reply to post by bakednutz
Yes, I do support them and no, they are not eroding away at the Constitution. Like I said, foreign nationals, of the enemy combatant variety or
otherwise, do not and should not have any rights or protection under OUR Constitution. So there goes the ever popular adios habeas corpus argument.
The fact that you right now can sit behind a computer monitor and post pretty much anything you wish about GWB (except for threatening him, which was
never legal to begin with) proves freedom of speech is still alive and well. Freedom of association never meant that you wouldn't experience some
monitoring or scrutiny over your associations... I believe this was proven decades ago when the Federal government collected a list of known Klansmen
to keep under watch.... uh, scratch that, it occured over a century and a half ago when the US government compiled a list of Confederate supporters
and not only kept them under scrutiny and openly removed many of their rights, they also siezed their land, belongings, and resources purely over
their association with the Confederacy. The 2nd amendment is actually in far better shape today than it was when GWB entered the office in 2000,
thanks to him allowing Clinton's unconstitutional garbage bills to expire.
Here's what has changed...
You cannot go from your car to the boarding gate in 10 minutes at an airport. OK, that was what we call a
convienience not a right, not a
liberty. Completely different animals, there.
Your international phone conversations can be intercepted on the fly if you are suspected of being involved in terrorist activities or in support of
terrorism... Hmm, not much has changed as prior to the Patriot Act the feds could still wiretap your phones prior to obtaining a warrant. It was
called a delayed warrant and it wasn't all that uncommon. They tapped your phone in the name of national security and then filed the appropriate
paperwork with the justice dept. If the Justice Dept determined there was no cause for the tap, anything collected was inadmisable on court. Kinda
sounds like what we've got going now, except this system uses common sense in that the justice dept. bases their decision on the admissabillity of
any collected evidence by actually reviewing the evidence itself in conjunction with any prior cause leading to the tap.
Anything else you want to bring to the table involves international treaties and agreements which we may be stretching a bit with imprisoning enemy
combatants, waging war in Iraq, etc.
I have the same damn rights I had on the day I was born and so do you. Do I think GWB has been a good president? Not really. His international
politics aren't solid, he's mishandled the economy, his position on immigration sucks, and he's wasted far, far too much time, money, and resources
on worrying about appeasing the environmental crowd via crap like alternative energy subsidies. Is he the Devil incarnate as some around here paint
him as? Hell f'n no! He isn't even remotely close to the worst president in my 32 year lifetime, that honor goes solidly to Mr. Jimmy Carter. And
if we want to talk about REALLY bad presidents who did encroach on America's rights and did crap on the Constitution, FDR is a great place to start
and Andrew Johnson is the guy to end with.