| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"John" |
| Date: |
08 Jan 2008 06:23:24 AM |
| Object: |
The Nazis don't want you to think for yourself |
Extinguishing Liberty's Light and Independent Views
Thinking for yourself is now a crime
By Paul Craig Roberts
01/04/08 What was the greatest failure of 2007? President Bush's "surge"
in Iraq? The decline in the value of the US dollar? Subprime mortgages?
No. The greatest failure of 2007 was the newly sworn in Democratic Congress.
The American people's attempt in November 2006 to rein in a rogue
government, which has committed the US to costly military adventures while
running roughshod over the US Constitution, failed. Replacing Republicans
with Democrats in the House and Senate has made no difference.
The assault on the US Constitution by the Democratic Party is as determined
as the assault by the Republicans. On October 23, 2007, the House passed a
bill sponsored by California Democratic congresswoman Jane Harman,
chairwoman of a Homeland Security subcommittee, that overturns the
constitutionally guaranteed rights to free expression, association, and
assembly.
The bill passed the House on a vote of 404-6. In the Senate the bill is
sponsored by Maine Republican Susan Collins and apparently faces no
meaningful opposition.
Harman's bill is called the "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism
Prevention Act." [ http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-1955 ]
When HR 1955 becomes law, it will create a commission tasked with
identifying extremist people, groups, and ideas. The commission will hold
hearings around the country, taking testimony and compiling a list of
dangerous people and beliefs. The bill will, in short, create massive
terrorism in the United States. But the perpetrators of terrorism will not
be Muslim terrorists; they will be government agents and fellow citizens.
We are beginning to see who will be the inmates of the detention centers
being built in the US by Halliburton under government contract.
Who will be on the "extremist beliefs" list? The answer is: civil
libertarians, critics of Israel, 9/11 skeptics, critics of the
administration's wars and foreign policies, critics of the administration's
use of kidnapping, rendition, torture and violation of the Geneva
Conventions, and critics of the administration's spying on Americans.
Anyone in the way of a powerful interest group--such as environmentalists
opposing politically connected developers--is also a candidate for the list.
The "Extremist Beliefs Commission" is the mechanism for identifying
Americans who pose "a threat to domestic security" and a threat of
"homegrown terrorism" that "cannot be easily prevented through traditional
federal intelligence or law enforcement efforts."
This bill is a boon for nasty people. That SOB who stole your girlfriend,
that hussy who stole your boyfriend, the gun owner next door--just report
them to Homeland Security as holders of extreme beliefs. Homeland Security
needs suspects, so they are not going to check. Under the new regime,
accusation is evidence. Moreover, "our" elected representatives will never
admit that they voted for a bill and created an "Extremist Belief
Commission" for which there is neither need nor constitutional basis.
That boss who harasses you for coming late to work--he's a good candidate to
be reported; so is that minority employee that you can't fire for any normal
reason. So is the husband of that good-looking woman you have been unable
to seduce. Every kind of quarrel and jealousy can now be settled with a
phone call to Homeland Security.
Soon Halliburton will be building more detention centers.
Americans are so far removed from the roots of their liberty that they just
don't get it. Most Americans don't know what habeas corpus is or why it is
important to them. But they know what they want, and Jane Harman has given
them a new way to settle scores and to advance their own interests.
Even educated liberals believe that the US Constitution is a "living
document" that can be changed to mean whatever it needs to mean in order to
accommodate some new important cause, such as abortion and legal privileges
for minorities and the handicapped. Today it is the "war on terror" that
the Constitution must accommodate. Tomorrow it can be the war on whomever
or whatever.
Think about it. More than six years ago the World Trade Center and Pentagon
were attacked. The US government blamed it on al Qaeda. Scant evidence has
been presented. The 9/11 Commission Report has been subjected to
devastating criticism by a large number of qualified people--including the
commission's chairman and co-chairman.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02kean.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin
Since 9/11 there have been no terrorist attacks in the US. The FBI has
tried to orchestrate a few, but the "terrorist plots" never got beyond talk
organized and led by FBI agents. There are no visible extremist groups
other than the neoconservatives that control the government in Washington.
But somehow the House of Representatives overwhelmingly sees a need to
create a commission to take testimony and search out extremist views
(outside of Washington, of course).
This search for extremist views comes after President Bush and the Justice
(sic) Department declare that the President can ignore habeas corpus, ignore
the Geneva Conventions, seize people without evidence, hold them
indefinitely without presenting charges, torture them until they confess to
some made up crime, and take over the government by declaring an emergency.
Of course, none of these "patriotic" views are extremist.
The search for extremist views follows also the granting of contracts to
Halliburton to build detention centers in the US. No member of Congress or
the executive branch ever explained the need for the detention centers or
who the detainees would be. Of course, there is nothing extremist about
building detention centers in the US for undisclosed inmates.
Clearly the detention centers are not meant to just stand there empty.
Thanks to 2007's greatest failure--the Democratic Congress--there is to be
an "Extremist Beliefs Commission" to secure inmates for Bush's detention
centers.
President Bush promises us that the wars he has launched will cause the
"untamed fire of freedom" to "reach the darkest corners of our world."
Meanwhile in America the fire of freedom has not only been tamed but also is
being extinguished.
The light of liberty has gone out in the United States.
Paul Craig Robertswrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was Assistant Secretary of
the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the
Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National
Review. He is author or coauthor of eight books, including The Supply-Side
Revolution (Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic
appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy,
Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University and
Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has
contributed to numerous scholarly journals and testified before Congress on
30 occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury's Meritorious Service
Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer for the Journal of
Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell. He is the co-author of The
Tyranny of Good Intentions. He is also coauthor with Karen Araujo of Chile:
Dos Visiones - La Era Allende-Pinochet (Santiago: Universidad Andres Bello,
2000).
.
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
