James Higdon, one of the most articulate liberals currently writing, posted this at Online Journal.http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/Higdon111401/higdon111401.html
I've included a couple of paragraphs, but the Journal considers this article so important that they give blanket permission for reproduction.
>SNIP<
Every week the little emperor, and the Anti-justice Department issue a
fresh warning that more Americans are about to be murdered in massive
numbers. In answer to this, we are force fed the USA Patriot Act. This
piece of constitutional sedition, passed by all Republicans and almost
all Democrats (that many now admit they never read in full) pretends to
attack foreigners who come to this country with terrorism on their minds.
Make no mistake, this act is so loosely worded that, as I write this,
Ashcroft could decide, in a heartbeat, that this writing supports a terrorist
cause. He could then have me arrested without a warrant, hold me
incommunicado, confiscate my property, search all of my personal
effects and, now that he has decided that this unconstitutional act gives
him the right to monitor conversations between client and legal counsel,
deny my Sixth Amendment right to an attorney. All of this can be
done—right now—without the slightest measure of judicial oversight.
Understand this—he has the power to drop me behind bars for life
without legal representation, and thereby the benefit of a fair trial, based
on nothing more than my dissent and his response to it.
If you have openly dissented against this illegal administration, you—yes,
you—are also in danger. George W. Bush and John Ashcroft, while
issuing bogus terror warning after bogus warning, claiming that another
massive attack (even involving nuclear weaponry) is just around the
corner unless we give them the vast tools to fight terrorism, are putting a
loaded gun to the head of every American citizen and brazenly asking,
"What would you rather have—your life or your rights?" It is now
unpatriotic to demand the rights we have fought for and protected for
more than 200 years. With this in view, students of history should not fail
to apply a comparison to what happened on September 11 with the
Reichstag and Nazi Germany.
In this country—in America—people are disappearing from their homes,
being held incommunicado without specified duration, without charge,
without judicial oversight, and without benefit of counsel. In this
country—in America—political opponents of the officially sanctioned
parties in Washington are being denied their right to travel, and are
being put on "watch" lists. In this country—in America—the doors and
windows of the Executive branch have been officially closed and
silenced to the scrutiny of the people, the courts, and Congress. In this
country—in America—the taxes paid by the majority of American citizens
are being doled out to a small elite class of Americans. In this
country—in America—there is an officially sanctioned news service that
openly warns its employees to broadcast no news unless it is
accompanied by sanctioned government propaganda.
For those of you, like me, who have been looking forward to the
presidential election in 2004 to cure the ills of November and
December, 2000, are you quite certain that in this country—in
America—we will have an election as designed by a democratic society,
or will we have only one, officially sanctioned, candidate? In this
country—in America—we can no longer presume that "it couldn't
happen here."
Editor's note: What Mr. Higdon has written is of such importance to
all freedom-loving people that we give blanket permission for the
reprinting of his article in any publication—print or online—that
wishes to do so, as long as credit is given to the author and Online
Journal. We also encourage every reader to print it out, make
multiple copies and distribute them as widely as possible.
>SNIP<
JUST READ IT AND PRINT IT. PITT COULDN'T HAVE WRITTEN IT BETTER.
"It's always darkest just before the
tornado flattens your house." the
Democratic Elephant
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