Rant: ?They hate us for our freedom!?

[Buff]

“America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon of freedom and opportunity in the world…” (1:20 in the following video)

https://youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=YMiqEUBux3o


So what was America’s response? America acquiesced to the terrorists out of cowardice. Since the terrorists hate America because America was so free, Americans decided to get rid of their freedoms in an effort to appease the terrorists. Here’s what the NYCLU has to say:

RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS WE HAVE NEEDLESSLY LOST IN THE NAME OF NATIONAL SECURITY

Through the enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act and subsequent executive directives and regulations, essential rights and freedoms that were once guaranteed to all individuals have been substantially degraded. Many Americans still do not realize the significance of what we have lost. The resulting expansion of government powers, and the erosion of 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, 8th and 14th Amendment rights and freedoms have transformed the United States.

1st AMENDMENT FREEDOM OF SPEECH

• The Patriot Act broadly expands the official definition of terrorism, so that many domestic groups that engage in nonviolent civil disobedience could very well find themselves labeled as terrorists.

• The Government may now prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they reveal that the government requested information on their clients or members in the course of an investigation. It has become a crime for these individuals to try to safeguard your privacy or to tell you that you are under investigation.

1st AMENDMENT FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION

• Government agents may now monitor the First Amendmentprotected activities of religious and political institutions, and then infiltrate these groups with no suspicion of criminal activity. This is a return to domestic spying on law-abiding religious and political groups.

• You may now be the subject of a government investigation simply because of the political, activist, or advocacy groups you are involved in, or the statements you make within these groups.

1st AMENDMENT RIGHT TO ACCESS GOVERNMENT INFORMATION

• A U.S. Department of Justice directive actively encourages federal, state, and local officials to resist and/or limit access to government records through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

• The Government has conducted immigration hearings in secret behind closed doors. Such proceedings were once open to the public. Hundreds, if not thousands, of immigrants have already been deported in secret.

4th AMENDMENT FREEDOM FROM UNREASONABLE SEARCHES & SEIZURES

• Law Enforcement authorities may now conduct secret searches and wiretaps in your home or office without showing “probable cause.” They need only to claim that intelligence gathering is “a significant purpose” of their intrusion, even when the primary goal is ordinary law enforcement. They may also monitor where and to whom you send and receive e-mail, or where you go on the Internet, recording every e-mail address and website you have been in contact with.

• Law Enforcement may now demand any personal records held by any source including your doctor,
employer, accountant, or library. All they have to do is claim that it is related to an investigation into “terrorism.” The record keepers may not reveal that your records were provided to the government.

• Judicial oversight of secret searches has been effectively minimized. The Patriot Act directs judges to consent to secret searches based only on the Government’s assertion that a “significant” purpose of an investigation is gathering information related to “terrorism,” as the government defines it.

5th AMENDMENT RIGHT TO DUE PROCESS & FREEDOM FROM BEING HELD WITHOUT CHARGE

• Americans can now be jailed without a formal charge & without the right to confront the witnesses or evidence against them. American citizens are now being held in military jails without charge and without a clear path of appeal for their indefinite confinement.

• Hundreds of Arab, Muslim and South Asian men were rounded up in the Ashcroft raids following September 11, and held for weeks without charges until all were cleared of terrorism charges.

6th AMENDMENT RIGHT TO LEGAL REPRESENTATION

• Hundreds of U.S. residents have been detained for months at a time, and denied access to the advice and advocacy of an attorney. The Government may now monitor conversations between attorneys & clients in federal jails.

• The Bush Administration filed papers in court that arguing that an American citizen held in a military jail without charge should be denied access to legal counsel because such access would interfere with the process of his interrogation.

6th AMENDMENT RIGHT TO A SPEEDY AND PUBLIC TRIAL

• The U.S. Government may now jail its residents and citizens indefinitely without charge & without a public trial.

8th AMENDMENT FREEDOM FROM CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENTS

• The U.S. Government has taken into custody individuals they identify as “material witnesses,” transported them across the country, and held them for months in solitary confinement without charge or contact with their family.

• According to the Justice Department’s own Inspector General, immigrant men rounded up in the Ashcroft raids following September 11 and held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, NY were subjected to a pattern of “physical and verbal abuse.”

14th AMENDMENT RIGHT TO EQUAL PROTECTION

• Over 82,000 men from Arab, Muslim and South Asian countries registered with the Government under the Special Registration program. Over 13,000 are now in deportation proceedings. None have been charged with terrorism.

"We've just been attacked -- quick, everybody cuff yourselves!"

This is a somewhat dated version, too. It’s much worse now, e.g. the security theater and sexual assaults perpetrated by the TSA, or the executive branch’s appropriation of the power to assassinate American citizens without trial, and so on. You’d have to have a population with an average IQ of about 98 for them to fall for a line like “America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon of freedom and opportunity in the world….”

Oh, shit!

Well that explains it.

[lucas131]

please do you have something longer and more boring than this?

[u-Bob]

[ottopottomouse]

Originally Posted by lucas131

please do you have something longer and more boring than this?

[DWB]

If ya don't like it, leave. You won't regret it.

[asdasd]

What he said

[cherrylula]

Are you trying to tell us you are at the bottom of a list? Congrats. lol

[Buff]

Originally Posted by DWB

If ya don't like it, leave. You won't regret it.

I did leave 4 years ago.

[Buff]

Originally Posted by cherrylula

Are you trying to tell us you are at the bottom of a list? Congrats. lol

The country I am in is listed at 102. Scroll up.

[MaDalton]

i see my IQ went down 3 points, must be hanging out here too much