Today on a friend's blog, I saw this link. It leads to an article about a new bill that passed the House and is now before the Senate.
http://www.newstarget.com/022308.html
It states that a bill called the "Violent Radicalisation and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act," passed the House on a 405 to 6 vote. According to this article, the bill will allow the government to arrest anyone who speaks out against the Bush Administration or the War on Iraq.
A quote here from the bill which you will see in the article:
"‘...ideologically based violence’ means the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs..."
The bill apparently states that you can be arrested for using, planning, or threatening force or violence to promote beliefs.
Here is the actual text of the bill:
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h1955_rfs.xml
My thoughts: I'm not very knowledgeable on politics or policies/laws, but I understand and agree with the writer of the article that definitions can be twisted, and I can definitely see the definition of "force" being twisted to serve whatever purposes. It also bothers me that this bill has not widely received media attention.
Your thoughts? Does this look like Big Brother and the end of Free speech in America? Are the people protesting this Act being rational or dramatic??
Man, I must have missed something, somewhere, because there is no way that that is Constitutional.
Zieg Heil Mein Fuhrer Bush. Zieg Heil.
Res ipsa loquitur.
memento mori, mahalo.
"Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real-estate above principles."
http://www.progressiveu.org/090204-dont-miss-this-chance
my question is, why are the media so silent? It can't be benefiting them since they are so against the war in iraq. Wow. Now, there is no difference between us and every other communist country. Slowly but surely we are getting there.
What other purposes?! My question is, how could it get passed so easily without it getting national attention? How many people know about this?!
DISCLAIMER: I am not being rude. I'm stating my opinion. No personal attacks are meant. Please give some leniency on how you take my words. imagine me saying them with a smile. ^__^
“The term ‘homegrown terrorism’ means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.
*Waits for SWAT to knock at my door for New Revolution post.*
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
http://www.progressiveu.org/090204-dont-miss-this-chance
does violence include strikes, boycotts and rallies?!! IT sounds like it to me. Wow. Basically its saying not to coerce in any way against the war. People will be monitoring this, and its especially easy now that the phones are tapped. But who is monitoring the monitors to make sure they don't bend these laws for their own power, or according to their own definitions? Wow. How did you find out about this?
DISCLAIMER: I am not being rude. I'm stating my opinion. No personal attacks are meant. Please give some leniency on how you take my words. imagine me saying them with a smile. ^__^
If you're asking me about that, it's in the transcript the original poster linked. If you're asking him, I'd like to know, too.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
To prevent homegrown terrorism, and for other purposes.
That scares me.
So much for the second amendment, I guess.
--Mike
Check out the Topic of the Week
http://www.progressiveu.org/weeklytopic
And the First.
http://www.progressiveu.org/090204-dont-miss-this-chance
You know what this means. ProgressiveU will be censored. Everything you say can and will be used against you.
DISCLAIMER: I am not being rude. I'm stating my opinion. No personal attacks are meant. Please give some leniency on how you take my words. imagine me saying them with a smile. ^__^
You wanna know what threatened use of violence is? Check out the guy would held the Clinton campaign office hostage. If terrorism isn't already defined as the "threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs" then i need somebody to tell me what terrorism is.
-"I am not where i ought to be, i am not where i want to be, but i am thankful that i am not where i used to be".
The problem with this bill is that it's worded in such a way to be insanely easy to twist to the point that even our Constitution-given right to overthrow the government if needed can be considered high treason (even more so than it is already). It's also insanely easy to twist so that even the suggestion of a revolution is a crime.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I know, that's how democrats like to word their bills. That's how they worded the SB7777 of California. That's how they worded the Child Health bill, it's nothing new. But i never knew we had the "Constitution-given right to overthrow the government". That's new to me, but i don't know everything in the constitution so i may be wrong.
-"I am not where i ought to be, i am not where i want to be, but i am thankful that i am not where i used to be".
It is a quote from the Declaration that usually implies citezens can overthrow gov't.
"But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security."
At least thats all I can think of.
Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted
Okay, so I get the Declaration and the Constitution mixed up once in a while about which one exactly says what. Technically, it's the Declaration that allows for the overthrow of the government, but the Constitution reinforces it with things like the Second Amendment and the Bill of Rights in general, since the right to overthrow the government means nothing without the ability to do so. Even so, the Founding Fathers saw to it that we would have the right and the ability to do so if needed.
-- quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
That's the point of the second amendment.
Note how the right of the citizens to bear arms and a well regulated militia are in the same sentence.
--Mike
Check out the Topic of the Week
http://www.progressiveu.org/weeklytopic
http://www.progressiveu.org/090204-dont-miss-this-chance
exactly. This is a deeper issue than that. If anything, its not to clarify terrorism. Its for OTHER purposes. How could the house pass this law without first identifying the other purposes they were voting for or at least asking what those other purposes are? I am scared.
DISCLAIMER: I am not being rude. I'm stating my opinion. No personal attacks are meant. Please give some leniency on how you take my words. imagine me saying them with a smile. ^__^
Another poorly reported fact is that only ONE Senator voted against the Patriot Act. Which also leads down the road of eliminating what America stands for to protect America.
We only have one political party, and the Democrat half of it is in the majority as this bill passes. Because of the fiction that they use in elections they are portrayed as pro-Civil rights.
I suppose this will end up being blamed on Bush.
What a joke.
Stop panicking... This is just a bill to create a committee that has been commissioned to study and understand the causes of homegrown terrorism. It IS a topic that needs to be addressed. They are not talking about taking away our right to sit-ins, non-violent protests, and other reasonable measures. They are simply trying to come up with ideas on how to keep people from VIOLENT crime as a means of demonstration and getting attention. This is perfectly reasonable because the guilty party--domestic terrorists--are actually taking away the rights of others (particularly life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness). Bloggers are safe--violently prone insurrectionists are not.
I think this is perfectly reasonable. Read the bill. They are not putting anyone behind bars. The purpose of the bill is simply to provide further information on an important issue.
Text of bill here: http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc110/h1955_rfs.xml
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"Smart" is definitely a relative term. I know a great many intelligent people who do a great many unintelligent things.
First off, their definition of "Violent Radicalisation" is completely backwards:
They've determined that adopting an extremist belief (whatever that might mean) is the problem, not the violence. As well, they never clearly define what 'violence' means.
Not only that, but they further define violence and terrorism not just as actions or threats, but plans. Apparently, if you plan to be violent, you are violent. That's what George Orwell called "crimethink".
So, yes. We bloggers are in danger. Especially me as a hardcore anarcho-capitalist.
--Mike
Check out the Topic of the Week
http://www.progressiveu.org/weeklytopic
They aren't taking anything away from anybody... It is a social science study, funded by the government.
Y'all, the media isn't panicking about it like you guys because they can understand the different between action legislation and what-should-be-our-action-query legislation. Spend less time flipping out and more time understanding the subject.
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"Smart" is definitely a relative term. I know a great many intelligent people who do a great many unintelligent things.
Yes, I agree that this legislation percipitates no action. However, it does set a very frightening precedent (especially for my SDS friends) for how future legislation will define terrorism, ideologically based violence, etc.
It's scary as shit.
--Mike
Check out the Topic of the Week
http://www.progressiveu.org/weeklytopic
The bill sure sounds scary but if you read the bill you'll see that the only thing that it proposes is the assembly of a bipartisan committee whose responsibility is to investigate the "homegrown terrorism" issue and produce a report containing legislative recommendations. It is important to note that this bill contains no changes to current laws whatsoever, and any recommendation made by the committee could not be adopted into the governmental law s without it going through the typical ratification process.
The reason that the media isn't giving this bill attention is because it's really not that interesting, it's just calling for a committee to perform an investigation. What will be interesting is what the committee recommends to do about its findings. Though, if they propose any extreme laws that propose to curb our freedoms, I guarantee it'll be all over the news. There may be a lot of scum bags in Washington, but there's also a lot of good people watching our back.
~David.
http://www.cse.ucsd.edu/~datorres/
The scary part doesn't lie in the actions that this bill proposes, but rather in the definitions which it presents in the first sections. It essentially treats any kind of ideological dissent coupled with violent intent (whatever that means) as terrorism.
--Mike
Check out the Topic of the Week
http://www.progressiveu.org/weeklytopic
Time for my political views to go underground if this gets enforced heavily.
Hi I saw a video on you tube about this and the guy was saying that the reason not many people new about it was because they enforced the law in the same week as the california wildfire which got extensive media coverage. It sounds very suspicious to me. I tthink everyone needs to be more aware of what world governments have planned for there citezens.
Anyway here's the link if anybody wants to see the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxEiOrqNHHs