide oppose domestic spying

--'my civil rights end when there's a chance of a nuclear attack that would kill millions'

--CIA is totally incompetant and no threat to anyone, unlike 'you liberals' claim to fear; if it were competant some dem sentors would die in car wrecks tonight

--FBI, CIA, IRS should be totally independent from political oversight (no answer as to how they should be chosen; who would pick the targets)

--US is much freer from govt oversight than other countries; exs given were England and Germany: vans that search out TV and radio use b/c taxes must be paid; govt monitors b/c people might watch/listen to something not approved

--Lincoln arrested editors of NYTimes and Harpers for confed sympathies in their publications, tried to send them to confederacy (which wouldn't accept them); kept them on ships b/c could keep them imprisoned

--during WWII govt monitored all in US with German names (source: programs on the History Channel)

monitoring of Geman names

...but they're probably right about England and Germany being a lot less private than America. Still, that doesn't nullify our Constitution, and the rest of their stuff about the CIA and FBI is bullshit.

hang in there.

:hug:

I relate however, as I am a minority at family get togethers too.

Here is what is heard at my big Christmas Eve celebration ( 16 people)

George Bush is an ass
Fuck Bush
I thought I hated George Bush I, he was a saint compared to his son.
2006 and those creeps are outta' here
I hate Dan Boren. He's a friggin' DINO.

---
I could go on, but you get the idea.

I leave Monday for my freaky freep parental unit home. I will have to re read the fuck bush thread.

:hi:

Happy Christmas!

:)

:hug:

even after the Draft Riots in NYC. He did send an ex-Ohio Congressman , Vallendham (something like that) to Canada for supporting the Knights of the Golden Circle and other pro-Confederate groups in the North, but the Congressman soon came back to the US. I'm trying to cook Christmas dinner now, but if you need sources, I'll look them up.

Ask them just what makes the US the US and how they define freedom. Ask them how having no civil rights at all gives them freedom. Ask them if they are ready for the government to take their guns-for this will be the next step-which is one very good reason not to have domestic spying.

this was statement from second-year law student

Haven't found a thing in relation to the Draft Riots, which would, it seem to me, be the reason Lincoln would be incensed with NY newspapers. But none of the accounts I've read mentions him doing anything about the newspapers, even though unnamed "Democratic" newspapers did write articles sympathetic to the South and raised the issue of blacks taking jobs away from poor whites. If anything, he was more incensed with Dem. Gov. Seymour, but I don't think he did anything about him either-at least haven't read anything.

Interesting that your law student would say Harper's editor was arrested, as I did find this:

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAharpers.htm

The journal supported Stephen A. Douglas in the 1860 presidential election but after the outbreak of the American Civil War it loyally supported Abraham Lincoln and the Union.


And then here's a nice quote from Honest Abe himself you might find interesting:

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/abraham_lincoln.html

Don't interfere with anything in the Constitution. That must be maintained, for it is the only safeguard of our liberties.

I have found a site that states:

http://www.americanpresident.org/history/abrahamlincoln/

Lincoln assumed extralegal powers over the press, declared martial law in areas where no military action justified it, quelled draft riots with armed soldiers, and drafted soldiers to fight for the Union cause. No President in history had ever exerted so much executive authority, but he did so not for personal power but in order to preserve the Union. In 1864, as an example of his limited personal ambitions, Lincoln refused to call off national elections,

I haven't found any details about the press yet, but am still looking.

valladigham was a real thorn in President Lincoln' side using racism and so on to attack the union effort, so he had him picked up and deported to the south's lines, ie freed in the confederacy. Lol! valladigham couldn't get back through the lines, he hadda go to NOLA, then to jolly old england (add one face not very jolly!) then to Canada; then across the border at Erie....had Ben Butler had a say in it, valladigham (a ohiohan)would have been shot for treason, but Old Abe? Too generous with the bastards (generosity that has since and still today encourages treason, when one thinks of it)
you can google that bush-hole and read all about it....

For the life of me, I couldn't remember how to spell the bloke's name. I'd forgotten his torturous journey, but thanks to your kind post I recall Lincoln rather drolly commenting on the fact that Mr. Vallagidnham didn't appear to like to stay in the nation he so strongly espoused.

The problem is that most people who claim that they were willing to sacrifice their freedoms for security is that they do not think that it is their civil liberties that will be sacrificed. They are under the impression that it will always be someone else's liberties that will be sacrificed instead.

civil rights b/c there are so many guns in the US......there would be gunfights everywhere......this is also why no one will ever try to invade us

I wanted to make some pointed comments comparing these statements to the situation in Iraq but the burst of RW talking points was dying down by then. There would have been no understanding at all of what I was trying to say.

we mostly have agreed not to 'talk politics' when together

brothers are very supportive and helpful but have 'awful political views'....comments were mostly from one brother who has long considered me and my ex (and my son) 'unfortunate victims of an ivory tower world' (we have PhDs and have taught years at college level); he, however, lives in the 'real world' and deals with 'real people and real problems' on a day to day basis

"You obviously know nothing because you're so educated."

