There’s much discussion going on about President George W. Bush wiretapping individuals in the United States without going through the proper channels. Some are deploring the actions of the president spying on the public without getting the ok from the FISA secret court, and calling for an investigation into the president’s behavior and his apparent ignorance of the FISA law and the fourth amendment. Others who back the president, are all upset because someone leaked the president’s secret spying to the press.
If someone hadn't leak that the president was wiretapping without permission, it wouldn't be such a big deal, would it? So who tattled this time?? Sounds a bit childish to be pointing fingers about who tattled about sneaking into the cookie jar, when the cookie crumbs are all over your own hands? What would your Mom do about that? Punish little Sally for tattling, or little Georgie for sneaking into the cookie jar without Mom's ok and taking over 30 cookies?
Sadly, if little Georgie had known, Mom would have given him a cookie if he had asked. --Just like Jesus said, "Ask and it will be given unto you." Whoa, George did ask and the secret court said no (FISA court has granted over 4,000 requests in recent years to the administration and denying less than a dozen). Well, Mom isn't going to let you have a cookie if dinner is just about done. Likewise, the FISA court won't approve of wiretapping that isn't appropriately substantiated.
But Little Georgie and his friends continue to lament: It takes too long to file with the FISA court. Technology is too fast these days, and FISA court just isn't fast enough. Yes, when hunger does hit, it does take a bit longer to ask Mom to have a cookie, but she can be understanding if you are desperately hungry and you just got home from school and Mom's not home from work yet. As long as you tell her when she gets home, she'll most likely be understanding as long as you didn't eat all the cookies in the jar. (In warranted instances, the FISA allows for unauthorized surveillance to happen as long as a request is filed with the secret court in 72 hours.)
There may be other reasons why Mom didn't want you to eat those cookies in the jar without her permission. They may have been made with peanut butter, and you are terribly allergic to peanuts and you throw them up (or you use the ill-gotten surveillance in court and it is dismissed because that evidence was obtained illegally), or she was making those cookies for the ladies club meeting that night and doesn't want you to eat them (or you use surveillance for the unintended purpose to spy on political enemies and personal dissenters).
See what would happen if you didn't ask Mom for the peanut butter cookies first? Ok, so you'd lose respect from Mom and she might punish you, no big deal, right? Unless, instead of being just terribly allergic to peanuts, you unknowingly were deathly allergic to them.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
UnChecked UnBalanced Power? Or Road to Dictatorship
The Executive Branch in the United States Federal Government is really challenging the ideal of checks and balances between the branches of government. Now, George W. Bush wants to push the Patriot Act into permanent law.
I see a pattern coming along...
Geoffrey Stone, with Huffington Post, defends his position against Bush's unlimited spying with the fourth amendment. He will also write about the statutory issues in following articles.
Wait, isn't the president supposed to defend the constitution, not go against it?
Bernard Weiner, editor of the Crisis Papers, gave a list of his 12 political insights for 2005.
The Bush Administration has decided that they need to be able to use torture to fight the terrorists. Torture, even though we don't want anyone else to do it to us, we should be able to do it if we need to secure the United States, right?
We must continue the fight for freedom in Iraq; we must not pull our troups out; we must be victorious; a victory in Iraq is a victory against the terrorists. Common phrases for the defenders of the Iraq War. So, what are we really doing in Iraq, anyway? Isn't freedom something for the Iraqi people to win? Isn't victory something for the Iraqi people to accomplish?
As Commander-in-Chief, Bush is doing all this to protect the American people from terrorists. He must be able to defend national security. Even if it means that the role of a checked and balanced government must be overpowered? Did George W. Bush take the literal interpretation that the Executive Branch executes the law, just like Texas executes death-row inmates?
Or are all his actions in an effort to bring into realization a statement he made when first elected as president?
"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - just so long I'm the dictator." --George W. Bush, December 18, 2000
"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it."--George W. Bush in Newsweek magazine, July 30, 2001.
I see a pattern coming along...
Geoffrey Stone, with Huffington Post, defends his position against Bush's unlimited spying with the fourth amendment. He will also write about the statutory issues in following articles.
Wait, isn't the president supposed to defend the constitution, not go against it?
Bernard Weiner, editor of the Crisis Papers, gave a list of his 12 political insights for 2005.
