EdwinJayMorgan said:
There are plenty of bonafide conservative groups that do believe that there is a war on freedom in this country... and it's not just the Bush Administration that benefits...
So which are bonafide conservative links? The Rutherford Institute Links
(ie. home page based on "The rich who rule us") or the ACLU or what?
Specifically how does Bush benefit from the Patriot act? Did you wonder why F-911 was shown in the theaters after all? And while 'Unfit for Command' was taken off the shelves Joe Wilson's book against Bush remains even after his actual testimony to congress proved his own book lied about the details?
What is the problem with actual specific examples to prove a point?
And plus it's extremely difficult for one to review so many links without you being specific about what points are relevent. You can't possibly expect anyone to go through and address them all.
I'll humour you and do a few samples, though.
Commentary on the Gulag underneath an Elevated Subway in the Cradle of Liberty
Within the last decade, especially in light of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 tragedy, the United States has begun looking more and more like a police state. The fact is that the American police force has been militarized.
Dressed like Darth Vader look-alikes, the police have opted for the SWAT-team dress formally adopted by the federal agencies. Indeed, photographs and television footage of the black storm trooper police currently guarding New York City in anticipation of the Republican National Convention illustrates how far we have come.
So a 'police state' is based on how the police dress now? How about when the national guard actually shot college students in the 60's? How have we gone downhill from there? Dressing in Vader looking costumes? Despite the fact that we're really dealing with terrorist attacks on our own soil, and radical anarchists who plan to intentionally disrupt security, alongside thousands of protestors, who, by the way, were welcomed by Bloomberg and offered discounts to many venues in NYC, what in particular is oppressive about preparing for what we cannot deny as very real and deadly security issues?
This is pretty severe propaganda. Especially when the color coded alerts get blamed for not informing authorities who are expected to react to threats, but instead seem to subdue Americans. What is supposed to strike fear in the masses of ignorant sheep is obviously as joke to many of those who claim that is the motive. What about fire alarms, are they oppressive as well?
You should realize that without any warnings and alerts, which is apparently the non-oppressive thing to do, the author would just as easily shift his tirade to claim that we are now being kept in the dark and intentionally left out of what an open society should expect from it's leaders. Which of course, is exactly the complaint from the same leftists following 9-11. Clearly the only right way to do this is the opposite from what Bush is doing.
He'll
always dig at YOUR base paranoia and fears. The immense contradiction about his claims of an oppressive government flies in the face of his same continuing tirade against it.
I believe you are trying to be well informed but you are certainly not being 'brave' in any sense of the word. Live in China, or especially North Korea, and post in this same manner, and then reap the whirlwind, buddy.
Then you'll understand what a totalitarian state is all about.
Shame on Kerry! This went on right outside the DNC and nobody said anything about it on national TV! Unfortunately, the Republicans are going to pull the same totalitarian garbage up in New York City...
Totalitarian states don't allow protests against them, period.
They also don't let the media film these protests, and neither would it be clear as we have heard time and again from our own media, that somehow they were chained and imprisoned for what is simply a restriction from actually going into the convention, disrupting the events there, screaming and yelling and basically going well beyond all reasonable guarantees by invading a private venue and usurping the rights of others to control their own affairs in that private venue.
And police states don't let private web administrators run a home page to complain about the government, with a fervour verging on insurrection. And people posting such things are tracked down and made to 'disappear' in any actual police state.
You wouldn't pretend to be so brave and speak out unless you knew that's not going to really get you in trouble with the government. It's kind of dishonest and self-righteous to me, how all the self-proclaimed freedom fighters are screaming about our police state while you are aware there are no real consequences. Any refugee from an honest to god, totatilitarian state, probably thinks of this ranting as a rather foolish and naive thing, considering you will go on your merry way afterwards without a care.
Trying to Enact Patriot Act II Bit by Bit in Secret
The chief reason Patriot Act II went down last year was because it was too much of a power grab at once. Now the administration is trying to sneak it through Congress, in pieces! We must be ever vigilant...
Vigilance is good of course. But unjustified paranoia is not healthy. And since you're trying to manipulate the actual details of this act it's disingenious to me.
It's reflective of your choice to be subject to manipulation, or your choice to try and subject us to it.
In fact, with minimal research beyond these extremist left groups you can quickly realize that nothing 'went down' and that nothing has been 'sneaked' by Congress.
No bill has yet to be introduced to Congress, who is the only authority for passing law in America, and which does so publically and with sole and final authority.
The overly embellished aspects of the 'leaked' document a while ago, doesn't resemble the public final draft, with is detailed partly here:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/03/06/findlaw.analysis.mariner.patriotII/
And while I myself am not a fan of the Patriot Act, nothing among this report is outrageous or unreasonable. And it simply remains a draft, not even particularly tied to Bush, but to certain parties in the Justice Department, all who are career beaurocrats charged with the overwhelming task of protecting both our lives and our freedoms.
And no matter when and if this advances into the House, requiring of course a House member to sponsor the bill, as free citizens we can be the judge of who among our representatives sponsor it and who oppose it.
Then you can vote accordingly, in due time, according to our representative democracy, to either support or vote against those same representatives, assuming the bill is vital to your own political interests. You will still be a single person with a single equal vote in the process. And if that proves insufficient, then tough luck!
Actually there is more to this, especially when the law is challenged by an actual case, and this lawmay or may not be struck as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, which can happen even after Congress passes it.
The original Patriot Act is still subject to it, in fact, but simply has yet to come up as relative to ones own case. Thereby addressing the complaints listed about the 4th admendment violations you had listed.
Seems like some people hate that process, so much in fact, that they'll go to any lengths to deny its legitimacy.
But the true nature of our representative democracy is one which has a legacy of proving time and again to remain the oldest and most stable democracy in the entire history of the world.
This is a reality this propaganda attempts to discredit out of an agenda, one which demands action against the government, action which it demands as 'legal' against the illegality of our constitutional process. And of course it's backwards. The legality of the process is intact, but the action implied is for illegal change, bypassing the process.
So in the most simple terms, we have a public and open appeal to stop the suppression of this public and open appeal. Which seems a little premature.
:shocked: 
(See comments on Section 501 in the above link)
