Do people who call for sweeping new government powers forget that their chosen party won't be in power forever?
The Bantam Seditioner
2012/07/23 16:36:35
If there's one thing I've noticed with alarming certainty over my short time paying attention to politics, it's that one side of the political spectrum is always willing to screw everyone else out of their rights if their own party is in power, but are then the first to join protests when the tide changes.
Perfect example: In the days after 9/11, neoconservatives everywhere were clamoring for a massive new surveillance state, complete with departments of homeland security and transportation security administrations. It was a bad idea then, and it's a bad idea now, but it took a while for conservatives to realize that.
When Obama took over, the DHS shifted its focus from compiling dossiers of foreign terrorist threats to releasing memos warning of the dangers of veterans, conservatives, libertarians, pro-lifers, and "right-wing extremists" - all because conservatives forgot that Bush wasn't going to be President forever, and that eventually, the sweeping new powers they gave him out of fear and momentary lapse of their small gov't principles would be wielded against THEM in the future.
You liberals aren't immune from selective amnesia either. Remember when you were valiantly protesting the illegal, undeclared Iraq War, and being called unpatriotic terrorist-sympathizers for it? I was totally with you guys back then, because you were on the side of the Constitution. Besides that, you were RIGHT! Brave people who spoke out against the war ended up on the Federal "No Fly List", from bespectacled, professorial journalists, to folk singers like Cat Stevens! It was a travesty against civil liberties, and I was glad to join the left in condemning it as such.
But now, I see liberals calling Tea Party protesters terrorists all the time, and Rahm Emanuel famously said that he'd like to ban anyone who ends up on the Federal No Fly List from owning guns. How long before the next hyper-jingoistic neocon gets elected and the currently large-and-in-charge left regrets their complacency?
It has become apparent to me that Americans are selfish in all the wrong ways. We want personal freedom for ourselves, but we never seem to take the delicate care we should to protect the rights of others, even people we hate. Many of us even want to use the government to go after all those people who annoy us. This tendency is a road to disaster for us as a country, whether you call yourself a liberal, a conservative, or anything else.
We need to learn to treasure EACHOTHER's rights as much as we treasure our own. Liberals, if you speak out for my right to have guns, I'll speak out for your right to marry whoever you want. Conservatives, if you'll speak out for my right to protest the war, I'll speak out for your right to keep every cent of money you make - no exceptions! As Benjamin Franklin observed, if we don't hang together against the establishment trying to screw ALL of us, we shall surely hang separately.
Perfect example: In the days after 9/11, neoconservatives everywhere were clamoring for a massive new surveillance state, complete with departments of homeland security and transportation security administrations. It was a bad idea then, and it's a bad idea now, but it took a while for conservatives to realize that.
When Obama took over, the DHS shifted its focus from compiling dossiers of foreign terrorist threats to releasing memos warning of the dangers of veterans, conservatives, libertarians, pro-lifers, and "right-wing extremists" - all because conservatives forgot that Bush wasn't going to be President forever, and that eventually, the sweeping new powers they gave him out of fear and momentary lapse of their small gov't principles would be wielded against THEM in the future.
You liberals aren't immune from selective amnesia either. Remember when you were valiantly protesting the illegal, undeclared Iraq War, and being called unpatriotic terrorist-sympathizers for it? I was totally with you guys back then, because you were on the side of the Constitution. Besides that, you were RIGHT! Brave people who spoke out against the war ended up on the Federal "No Fly List", from bespectacled, professorial journalists, to folk singers like Cat Stevens! It was a travesty against civil liberties, and I was glad to join the left in condemning it as such.
But now, I see liberals calling Tea Party protesters terrorists all the time, and Rahm Emanuel famously said that he'd like to ban anyone who ends up on the Federal No Fly List from owning guns. How long before the next hyper-jingoistic neocon gets elected and the currently large-and-in-charge left regrets their complacency?
It has become apparent to me that Americans are selfish in all the wrong ways. We want personal freedom for ourselves, but we never seem to take the delicate care we should to protect the rights of others, even people we hate. Many of us even want to use the government to go after all those people who annoy us. This tendency is a road to disaster for us as a country, whether you call yourself a liberal, a conservative, or anything else.
We need to learn to treasure EACHOTHER's rights as much as we treasure our own. Liberals, if you speak out for my right to have guns, I'll speak out for your right to marry whoever you want. Conservatives, if you'll speak out for my right to protest the war, I'll speak out for your right to keep every cent of money you make - no exceptions! As Benjamin Franklin observed, if we don't hang together against the establishment trying to screw ALL of us, we shall surely hang separately.
I have always enjoyed reading history, but the obaaaama regime resembles the rise of NAZI Germany.
I'm a Tea Partying, conservative, free market to the core and I heartily agree with you.
What we have now, though it accomplishes some very good things for patients and low-income Americans, is far worse: The SCOTUS has upheld as constitutional the principle that Congress can simply tax the citizens of the several states for not doing whatever it is they might wish us to do. This method of social engineering/behavior modification via the IRS will absolutely be used by future congresses, by both parties; of this there is no doubt. This law/ruling also has set a precedent in that it has allowed Congress to constrain business in ways I'm probably okay with (because I believe The People are those to whom corporations owe their existence in the first place), but which I know you categorically reject... (that difference between us, too, may in fact be another example highlighting your premise, I'm willing to concede).
At any rate, we may differ on certain of the more arguable points of law to w...
What we have now, though it accomplishes some very good things for patients and low-income Americans, is far worse: The SCOTUS has upheld as constitutional the principle that Congress can simply tax the citizens of the several states for not doing whatever it is they might wish us to do. This method of social engineering/behavior modification via the IRS will absolutely be used by future congresses, by both parties; of this there is no doubt. This law/ruling also has set a precedent in that it has allowed Congress to constrain business in ways I'm probably okay with (because I believe The People are those to whom corporations owe their existence in the first place), but which I know you categorically reject... (that difference between us, too, may in fact be another example highlighting your premise, I'm willing to concede).
At any rate, we may differ on certain of the more arguable points of law to which some of what I said above pertains, but what you're putting forward here is spot on. I'd only add that it's easier to look forward into the future and consider what such newly-granted powers can do to what we consider our own harm, when we do not pay too much fealty to either party to begin with.
I wish people would look into the Non-Aggression Principle, as it's the most ethical and beneficial way for everyone to live with eachother. But every time I bring it up, people call me a starry-eyed idealist.
Hence the mess we're in.
Nice discussion, Bantam.
I'm starting to think you're right, and that most people just aren't ready for freedom, for themselves or anyone else. I think it even scared some people.
If you mean those here who COULD serve and don't, then I'm with you.
The real American heroes are people like Bradley Manning, who has been undergoing imprisonment and torture for over a year without a trial because he dared to release a video showing American soldiers laughing as they killed a bunch of unarmed men, including two Iraqi journalists, and wounded two Iraqi children from a helicopter. Watch the "brave" American soldiers gunning down a group of unarmed Iraqi men strolling down the street and then blowing up the van carrying men and children, who were only trying to help the dying journalist. http://www.youtube.com/watch?...
What's even more sad than the present state of Point & Blame Politics is that nobody even seems to care about acknowledging and remedying it. You're the only one who has even bothered to comment on this post so far. I guess everyone else is too wrapped up in calling eachother "libtard" and "conservaturd" to focus on anything other than their petty spats.