tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1169281096117913024.post2375356264227912773..comments2024-03-27T04:14:38.477-05:00Comments on crAAKKer: Never ForgetGrange95http://www.blogger.com/profile/01857460215043659894noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1169281096117913024.post-66544185856251860022012-09-15T11:20:05.007-05:002012-09-15T11:20:05.007-05:00Great post. What is one to do?
For years I have c...Great post. What is one to do?<br /><br />For years I have considered myself a moderate republican. I am horrified that the party has been taken over by the extremist loonies who give a bad name to all republicans. On the other hand, the democrats are dominated by their own extremist loonies.<br /><br />As things stand now it is so difficult for anyone close to the middle to get nominated for the top spot. However, it seems that many on both sides could live with someone from the opposite party as long as common sense and statesmanship were part of the occasion.lightning36https://www.blogger.com/profile/05641629003610446976noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1169281096117913024.post-43666403202463351512012-09-12T10:20:35.405-05:002012-09-12T10:20:35.405-05:00@ Rakewell & MisterFred: Rakewell is right th...@ Rakewell & MisterFred: Rakewell is right that there is a conflict between opposing the kinds of flagrant violations of our rights I identified in my post and supporting either of our main political parties and their presidential nominees who are responsible for initiating and sustaining those odious policies. However, Misterfred is correct that the issue is much more complicated than simply saying, "A pox on both your houses."<br /><br />Look, I voted for Obama last election in part because he opposed the war in Irag, he favored closing Guantanamo Bay, he opposed torture, he offered a way out of Iraq and Afghanistan. To say I'm disappointed in Obama on those issues is putting it mildly. But Romney and the neo-con hawks in the Republican party will almost certainly be worse on those issues.<br /><br />The problem is, our system is structurally unable to give me any viable options for voting against Obama. So long as the Republican party is in thrall to the right wing loonies—and a party that offers Michelle Bachman, Herman Cain, Rick Santorum, and Newt Gingrich as serious presidential candidates is beholden to the crazies—there's no way I can vote Republican. As MisterFred points out, I live in a swing state in a tight election year. If folks like me vote for Gary Johnson, we might well collectively hand the White House to the worst choice of the lot. So the safe bet is to hold our noses and vote for Obama, not because he is good on these issues, but because he is not nearly as bad as the alternative.<br /><br />In an ideal world, I wish I had the option to vote for a fiscally conservative, socially moderate-to-libertarian candidate like Gary Johnson or Jon Huntsman. Right now, neither major party offers such a candidate. And from what I can tell, a lot of supposedly libertarian voters aren't willing to back Johnson because they would rather support the Ron Paul cult of personality (complete with his nutty policies and less than libertarian views on social issues). Maybe if the Republicans lose a few more elections they will see their way clear to cutting loose the radical right (or at least stifle them) and put up a candidate like Johnson. But until they do, the only viable option for me is to vote for the Democrat and trust he won't push the envelope too far.Grange95https://www.blogger.com/profile/01857460215043659894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1169281096117913024.post-17879150568309575092012-09-12T09:41:39.854-05:002012-09-12T09:41:39.854-05:00@ Rakewell (a/k/a Poker Grump): Regrettably, you a...@ Rakewell (a/k/a Poker Grump): Regrettably, you are correct that Americans have a habit of trading liberty for security (real or imagined). I suppose if, during America's most virtuous endeavor—WW II—we felt it necessary to send 10s of thousands of our own citizens to camps because they were of Japanese descent (but not doing the same to our citizens of German descent), then I should hardly be surprised at what we have done in the name of the greater good in the aftermath of 9/11.<br /><br />Still, during the weeks following 9/11, I remember feeling hopeful that things might be different this time, that we Americans might find a way to use that tragedy as a starting point for a renewed, shared vision of who we are as a nation. Eleven years out, it's obvious my hope was horribly misplaced. Yet I refuse to think that there is no hope of changing course.Grange95https://www.blogger.com/profile/01857460215043659894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1169281096117913024.post-82231015014776269892012-09-12T08:56:52.378-05:002012-09-12T08:56:52.378-05:00Hypocritical, perhaps, but not irrational. Such a ...Hypocritical, perhaps, but not irrational. Such a vote is irrational only if one believes that slowly building a movement to reject such violations is a)feasible and b)more important than other issues.<br /><br />And lest we forget, there ARE other issues. Important ones, about the structure of our society and economy. You both live in battleground states, and thus face an important choice: vote for an immediate positive effect (Obama or Romney - I'll forgo mentioning the obvious better choice) or filing a protest vote in the hopes that a political party will grow in the future.<br /><br />Purely from a perspective of civil liberties, Gary Johnson may be the best candidate. But the election is about more than that.<br /><br />Oh, and good blog post. I agree.MisterFrednoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1169281096117913024.post-22117911506780311342012-09-12T01:55:00.043-05:002012-09-12T01:55:00.043-05:00In case that first comment wasn't sufficient e...In case that first comment wasn't sufficient explicit, I agree with your laments here about how we have, collectively, willingly thrown away core constitutional guarantees in the name of alleged national security. <br /><br />Allow me to ask a pointed question: Who do you plan to vote for in the upcoming presidential election? <br /><br />I mean, you give a nice speech here, but will your vote reflect your sadness and outrage? <br /><br />I don't see how you can identify the flagrant, ongoing, massive violations of several provisions of the Bill of Rights, and then cast your ballot either for one of the guys who is in charge of the governmental machine that is visiting such violations upon us, or for the guy who promises to do even more of the same if he gets his chance. <br /><br />I humbly suggest giving consideration to Gary Johnson, who takes individual constitutional liberties seriously, and I believe will do all in his power to reverse the worst of the abuses you have listed. <br /><br />Publishing an impassioned lament about constitutional violations, but then voting for somebody who you know is dedicated to continuing them, seems to me both irrational and hypocritical. Rakewellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15873391354585352712noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1169281096117913024.post-61957158318912624152012-09-12T01:45:02.227-05:002012-09-12T01:45:02.227-05:00We ALWAYS forget.
Perhaps more pertinently, we a...We ALWAYS forget. <br /><br />Perhaps more pertinently, we always deem today's bogeyman so much scarier than anything that has come before that it justifies violating precepts that we have literally carved into stone on some of our national buildings. <br /><br />Within a few years of enacting the First Amendment, the same Congress decided that the whole "freedom of speech" thing surely couldn't encompass the shocking act of criticizing THEM, and so passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. <br /><br />For Abraham Lincoln, the exigencies of the beginnings of the Civil War seemed to justify suspending the right of habeas corpus. <br /><br />In the second half of the 19th century, we had what amounted to an official federal governmental policy of genocide of Native Americans, because they frightened the western settlers and resisted having their lands taken away. <br /><br />For WWII America, the possibility of Japanese espionage was sufficiently frightening that they were able to deem thousands upon thousands of legal immigrants and US citizens to be potential enemies, solely on the basis of their parentage, and as a result force them to sell their property for pennies on the dollar and relocate them to concentration camps in the interior. Due process? Judicial review? Petition for redress? Presumption of innocence? All whisked away with barely a whimper of protest from the majority--and with the explicit, shameful stamp of approval from the Supreme Court. <br /><br />Every generation abandons the values it claims to hold sacred when it is sufficiently frightened--and every generation has something that sufficiently frightens it. With the passage of time, we look back at our predecessors and think, "How could you DO that?", barely aware that our grandchildren will be thinking the same of us for having turned our backs on bedrock constitutional principles in the ways that you have listed here. Rakewellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15873391354585352712noreply@blogger.com