NeoTheranthrope
Basara's Blade Keeper


- Joined
- Nov 4, 2003
- Posts
- 3,676
After it's all said and done: Can love truly bloom on the Soccerfield?
A confederacy will be established within the US borders in, oh, let's give it fifteen years.
oh man 1984 was a good book. don't know if that's what op intended but it brought back some memories.
Father of the Constitution said:Of all the enemies of public liberty, war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies. From these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, debts and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the dominion of the few.... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
Son of the Atlas of Independence AKA John Jr. said:[America] is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.... [America’s] glory is not dominion, but liberty.
Of the four books that make of the "distopian trilogy": A Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, and 1984 + Animal Farm (where Animal Farm is the metaphorical prequel to 1984), Animal Farm is by far the most accessible, most instructive, and least turgid. 1984 is a good read and rather though-provoking, but to me, to be frank, the last third of the book is incredibly boring torture-porn.
The point is: The United States has been in a constant state of war for the last ten years, (or arguably since 1991 with the first and second gulf wars, or 1945 the start of the Cold War and the emergence of the U.S. as a superpower, or even 1941 with death of U.S. isolationism/non-Interventionism).
This constant "war footing" is incredibly corrosive to civil liberties, in that, to quote Göring: "the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." That was the whole POINT to the never-ending war between Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia: any sacrifice by the people is justified to win the (unwinnable) war (à la, our unwinnable wars on concepts: like terror or drug use).
Meanwhile, here in the real world, with the war in Iraq nearly over and Afghanistan winding down, a new "enemy" must be found, but unless Venezuela and/or Iran step up to the plate... to paraphrase Pogo: "We have met the enemy and he will be us." and thus the need to declare U.S. soil a "battlefield"
Of the four books that make of the "distopian trilogy": A Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, and 1984 + Animal Farm
Yeah, okay fine, then I think it's even more frightening that Adams (sr.) and Jefferson suspended habeas corpus FOREVER for the hundreds of slaves they owned themselves, not to mention the however many thousands of others over however many generations made and kept legal thanks to that great "Covenant with Death", the Constitution you always love quoting and mentioning.I still think it's frightening that Lincoln suspended habeas corpus.
Yeah, okay fine, then I think it's even more frightening that Adams (sr.) and Jefferson suspended habeas corpus FOREVER for the hundreds of slaves they owned themselves, not to mention the however many thousands of others over however many generations made and kept legal thanks to that great "Covenant with Death", the Constitution you always love quoting and mentioning.
whoops.John Adams didn't own slaves.
whoops.
Double Plus Good. Eastasia... though about the time I was six in 1984 I believe it was Eurasia, but people who kept saying that were taken away. I keep saying East Asia, but I'm told that I'm mistaken and we've always been at war with... I demand a proper Pastrami Sammich BEFORE yelling B.B. at the top of my lungs with everyone else in about an hour.
John Adams didn't own slaves.
Now you want to talk about a frightening law under the Adam's administration we can look at the so called "Alien and Sedition Acts."
But Sedition was a crime until something like 1919 IIRC (definitely until the 20th century) until the Court altered it's view on what the 1st Amendment actually protects.
I think you have me for Constitutional literalist. I'm not. That's absurd. None of the Revolutionary Generation were perfect, but they created a fantastic document, and believed in many just principles concerning freedom and rights that are reflected in the Constitution. Knowing that perhaps nothing can be set in stone the document they created to be the foundation of our state also has a means to alter itself, and each in time in history it has been amended it has been for the better. The founders aren't some deities I hold on high, they were men (mostly) with their own flaws, who produced a flawed document. But that document is a living document. It's not unchangeable text we worship.
The history of the United States is largely the history of our struggle to achieve that "more perfect Union." It is unfortunate that our struggles for freedom often have a paradoxical element to them where our stated values are frequently at odds with our actual actions...
Samuel Adams on the other hand, made money off of slavery.
and beer.
Oh, so they passed the bill LOLZ.
It's really gonna suck when all these pigs come back to the sty.
At least in America you have enough privately owned weapons to go around: gives you guys a fighting chance against these gun-toting hillbilly, Christian supremacist, child rapers the government will turn lose on y-- I mean the terrists.
Don't forget Blackwater has a new name...Xe pronounced "Zee."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xe_Services
The suit also alleges that Blackwater employees used three company aircraft to kidnap Iraqi citizens from Iraq and further accuses the company of engaging in weapons smuggling, money laundering, tax evasion, child prostitution, illegal drug use and destruction of evidence. The child prostitution charge refers to young Iraqi girls allegedly being brought to the Blackwater compound in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, identified in the lawsuit as the "Blackwater Man Camp," to provide oral sex to contractors for $1. If the court rules against Xe on the racketeering account, it could dissolve the company.
Xtian
Extremists
