Did you all catch what Karen Kwiatkowski said about this NSA spying issue?

[WilliamPitt]

Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, widely known for her revelations about the inner workings of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans and its manipulation of Iraq war evidence, spent two years working at the National Security Agency. On Sunday, I asked her what the ramifications are of a President throwing aside the firewalls that have blocked governmental surveillance of citizens for the last twenty five years.

"It means we are in deep trouble," said Kwiatkowski, "deeper than most Americans really are willing to think about. The safeguards of mid-1970s were put in place by a mobilized Democratic congress in response to President Richard Nixon's perceived and actual contempt for rule of law, and the other branches of government. At that time, the idea of a sacred constitution balancing executive power with the legislative power worked to give the Congress both backbone and direction."

"Today," continued Kwiatkowski, "we have a President and administration that has out-Nixoned Nixon in every negative way, with none of the Nixon administration's redeeming attention to detail in domestic and foreign policy. It may indeed mean that the constitution has flat-lined and civil liberties will be only for those who can buy and own a legislator or a political party. We will all need to learn how to spell 'corporate state,' which for Mussolini was his favorable definition of fascism."

I asked Lt. Colonel Kwiatkowski what it all means in the end. "I believe this use of national technical means (NSA communications interceptions) against American citizens is illegal," replied Kwiatkowski, "and I hope the courts will reverse the President. This illegality and misuse of executive power matches that of both the White House Iraq Group and the Office of Special Plans, where the truth and the law were both manipulated in a myriad of ways in order to satisfy an executive desire for domination and destruction of a Ba'athist Iraq. In all of these cases, American citizens were objectified as means to an end, rather than individuals with Creator-granted unalienable rights, safe from excessive government interference and control."

"It all points to growing DC anti-constitutionalism," continued Kwiatkowski, "and what Dr. Robert Higgs calls the growth of the warfare state. A warfare state is wholly incompatible with a constitutional Republic. In my opinion, we need to fight, resist, refuse to subsidize Washington in every way, and we must immediately begin impeachment proceedings against this particular president, not only because he has clearly earned impeachment, but in order to revive a national awareness of the intent of the Founding Fathers to circumscribe centralized state power, and their vision of a free and peaceful Republic."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121905Z.shtml

[electron_blue]

1. wow, no I didn't. Thanks for posting it.

[Horse with no Name]

2. My fear is that we won't get an impeachment

:(

[FreedomAngel82]

7. I think that's why

it's up to us to put pressure on our democratic senators/house people and also the republicans too who are like Bob Barr.

[ptolle]

8. not just that

Not just not getting an impeachment or even proceedings, but not getting any serious pushback on legal/moral/philosophical grounds. If the other branches judicial and legislative roll over on this and just cave to the chimperor imperium I'm going to declare war on our government.Suppose this comment will get me on a watch list?

[Trevelyan]

92. Please sign Rep. Conyers' Letter to Begin Impeachment Investigation

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/12/20/113636/15
The Constitution in Crisis: Censure and Investigate Possible Impeachment
by Congressman John Conyers Tue Dec 20, 2005 at 09:36:36 AM PDT
== http://www.johnconyers.com/ - Conyer's Action Items

Join me, below, in the sending: Letter Advising President of Censure and Steps to Begin Special Committee Investigation...

==Thanks everyone for your support and comments today. It's been a big day as you can imagine... My Downing Street petition in May of this year generated over 580,000 signatures, and while the mainstream media did not give the story the full coverage it deserved, we did succeed in raising the profile of the administration's dishonesty and misconduct.

Every movement has a starting point. I believe this next effort to bring the administration to justice will have an even bigger impact and will lead to change. But I need help from all of you. I need a huge number of people to join me in our message of censure to the President. A big response will force greater news coverage of my legislation to censure the President and Vice President and to create a Special Committee to investigate the White House. The Downing Street petition had a huge number of signatories, but the mainstream media had not yet begun asking the difficult questions of the President.

We are at a different place as a nation now. Our message has a much wider audience and, with a big response to the censure initiative, we can have a greater impact than before. Already we have four Members of Congress who have joined me in this effort, Zoe Lofgren, Maxine Waters, Lynn Woolsey and Charlie Rangel and I expect plenty more to join me in the coming weeks ahead. Join me in this declaration that we will no longer accept an imperial presidency. Add your name and encourage as many of your friends and family to join as well. With your help and commitment we can succeed in finally bringing the Bush White House to justice.

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. We might get a revolution instead

[rd_kent]

31. I think one is starting to take shape already.

[PDJane]

3. Yes

I did. I try to keep up on Ms. Kwiatkowski's columns because she always has something sane to say.....and sometimes that's rare.

She is, as usual, right.

[Elwood P Dowd]

4. Correction - She's a retired lieutenant colonel

not a retired lieutenant.

[WilliamPitt]

11. Thanks

Can't believe I missed that. Fix coming.

[Elwood P Dowd]

14. You're welcome

Good article.

[FreedomAngel82]

5. Someone on the Thom Hartmann

show just asked if Bush spied on Congress or Senate people. Maybe that's why he did it illegally. Because it wasn't for terrorism but for political purposes.

[AuntiBush]

47. Wasn't the numbers more in the 10k area?

That's way more then just Congressional members.

A super-disgrace and you know it's bad when he blatantly admits it, and seems very proud of it as well.

Jefferson & Franklin are so sick of rolling over in their graves. So am I in my bed nightly, all because I'm exercising my 1st Amendment.

[JDPriestly]

67. Bush as a person is rather dim,

so it is possible that he authorized this program, but didn't think about who it would be used against in actual fact. I don't believe that you could find 10,000 people in the U.S. with even extremely distant contacts with Al Qaeda. You could not even find 5,000. In fact, the number of Americans with ties of any kind to Al Qaeda or international terrorism has to be very small. Only a dim wit like Bush could be persuaded otherwise. (The number of terrorists in the right wing is probably much larger.) So who's left to spy on? Dissidents like us. Bush is so protected and shielded from us that he thinks we are dangerous. He is really dim.

[ClintonTyree]

6. We just don't get it I guess..........

it's important for Democratic Presidents to have a set of balances in place to keep them from turning into dictators. Those same balances DO NOT apply to Republican Presidents. THEY decide which laws they'll follow and which ones they won't. It's for our own good, of course :eyes: Bush CAN act like a dictator, it's all legal and moral according to the Republican interpretation of the law. Of course their interpretation ONLY applies to them, not Democrats.
We Democrats just have to get used to this double standard, that's the only REAL impediment here. We have to accept it and get over it.
See, isn't that easy? :shrug:

:sarcasm:

[EFerrari]

10. What is it about lurking enemy Quakers

that you don't understand? :sarcasm:

[G_j]

12. "American citizens were objectified as means to an end"

and are..

boy, that really nails it!

[MadisonProgressive]

13. I never thought I'd do this - but I'm going out tonight to buy a gun

[mmonk]

17. Isn't hunting season

over yet?

[MadisonProgressive]

20. I think it's just beginning

[converted_democrat]

15. Thank you so much for posting..K&R....n/t

[LSK]

16. WilliamPitt, as always you are right on target

Once again another great read. I wish you could Op-ed in every newspaper in the country.

[underpants]

18. Will, you realize that this whole thing is the Federalist Society's

dreams being realized. I don't know if anyone is making that connection but I ran across footage of Cheney just 3 or so years ago saying that the Presidency gave up too much power after Watergate.

This is the Federalist Society plans coming to fruition.

[AuntiBush]

48. You Were Reading my Mind...

[orwell]

19. Oh Brother...

"Creator-granted unalienable rights..."

Sorry Karen. Lost me there. Other than that, keep up the good work.

[WilliamPitt]

21. You have a problem with her quoting the Declaration of Independence?

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Odd.

[orwell]

28. NO.

She can quote anything she wants. It doesn't mean I sign on to it. That is what liberty is all about.

Rights are not endowed by "our Creator." They are "endowed" by nothing more than societal agreement. Each society/culture is unique in its set of assumptions. Does that mean that "the Creator" is inconsistent? This strikes me as absurd.

The Declaration is not law. It is a political manifesto. The Constitution is law. There is no mention of "the Creator" in the Constitution. Was this an oversight?

The Constituion starts with "We the People..."

Coincidence?

[WilliamPitt]

30. Hee hee hee

Really working hard to pick a fight on this one, eh?

You're the very first DUer I've met who has beef over the Declaration. Weird day.

[orwell]

34. Whatever...

The Declaration is not law. It is a political document. It has nothing to do with the granting of rights.

I don't like fights. I am essentially a pacifist. But I also don't like the current fad of re-framing legal constructs in religious terms. "Caesar unto Caesar" and all that stuff.

Cheers.

[AuntiBush]

49. It's a Little Hard to *Re-frame* That Which Has Been Already Framed.

:) "that damn piece of paper..." Source: *
:sarcasm:

[bananas]

82. LOL - "the current fad of re-framing"

it was framed that way over 200 years ago!

[KoKo]

51. It's the FOUNDATION OF our CONSTITUTION...and our separation from

the British system under King George that was trying to "Occupy" and "Exploit" us.

