Links With Your Coffee - Friday
- Eternal Vigilance » Listics It was worth writing and it's worth reading.
Thomas Jefferson is commonly credited with the memorable line, “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.” I prefer the more nuanced version attributed to J.P. Curran as quoted above. American conservatives, notably Milton Friedman and the John Birch Society, latched onto the Jefferson “eternal vigilance” line forty years ago and more, and they used it as a weapon to hijack popular democracy in the US. Questions of indolence aside, the people of America have been less than vigilant since 1980 and they have seen an elaborate and functional government infrastructure disassembled. Tax dollars that should go to roads and schools, fresh water, and hospitals and other public works are funneled straight into corporate welfare programs propping up agribusiness and the chemical companies that feed on the corpses of the our family farms. The military-industrial complex — that public/private partnership — separates workers from their dollars and burns those dollars in the furnace of perpetual war. And an oligarchy of private wealth represented by the figureheads of the Bush family but otherwise fairly well concealed successfully siphons billions of dollars directly into their own pockets every year through financial market manipulation and outright theft, usually under the aegis of free market economics and a lessening of government controls.
- Religion, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, separation of church and state | Salon.com
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Comments
I refuse to vote for Romney not because of his Mormon faith; I refuse to vote for Romney because he's a fucking malevolent idiot.
Double Guantanamo, he said.
Someone oughta take his priviliged white ass to Guantanamo and treat him to their kind pleasantries.
Here in Kansas I actually had to argue with some religious idiot who insisted that the "law of gravity" meant the Earth did not revolve around the sun.
I just read HR 1955 and am thoroughly slack-jawed and scared of our ignorant and pathetic congress. This bill would make my current academic course, Introduction to Marxist Theory and the Russian Revolution completely illegal. The new commission that would be created would have the power to ban any and all books that offer any support or leanings to the necessity or possibility of using force (what kind?) or violence (what degree and kind?) in the effort to make a change in political, religious, or social beliefs. Would our own government be subject to this law? No, just its citizens, but damn it sure would be a gross violator. We need a revolution. Reform, if we can even achieve that, would only put a few more fingers in an inevitably crumbling dike of the natural rights of man.
@Eternal Vigilance: That is the arguement that i've been making for quite a while that scares the jebus out of me. The changes that have been made to our civil liberties (h.b. 1955 and Military Commisions act etc) and the laws that have been passed are not scary yet. However, I'm not sure I want to live in this country when the next terrorist attack occurs, and pulls the trigger for all of these inconspicuous laws to all the sudden be used in full force against the populace. It doesn't matter what political party is in power, because the bloodlust will be so strong that either side will fold and let the military law, in all but name, rule this country.
The fact that PETA members are being tried as terrorsts, scares me.
The scariest thought is if it is a homegrown terrorist, then the "them" becomes "us". Chilling.
I hate this particular Jefferson quote. The open-minded freethinker should not need to be chided to beware of government actions to curtail liberties. The closed-minded fear-based people in the nation, however, can cling to this chestnut as an example of dear old Jefferson saying it's perfectly OK to spy on our own people because that is how we protect our liberties. It's a classic example of American double-speak hypocrisy.
The Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance. The Price of Eternal Vigilance is Eternal Suspiscion. The Price of Eternal Suspiscion is Creeping Paranoia. The Price of Creeping Paranoia is Restricted Freedoms. The Price of Restricted Freedoms is Liberty.
James,
I just read HR 1955 and saw nothing that would outlaw your course. Nor did I see where the commission will have the power to ban books. Could you refer to the sections and paragraphs that support your claim?
Oh dang it anyway. I was hoping that someone would respond to Syngas. I've been looking around for a sold analysis of HR 1955 but haven't been able to find one. It is an ammendment to the Homeland Security act and the references to not wanting to abuse people's civil rights has me feeling concerned. I was hoping that there would be a indepth discussion.
for a sold analysis
Should have read, "a solid analysis"..
I stumbled upon a lot of light-weight blog posts, but nothing substantial..
You can't squeeze blood out of a turnip JoAnn ;)
Hey, Tim could really use your help on Monday's Links. You've got an MBA right?
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