What job does Mr. Realist have in the Real World?

:hug:

What a nightmare to have to listen to that.

:hug:

in response to comment about how poor airport security is in this country

'neither govt nor unions should be in charge of airport security'

me: so private companties?? like Enron??

'nobody forced people to invest in Enron' (ie, investors lost money b/c they were stupid)

me: look at all the money the executives kept

'US govt loses billions more dollars that Enron did' (nice irrelevant change of subject)

That fucking says it all, doesn't it? The politics of cowardice.

As a liberal and a New Yorker, I'll say this right fucking now: I'd rather die at the hands of a madman than live under the boot of one.

it doesn't matter so long as our team heads do as they please. All of the examples cited show a wrong used to defend another wrong with less justification in terms of groups or numbers of individuals seriously worth monitoring for deadly terrorist plots. Comparisons to other countries doing worse is hardly a justification considering Britain's getting bombed anyway. Incompetence is a seedbed for self protective and justifying abuse away from their primary mission- aimed at the public they fear will demand an accounting or bother their plans. In a secret agency unaccountable and secretly gone bad under a secretive administration the enemy is the people, no matter their innocence and yes, they have everything to fear from incompetence and lack of oversight in a time of danger when- as with all other failed management teams- other things become tragically more important than the sworn duty to the nation.
In this case one might suspect some of those other things in themselves constitute a direct threat on the common good and its treasury.

If Lincoln, a Republican anti-type, was tougher than Chavez on a subversive media, it might have been because he really was at war for the survival of the nation whereas Chavez has avoided that crisis despite coups and personal assassination attempts. Chavez also has the benefit of a lot more historic democratic experience. But Chavez, who has done far less than Lincoln, the touted exemplar, is excoriated with impunity by the people backing his overthrow outside his country and who are hand in pocket and fist in glove with the wealthy class media who whine more about "persecution" than some zealots seeing "Season's Greetings" on a dog biscuit.

It is because the CIA IS largely in service to the country that no one, including Bush, has been removed with extreme prejudice. Their main vulnerability came from being regulated to do their job by people who themselves could stand strict scrutiny and have since gone bad and lawless. The regulated civil servants already questioning civilian oversight aren't thrilled about taking the rap anyway for reckless crimes directed from above. Germany probably over-regulates to squelch incipient or residual fascism. What exactly is the reason here for reckless overblown wiretaps when in the past it is KNOWN terrorists who slipped through the careless bureaucracy and management of Intel?

It boils down to the comfort zone of the salon. You could be living in a totally depraved dictatorship
about to be bombed tomorrow but you could be casual about anything, justify anything in the zone of the moment. The present is hardly an illusion and seems a guarantor of future comfort. If not, isn't it out of our hands as well as out of our zone? Only prosperity allows the laziness of apathetic fatalism to be a comfort at all. Sometimes the illusion of prosperity is enough to sustain subhuman inertia submarining under reality, calling the cave the universe. This is how fatalism is fatal both to body and mind, a hair-trigger bomb that will elicit surprise from those who really knew they had it all along. because 90% of the human race falls easy prey to bad leadership and social inertia we have the laws, the declarations, the schools, the system. That should not just make us feel warm and cuddly. it should warn us to think WHY such things are needed in the first place- and they can just become words.

i got thru DH's family brunch ok. wore my peace sign necklace
AND my black wristband. no one asked; no one told. i was ready for anything, though! should be smooth sailing for the rest of the day.

good luck!

By our own government?

Wow. Nice family. :crazy:

:eyes:

Your family members are dishonoring the brave men and women who fought for our freedom by demonstrating their willingness to sacrifice the U.S. Constitution.

:hug:

Do these people not understand the concept of a slippery slope, or have they been so sheltered all their lives that their worldview is so naive as to think the erosion of civil rights will not have a direct effect on them?

I have something for them to ponder. In his zeal to "protect" America, bush believes there is a threat of civil unrest (much like the "threat" of Saddam's WMD). To suppress the unrest, bush institutes martial law. In addition, he sends law enforcement to go door-to-door to confiscate all guns. All guns.

Now, is that okay with them? Because it sure ain't okay with me. Don't they understand that bush is testing the waters by being brazen about what he did? He wants to see how far he can push the envelope of fear-induced capitulation to his agenda.

I can't believe how stupid some people are. It's like they can't see past the end of their nose.

edit misspelling

and I guess most/much of what they said is trash, but the German monitoring happened. Family experience. Now, I doubt it was all German names, but certainly German nationals.

And he Loooves Bush. When I wanted to talk about it more - he got sort of defensive. Which means he has some conception that he is being sorta stupid and/or wrong.

Ouch.

This must be why I spend Christmas with friends...

"How would you feel if Al Gore or John Kerry were doing these things?"

Mmm-kay. Tell that relative that Boosh will send people right over to install cameras in all their bedrooms. :evilgrin: