rat

Her point is even less valid, as she takes the approach that because she's able to show the fallacies of another human being, then she is obviously morally superior to said fallable human.

Sixate, you're so disturbingly wrong on this issue that it hurts. So many people fail to understand that those who question the infringements of our rights are equally if not more fervently patriotic. I for one would rather live precariously free, with each breath my possibly last, than safely chained as the current administration thinks is proper.

I'll even take it beyond personal opinion and throw it back to those men who felt that their current situation was politically and socially unpalatable.

"Those who would be willing to sacrifice essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety" -- Benjamin Franklin

"I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" -- Voltaire

"The 'Tree of Liberty' letter
From Thomas Jefferson to William Smith


Paris, November 13, 1787

DEAR SIR, -- I am now to acknoledge the receipt of your favors of October the 4th, 8th, & 26th. In the last you apologise for your letters of introduction to Americans coming here. It is so far from needing apology on your part, that it calls for thanks on mine. I endeavor to show civilities to all the Americans who come here, & will give me opportunities of doing it: and it is a matter of comfort to know from a good quarter what they are, & how far I may go in my attentions to them. Can you send me Woodmason's bills for the two copying presses for the M. de la Fayette, & the M. de Chastellux? The latter makes one article in a considerable account, of old standing, and which I cannot present for want of this article. -- I do not know whether it is to yourself or Mr. Adams I am to give my thanks for the copy of the new constitution. I beg leave through you to place them where due. It will be yet three weeks before I shall receive them from America. There are very good articles in it: & very bad. I do not know which preponderate. What we have lately read in the history of Holland, in the chapter on the Stadtholder, would have sufficed to set me against a chief magistrate eligible for a long duration, if I had ever been disposed towards one: & what we have always read of the elections of Polish kings should have forever excluded the idea of one continuable for life. Wonderful is the effect of impudent & persevering lying. The British ministry have so long hired their gazetteers to repeat and model into every form lies about our being in anarchy, that the world has at length believed them, the English nation has believed them, the ministers themselves have come to believe them, & what is more wonderful, we have believed them ourselves. Yet where does this anarchy exist? Where did it ever exist, except in the single instance of Massachusetts? And can history produce an instance of rebellion so honourably conducted? I say nothing of it's motives. They were founded in ignorance, not wickedness. God forbid we should ever be 20 years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, & always well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions it is a lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. We have had 13. states independent 11. years. There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century & a half for each state. What country before ever existed a century & a half without a rebellion? & what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it's natural manure. Our Convention has been too much impressed by the insurrection of Massachusetts: and in the spur of the moment they are setting up a kite to keep the hen-yard in order. I hope in God this article will be rectified before the new constitution is accepted. -- You ask me if any thing transpires here on the subject of S. America? Not a word. I know that there are combustible materials there, and that they wait the torch only. But this country probably will join the extinguishers. -- The want of facts worth communicating to you has occasioned me to give a little loose to dissertation. We must be contented to amuse, when we cannot inform.

Just as the British press did in the 1770s, the current administration has over-hyped the "danger" and over-taxed their credibility far more than once. Where were the subsequent attacks? Where were the NBC weapons in Iraq? Where was the Al-Qaeda/Hussein link? Where is Colin Powell's conscience?

I honestly think Paltrow's reservations about the atmosphere in America are more than legitimate. The duty of any citizen is to vigilantly monitor the actions of his government, and when the government oversteps its bounds, it is the duty of the citizen to rectify the situation. Just as the government has obligations, so do the citizens--if either fails in its duties, then it is up to the other to follow up on things.

There are far more conscientious objectors in this nation than you might believe. Our qualms are no more unjustified than someone with full faith in the government. In fact, worrying about the actions of an overzealous government is just justified, it's rather reasonable. Where does the current trend in American Foreign Policy end?


As far as that woman who wrote the article, she seems so over-biased it's not even funny. She seems to make out like those of us who question the current administration have no clue about the Constitution, our rights, or anything else unless we're fed it through a left-wing organization. I doubt she's even read the USA PATRIOT Act, probably the single largest abridgement of CONSTITUTIONALLY GUARANTEED RIGHTS that this nation has ever been subjected to. She implies we've never read the Constititution, but apparently she doesn't believe that due process, warranted search and seizure clauses, Miranda rights (though admittedly guaranteed through judicial review), privacy rights or a myriad of other constitutionally guaranteed rights are necessary to be a good citizen. Fuck that.

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