On Aug 19, 9:17Â am, "bigflet...@
gmail.com"
gmail.com>
wrote:> On Aug 20, 12:00Â am, Robert Cohen
msn.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>>> On Aug 19, 1:19Â am, Shrikeb...@
gmail.com wrote:
>
>>> On Aug 16, 6:19Â pm, "bigflet...@
gmail.com"
gmail.com>
>>> wrote:>
>>>> On Aug 17, 3:45Â am, Shrikeb...@
gmail.com wrote:
>
>>>>> On Aug 16, 12:16Â am, turtoni
fastmail.net> wrote:>
>>>>>> What do you love about America?
>
>>>>>> That is my question:
>
>>>>>> What do you love about America?
>
>>>>> One late Christmas night, I was stopped by a Sheriff's
>>>>> Deputy while driving home from a friend's place. Â After
>>>>> the usual checking of license and registration, he
>>>>> pretended to be convinced I possessed marijuana. Â I
>>>>> did have the long-haired maggot-infested dope-smoking
>>>>> FM-type look Oxycontin Rush used to talk about. Â Anyway,
>>>>> I told him I didn't possess any such thing. Â He asked , "so
>>>>> can I search your car? Â If you don't have anything to hide..."
>>>>> I told him, "I don't have anything to hide, but this is America,
>>>>> and I don't have anything to prove either."
>
>>>>> That's what I love about America: not having anything to
>>>>> prove to a cop.
>
>>>> Cop? Whats a cop. We have 'elders of the tribe' and they are all
>>>> incredibly wise, but heaven help you if you try to steal their
>>>> 'stash' :-).
>
>>>> In Quantanimo it works well. No need to prove anything...
>
>>>> BOfL
>
>>> Sucks to be a foreign "illegal combatant," eh?
>
>>> But those guys are really PoWs, in spite of what
>>> the Administration says. Â As such, all they should
>>> have to give is name, rank and serial number... just
>>> like the Geneva Convention says. Â At least it ain't
>>> the good old days of WWII, when they threw civilian
>>> American citizens in interment camps.- Hide quoted text -
>
>>> - Show quoted text -
>
>> re: pow treatment under the geneva conventions
>
>> the prisoners & prisons of al qaedae  are (surely) not being inspected
>> by the red cross
>
>> because this is not a "traditional war" & "traditional enemy," the
>> admirable civilized norms of the geneva conventions (imho) should not
>> legalistically apply,
>
>> the usa is trying to adapt to the explicit enemy threats, tactics,
>> and the implied perceived menace
>
>> plus the enemy seems to be sometimes winning in afghanistan & iraq
>> because the enemy's "low standards" by way of killing innocents and/or
>> non-combattents is seemingly the enemy'strademark un-Geneva means of
>> operation
>
>> "war morality" should be a two way street, otherwise it's an
>> idealistic, admirable though crazy-absurd concept
>
>> i do acknowledge gitmo et cetera are ad hoc, and are very imperfect
>> adaptations- Hide quoted text -
>
>> - Show quoted text -
>
> It certainly appears to reinforce the 'conspiracy theory' of
> diminishing freedoms. People are people, and we all know where the
> real war is happening. On our streets (and boardrooms) with the drug
> "combatants".
While that sort of thing has always been going
on, it is not systematized. That is the way
democracy works, one step backwards, two
steps to the left, one step forwards. Evolution
doesn't head in any single direction for long.
To be sure, though, the Patriot Act pales in
comparison to the gradual erosion of the
Fourth Amendment over the last few decades.
Hell, before the Sixties, America did not even
have no-knock warrants (that's when the cops
kick in your door unannounced, just like an
excitin' Hollywood home invasion movie about
the gestapo). The reason that changed:
so drugs couldn't be flushed down the toilet.
> First identify the enemy, then restrict their movements. Of course
> many of the individualls 'behind' such conspiricies see anyone who
> doesnt loyally follow "one god under the flag"as the cause of all the
> evil. I would be less inclined to believe such theories if religion
> didnt have such influence on American politics.
Religion is a force, just as any set of beliefs shared
by the many is a force. There are those who push
for movement in one direction, and those who push
back, even among the elite. Unfortunately, in our
current condition, America the Incarcerated has
the highest per capita prison population in the world,
many of those inmates being there for the vile
threatening crime of gardening the wrong sort of
plant.