The Bush Administration has decided that they need to be able to use torture to fight the terrorists. Torture, even though we don't want anyone else to do it to us, we should be able to do it if we need to secure the United States, right?
We must continue the fight for freedom in Iraq; we must not pull our troups out; we must be victorious; a victory in Iraq is a victory against the terrorists. Common phrases for the defenders of the Iraq War. So, what are we really doing in Iraq, anyway? Isn't freedom something for the Iraqi people to win? Isn't victory something for the Iraqi people to accomplish?
As Commander-in-Chief, Bush is doing all this to protect the American people from terrorists. He must be able to defend national security. Even if it means that the role of a checked and balanced government must be overpowered? Did George W. Bush take the literal interpretation that the Executive Branch executes the law, just like Texas executes death-row inmates?
Or are all his actions in an effort to bring into realization a statement he made when first elected as president?
"If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - just so long I'm the dictator." --George W. Bush, December 18, 2000
"A dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it."--George W. Bush in Newsweek magazine, July 30, 2001.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Military Support Fading...
Sometimes we get so devoted to something that it is difficult to see the wrong or the failures behind it. It is a lot like our childhood schools we grew up in. If you were fortunate enough to attend one school kindergarten through graduation, then you know exactly what school spirit and pride is all about.
I can tell you my school experience wasn't the most pleasant thing I endured. I went to the same public school from my kindergarten days to commencement exercises in the same buildings. I was bullied, called names by kids and teachers, put down, spit on and beat up. Some teachers thought I was stupid, while others could see my intelligence, and others probably just tolerated me. I was not the most popular, nor the cutest. But I wasn't the ugliest, nor least likely to get along with others. I cooperated just enough, and I got through it just enough. I wasn't the smartest, but not the dumbest, either.
Go Rams! Go Rebels! Those chants were shouted many times through school, at ball games, wrestling matches, and other sporting events. These are ways a school builds spirit and pride. It almost transcends the mindless torture from mind games and bullying that kids are routinely subjected to, and creates a loyalty beyond measure and beyond compare. My school is the best. Better than the rest. And we'd do anything to prove that.
Yes, my school was a great one. My class was a great one. We had a lot of smart kids, and even though I graduated with something like a 3.4 GPA, I was in the bottom 50% of my class. In the history of my school, we had two Rhodes scholars, countless successful business people, entrepreneurs, and average folk like me. One thing most of us had in common is our allegiance to our school.
In the last decade and a half since I attended my school, the school has merged with the rival school district and we've lost our high school, and gained a larger middle school attendance at the building where I went to school for thirteen years.
Then, suddenly two years ago, we started to lose our school building in my hometown. First it was a few bricks that started falling, then almost a quarter of the bricks from the front of the school building fell. It was a dismal spring day when I heard that they had to condemn my school. Well, they didn't condemn the establishment, just the building, but just the same.
That same building that brought together the worst in us, also brought together the best in us, as well. That same building that gave us Rhodes scholars, beauticians and dairy farmers was failing our spirit in what was one of the last reminders of our previous pride in our school.
The final blow hit when the deciding vote to keep or destroy our school was in the hands of one of our school's alumni. She voted to demolish its final existance. And demolish one of the final remnants of a small town's hope for survival.
It happens in many diminishing small towns in this country, but this one just hits closer to my own spirit. I should have seen the signs, though. In my mind, it started when the old theater was demolished after a fire, then Duff's Furniture closed and that beautiful 1800s corner brick building was demolished. Just before my senior year in high school, they tore down the old bank building on the corner. It was just shy of turning 100 years old, and it, too, was a building of such character.
Now, there are hardly any of the turn of the century brick buildings remaining on my hometown's main street that were there from my childhood. The history of a thriving 19th century community is gone, almost like a ghost town from the gold rush. What remains are some of the smaller buildings and some newer structures that look like glorified sheds, a far cry from the bold magestic three-story towers that practically saluted your entrance into the community.
As I read this article about military support fading for the president and the war in Iraq, thoughts of my declining school spirit came to mind. It is not too difficult to see that these military men rally behind anything that boosts their spirit and give them an opportunity to prove their pride, just as school kids would do anything to prove their pride in their school. Sometimes when you sees the bricks that used to hold the facade of our establishment start falling, at first you try to prop up that establishment. When the establishment continues to fall, sometimes you just have to face reality, and decide that we must let the bricks fall where they may and let go. Yes, let go. Because you don't want any of the bricks to destroy your spirit as well.
I can tell you my school experience wasn't the most pleasant thing I endured. I went to the same public school from my kindergarten days to commencement exercises in the same buildings. I was bullied, called names by kids and teachers, put down, spit on and beat up. Some teachers thought I was stupid, while others could see my intelligence, and others probably just tolerated me. I was not the most popular, nor the cutest. But I wasn't the ugliest, nor least likely to get along with others. I cooperated just enough, and I got through it just enough. I wasn't the smartest, but not the dumbest, either.
Go Rams! Go Rebels! Those chants were shouted many times through school, at ball games, wrestling matches, and other sporting events. These are ways a school builds spirit and pride. It almost transcends the mindless torture from mind games and bullying that kids are routinely subjected to, and creates a loyalty beyond measure and beyond compare. My school is the best. Better than the rest. And we'd do anything to prove that.
Yes, my school was a great one. My class was a great one. We had a lot of smart kids, and even though I graduated with something like a 3.4 GPA, I was in the bottom 50% of my class. In the history of my school, we had two Rhodes scholars, countless successful business people, entrepreneurs, and average folk like me. One thing most of us had in common is our allegiance to our school.
In the last decade and a half since I attended my school, the school has merged with the rival school district and we've lost our high school, and gained a larger middle school attendance at the building where I went to school for thirteen years.
Then, suddenly two years ago, we started to lose our school building in my hometown. First it was a few bricks that started falling, then almost a quarter of the bricks from the front of the school building fell. It was a dismal spring day when I heard that they had to condemn my school. Well, they didn't condemn the establishment, just the building, but just the same.
That same building that brought together the worst in us, also brought together the best in us, as well. That same building that gave us Rhodes scholars, beauticians and dairy farmers was failing our spirit in what was one of the last reminders of our previous pride in our school.
The final blow hit when the deciding vote to keep or destroy our school was in the hands of one of our school's alumni. She voted to demolish its final existance. And demolish one of the final remnants of a small town's hope for survival.
It happens in many diminishing small towns in this country, but this one just hits closer to my own spirit. I should have seen the signs, though. In my mind, it started when the old theater was demolished after a fire, then Duff's Furniture closed and that beautiful 1800s corner brick building was demolished. Just before my senior year in high school, they tore down the old bank building on the corner. It was just shy of turning 100 years old, and it, too, was a building of such character.
Now, there are hardly any of the turn of the century brick buildings remaining on my hometown's main street that were there from my childhood. The history of a thriving 19th century community is gone, almost like a ghost town from the gold rush. What remains are some of the smaller buildings and some newer structures that look like glorified sheds, a far cry from the bold magestic three-story towers that practically saluted your entrance into the community.
As I read this article about military support fading for the president and the war in Iraq, thoughts of my declining school spirit came to mind. It is not too difficult to see that these military men rally behind anything that boosts their spirit and give them an opportunity to prove their pride, just as school kids would do anything to prove their pride in their school. Sometimes when you sees the bricks that used to hold the facade of our establishment start falling, at first you try to prop up that establishment. When the establishment continues to fall, sometimes you just have to face reality, and decide that we must let the bricks fall where they may and let go. Yes, let go. Because you don't want any of the bricks to destroy your spirit as well.
Anarchy is Just a Gun Shot Away...
If you like being alive, then you might want to write your state congress representatives and let them know that you don't want something like this to pass in your state.
This example of the Make My Day law underlines the congressional importance of intelligent research before passing laws that protect only the criminals in our society. Herein lies the decay of our society as we know it.
This example of the Make My Day law underlines the congressional importance of intelligent research before passing laws that protect only the criminals in our society. Herein lies the decay of our society as we know it.
Portrait of Bush?
Roanoke, VA commentarian Tim Abbott analyzes "What Kind of Man is Bush?" in this recent article. I found this to be an interesting read, that targets some of the ideals that puts Bush at odds with the traditions of our country's finest leaders.
What kind of man do you think Bush is?
What kind of man do you think Bush is?
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