Are you one of those folks who thinks it's time to rewrite the Constitution, too? Just because you disagree with the "Declaration" because of the mention of a "Creator?"

Sheesh......

[dusmcj]

53. social agreements are for morons, inherent rights are more important

Sorry, but if the rights enumerated as inherent, and the very concept of inherent right, is reduced to nothing more than a social agreement among humans, well... That's like proclaiming that we have an opinion; we all know what those are like, and the degree of significance we should attach to them when they are not backed by anything else. If all of reality can be defined by relativized negotiation among men and there is no truth except that we agree on, then civilization is over, and we may as well pack it in. Thankfully, this however is not how things are.

Take whatever philosophical, non-relativizing mechanism you want - until recently, it was God in the west. In various eastern cultural traditions, it was an ethical code without the requirement for an "intelligent designer" (i.e. a Daddy telling you what to do). "An it harm none, do what you will" has cropped up recurrently throughout history. Today we might establish an egalitarian standard for all living things and environments, that all have the right to exist unabused, unowned, and uncontrolled by any other entity. Because that is best for the balance of advantage for all things. Whatever the mechanism or philosophical agent you choose, if there are not standards that are NOT up for discussion, but simply ACCEPTED as truth, by the body politic, we should shut down shop, because there will always be some asshole, with an opinion, who will waste our time, just as the current President is, with wheedling about whether something he wants to do is bad or not. Take torture as an example - if it were accepted that the right to freedom from abusive treatment is an inherent right (I think life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are all affected in this example), then it would have been impossible for Abu Ghraib etc. to have occurred.

There are absolutes, and regardless of the philosophical mechanism you choose to validate them, they are needed, in order to avoid the dead state where life is reduced to an endless discussion group (and fistfight) between oneself and all the other assholes in the species, arguing about the definition of 'blue' and whether the sky is that color.

[bigtree]

63. right you are

'creator' can be whatever you want to envision. The point in the Declaration is the assertion of those rights which are inherent in our being, wherever we came from.

[rman]

72. If an opinion is shared by a majority,

then that opinion is "backed" up by the fact that a majority agrees with it.

In so far that human behavior and interactions should be regulated or not, there's no such thing as absolute truth; there only is opinion as to how it should be. If a majority agrees on certain opinions, well... that's democracy.

The definition of the color blue is a matter of agreement (majority opinion); it's not an absolute. The color of the sky is not a matter of human behavior and interactions (except for what the definition of blue is).

Moral absolutes are for authoritative individuals (such as the neocons and the reli-fundies), social agreements are for the rest of us.

[Raksha]

69. No! "Endowed by their Creator" is another way of saying these rights

are INHERENT, that they belong to the human being simply by virtue of him or her being human, and that they are NOT "granted by societal agreement." While it's true that they can be taken away by societal force, society does not and cannot have the "right" to do this, because it is taking away something it never "granted" in the first place.

"Endowed by their Creator" would have been the normal and expected way of expressing this idea in the 18th century, and I personally have no problem with the choice of words.

[orwell]

86. I Guess...

...the right for women to vote was not "inherent." Nor was the right for blacks to be a full human being. Or did God change what was "inherent" as the Constitution was amended?

This seems absurd.

What are the inherent rights of animals? Of a tree? Do they have rights? Does God endow rights only to humans? What if there are silicon creatures on another planet? Does God weigh in on their rights? Do some life forms have more rights than others? What about bacteria? Let us accept that all was created by God. Does that mean that everything God created has rights? If only humans have rights, what makes us so special? Do angels have rights?

Where does this rights "granularity" stop in God's eyes? And how do we know what God thinks? Maybe God is fattening us up so that he/she/it can consume us all in one fantastic gulp to sustain him/her/it another million years. A cataclysmic Ourbouros yet to come?

God's will can not be known. Not by you. Not by me. To assert such would constitute blasphemy. Therefore, we can not know what "rights" God grants us.

That seems a rather ambiguous source for human rights. And if ambiguous, necessarily arbitrary.

The proof is in the historical pudding. Rights have always changed in relation to who takes the political power. So functionally, human rights are by the agreement of the humans involved, sometimes through the quiet acquiescence to power, other times through the violent revolution of the oppressed, and sometimes through the difficult intellectual path of reason.

I know reason is out of fashion. But maybe we should try it once in awhile...for God's sake.

[StoryTeller]

22. She's referring to the Declaration of Independence.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

(I had to memorize the entire introduction to this in fifth grade. Some things just stick with you...)

[Media_Lies_Daily]

23. Sounds like you're one of those single-issue posters.

[orwell]

29. This assumes...

...facts not in evidence.

