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DustMolecule Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-07-04 11:26 AM
Original message
Americans would trade rights for security -experts
<snip>
Just after Sept. 11, 2001, polls showed two-thirds of Americans felt it would be necessary to give up some civil liberties to protect the nation. A year later, that number still stood at about half, Bowman said.
<snip>
Historically, losing civil liberties in a time of fear is nothing new in America.
<snip>
But civil liberty issues such as prisoners rights do not trouble the average American, experts say. People look the other way when their own personal life is not at stake.
<snip>
"Are we headed for a fascist dictatorship or a fascist regime with fascistic denials of civil liberties? I doubt it," said Kramnick. "Were the denials of civil liberties to really spread to the mainstream population and outside aspects of terrorism, then I think there would be a hue and cry which you do not hear now."

http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/news/story.jsp?id=2004060710360002247578&dt=20040607103600&w=RTR&coview=

----------------

Sorry, I had to really snip this article up to keep to the 4 paragraph rule. It's interesting to read. Not sure I agree entirely with it.
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LittleApple81 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-07-04 11:28 AM
Response to Original message
1. That is why the "terra...terra...terra" has been so effective. Thanks to
Asscroft latest "terra" announcement faux-pas, however, it might be losing its charm.
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Feanorcurufinwe Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-07-04 11:33 AM
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2. These 'experts' from the American Enterprise Institute and the Hudson
Edited on Mon Jun-07-04 12:02 PM by Feanorcurufinwe
Institute are simply doing their best to advance the false notion that the Bush administration hasn't curtailed liberties, along with the false notion highlighted in the headline of this article. This piece is almost entirely devoid of real analysis -- it's simply an anti-civil-liberties propaganda piece.

The same set of facts, if the author of the article had interviewed different 'experts', would have yielded the headline: "Americans would not trade rights for security".


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PROGRESSIVE1 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-07-04 11:36 AM
Response to Reply #2
4. Bingo!!!
The Reich Wing hates AMERICA!!!
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mark11727 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-07-04 11:35 AM
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3. "A year later, that number still stood at about half..."
...and could we please ship that half to a re-education camp, where They'ds be happy, and leave the rest of us alone?

Before, say, the next election? Because these are the folks who genuinely support PATRIOT and Ashcroft and Bush --- they're his fraidy-scared base, and he needs them so.

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IrateCitizen Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-07-04 11:39 AM
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5. America is a weak nation, consumed with irrational fear
Think about what 9/11 really was, for a moment. I really don't want to discount the loss that took place for many people on that clear Tuesday morning, but the people lost in the WTC represented less than 0.05% of the total population of NYC. And yet, we act as if it were the worst atrocity in the history of the world, and that the world is completely transformed (translation -- human rights and civil liberties no longer have any importance) because of it.

Contrast this one event with the blitz on London during WWII. What about the firebombing of Dresden in which over 100,000 people were killed? What about the fighting on the Eastern Front between the Nazis and Soviets? What about the firebombing of Tokyo? And, of course, what about the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

When you compare 9/11 with these events, it registers as a mere blip on the radar screen. But, considering that America is a nation that hasn't really experienced war for 139 years -- and one that has NEVER experienced the "total war" as developed during the 20th century -- we have made this one event out to be the virtual ending of the world.

If anything, the irrational fear resultant of 9/11 helps prove how weak America really might be at its core. A country of greater strength would have looked such an event in the eye, and demanded that its leaders use the opportunity to truly create a better world for all through cooperation. Instead, the population gave the leadership carte blanche to pursue whatever agenda they wanted, to take whatever civil liberties they wanted, and most importantly to bomb whoever they wanted, just so we wouldn't feel quite so afraid.
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whistle Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-07-04 11:57 AM
Response to Original message
6. So did the German people in 1933....
...when they allowed the Nazi party to take full power over their government, their institutions and their lives. The final solution by Hitler and his Nazi thugs not only killed 6 1/2 million Jews, but 20 million Russian people, millions of Slavic populations throughout the Balkans and hundreds of thousands of people who the Nazis considered inferior for their religious beliefs and physical or mental handicaps.

When the Nazis took power, the "hue and cry" of opposition in Germany was snuffed out! Hitler almost won, thanks to the efforts of Americans like Dubya's grandfather Prescott Bush and other well recognized American financiers, industrial giants and heroes (DuPonts, Henry Ford, Charles Lindberg).

Here is link to a an interesting piece on America's role in the rise of fascism in Europe during the 1920's, '30's and even the early '40's:

American Supporters of European Fascists

http://www.rationalrevolution.net/american_supporters_of_the_europ.htm
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seabeyond Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Mon Jun-07-04 12:15 PM
Response to Original message
7. i saw this with the police
they were allowed to go over the line of right cause it was the black poor males. we were afraid. then it went to the uneducated and poor. now it has fed up all the way the chain. there are still those that are fearful enough to allow those rights to be taken. or can go further and those that decide that infringing on rights that meet their agenda such as belts and smoking, cause it is their causes, willing to take away rights. ergo, you can take those another could take yours with their agenda. it all feeds

9/11 just escalated the fears.

yes we are in fascism adn ready for a dictator.

shoot i saw it in parents rights, all those kids not parented we got fearful and handed our right as parent to schools, boy wasnt that foolish. many like it, then they dont have to be responsible or take any blame, do any of the work
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