Cheers!

[Peace Patriot]

27. And, Orwell, dear (nice handle, that), you'll notice that Thomas Jefferson

VERY CAREFULLY used the phrase "THEIR Creator"--"endowed by THEIR Creator"--so as not to exclude anyone's idea of who their "Creator" is. He did not say "OUR Creator." He did not say "God." THEIR Creator. Could even be the Mother Goddess, or your parents, or your ancestors, or Allah, or the Great Spirit. Capital "C" would seem to point to the Deist belief in the common God of all religions (although they used capitals quite freely and randomly in those days). Many of the Founders were Deists (good and sick of the religious wars in Europe, I imagine--Catholics torturing Protestants, Protestants torturing Catholics). But I think "endowed by THEIR Creator" leaves ample room for everybody's beliefs.

Karen's dropping of the "their" and turning it around kind of takes the force out what Jefferson (in my opinion) was intending to do with that word.

----------------

"I have sworn upon the altar of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny imposed upon the mind of man." --Thomas Jefferson

(--inscribed inside the rotunda around his statue, at the Jefferson Memorial, in Washington DC)

[orwell]

32. A notable difference...

...but not one that affects my objection.

I believe that rights are not "endowed" by our, their, or anyone else's creator. Once again, we agree, through our moral, legal, ethical frameworks to the society we live in. This is foundational to all societal structures.

In religious terms, it would be blasphemous for us to assert what the will of God is.

Social laws are a creation of human beings and it is law that defines our rights.

Thanks for the post.

[dusmcj]

54. sorry but you fail to understand the crux of the Founders' argument

not to flog the question, but your second post highlights for me that you have what I think is a fundamental misapprehension of the Founders' identified basis for civil rights. The Founders say: all men are ... endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights. I.e. they are conferred by an entity separate from man and his deliberations, and no man can grant or deny them. They are inherent. Whether they are respected are a practical question, but it is impossible to say that any man does not have them, so we establish a government which respects this.

Absolutely, the Founders operated in the Christian context of 225 years ago, and also the historical context of the end of absolute monarchy and divine right, where the publics of the west were discovering that their monarchs bled red too and were not directly sanctioned by God. So for them particularly this notion was a new discovery. I don't know enough classical philosophy to quote chapter and verse, but from what I do know, this notion was not invented by the Founders out of whole cloth. Rather, this is the classic view of man as blessed child of creation, with rights which are inherent, absolute and innate. You can replace God with any absolute system you choose, be it "an it harm none...", compassionate buddhahood, any number of historically validated ethical codes, what have you. But with the notion of inherent and innate right, you remove the possibility of any of your fellow men ever having an opinion, a choice (and possibly acting on those) about whether you have: the right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and all that derive therefrom. If you don't like the introduction of a deity, replace him with your absolute reference frame of choice. If you choose to go the way of universal relativization, you remove the protection that the understanding of inherent right amongst the body politic gives each individual member thereof.

[WilliamPitt]

65. classical philosophy

One name: John Locke.

[orwell]

85. Christian Context?

Explain this:

"The Government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion."
Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli, 1797.

This was debated in the US Senate, ratified, and signed by President Adams. It is a clear expression of the founder's belief that the law of the United States, as enumerated in the Constitution, is not empowered by God. It is by your own observation that the founders created a society that broke from the divine right, that "We the People" empowered our own liberty through a social compact of laws. This is critical to who we are as a nation.

All rights, enforced by laws, are the construct of human beings as they are "enforced" by human beings. If you or I end up in court, we do not sit in front of God, but men and women. If we accept the notion that "man as blessed child of creation" we remove the power of our own destiny from our hands. It is a cop-out. It also flies in the face of the notion of free will.

"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Thomas Jefferson

What does this have to do with God? It places the responsibility of liberty on our shoulders, not on the abstract "God". And if liberty is our responsibility, our rights are born from this responsibility. We are the enforcers of liberty, as the King enforced his laws. What does God enforce?

Who is to determine the will of God? Certainly not you or I. That would be blasphemy. We can only agree on rights/laws in a social structure. We do this through the ballot and secondarily through the enactment of laws in a Democratic Republic by our elected representatives.

It is curious that the rights entitled of God, as so interpreted by landholding white men, saw blacks as "partial humans" and denied the right to vote to women.

What strange God this?

[dusmcj]

88. back off from your literalism and it'll be easier to understand

IMO we cannot avoid confronting the centrality of the phrase "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights". I personally am not interested in what the absolute mechanism is which guarantees those rights, what I am interested in is the notion that they are inherent, and cannot be granted or taken away by any fellow human. Denied, yes. Made to not exist, no.

We waste our time if we are atheists or strict separationists tripping over whether the Founders came from a Christian context or not: OF COURSE THEY DID, as did all Europeans of their time. Franklin was purportedly the furthest from orthodox Christianity of the time, with his Quaker notion of "powerful goodness", but they were all people for whom God and religion were a significant part of life, in a time when this was true for all their peers as well. All they said about religion was that government should have no part in its establishment or advocacy. They argue from the other, philosophical, vantage point however when they say that government in turn has no say in the existence of individual rights which are not conferred or conferrable by any human entity. The Founders' religiosity is on the one hand a given, and on the other does not detract from their secular architecture in the least. Note also that as products of their time, the new notion that all men are created equal had not yet spread, as you observe, to classes of creatures who were not considered 'men', including the propertyless, women, and slaves. So that we might conclude that they had not driven their philosophical formulation to its logical conclusion; nevertheless, this again does not detract from that which they did achieve.

In this time when we are no longer an allegedly homogenous assemblage of western Europeans professing one Christian creed or another, we need to consider how to bring the Founders' notion of inherency forward to the present day, and make it operative in the absence of a traditional omniscient deity. We can note that other major philosophical traditions do not rely centrally on a deity, but rather on an ethical code built by sages so devoted to seeking enlightenment that they are revered as sacred beings for their lifelong efforts (please let's not argue Buddhist minutiae or sect differences, gentle reader, I think this is a fair summary) - they are held in awe, but for their very human efforts, not for having become divine. So that if the need for a supernatural entity to whom we are to surrender our autonomy makes you squeamish, I offer you historically validated alternative philosophical structures which do not require what you might dismiss as hocus-pocus, but instead focus on the notion that man himself can approach perfection (and let's not be squeamish about that), or at the least succeed in efforts to improve the common weal. These traditions also posit the notions of inherent rights, and inherent rightness and wrongness; it may be situational and change from instance to instance (or it may not), but it has nothing to do with human opinions nor does it rely for its truth-state on an agreement between people: it simply is, and whether we agree or not matters not one iota. This is a fundamental underpinning of ethics, it would seem: that they do not rely on our opinion of them for their rightness.

If we dispose of absoluta and reduce all questions to a social negotiation where one outcome is ultimately as acceptable as the other, because all opinions must be considered equally valid, since the first priority is that all questions are decided by agreement between parties, then we consign ourselves to a relativist dimension where no "truth" is possible, because it can all be argued one way or another, depending on moon phase, day of the week, or more commonly, who has the biggest mouth. So that hence, we can in fact argue over whether the sky is blue. When, I might note, it is not up for discussion. Since blue is a signifier denoting certain frequencies of electromagnetic radiation (light), and it is provable via objective means not involving anyone's opinion that the light reaching our eyes from a clear sky is in fact of that frequency. When we reduce everything to a conversation among men about their opinions, we open the door for that very conservative mode that proclaims by its actions that de facto, whoever has the most material power will be found to be right. If you've ever sat in a business meeting where a gasbag who didn't know his ass from a hole in the wall was setting the tone and determining the outcome of the meeting for all involved, including persons far better equipped to set policy, you may have an instinctive understanding of what I mean here. It's the PNAC notion that the content of a policy platform is far less important than the vigor with which it's presented...

A nice summation might be:

Things either are, or are not, or we don't know.
Whether we know or not has no effect on whether they are or not.

We little humans have a dangerous flaw of wanting to think that we are important or not, and that particularly, what we think is significant beyond the confines of our brainpans. Every now and then, nature provides us with a tap on the shoulder, that feels like an earthquake to us, to remind us that we are not. But these seemingly need to come more frequently...

[orwell]

90. Thanks for Instructing Me

...to back off from my literalism. Earlier you consigned my statements to the moronic. I guess I'm making progress... ;)

They argue from the other, philosophical, vantage point however when they say that government in turn has no say in the existence of individual rights which are not conferred or conferrable by any human entity...Note also that as products of their time, the new notion that all men are created equal had not yet spread, as you observe, to classes of creatures who were not considered 'men', including the propertyless, women, and slaves.

These two statements are contradictory. If government has no say in the existence of individual rights than they can not confer them. As they were "conferred" at a later date, (the Amendments), government de facto does have a say in their "existence." The laws of physics can not be conferred. They exist in the absence of humans. The sound of a tree falling in the forest and all that...

"what I am interested in is the notion that they are inherent, and cannot be granted or taken away by any fellow human. Denied, yes. Made to not exist, no.

I notice there is no "God" in this statement. So we are far afield of my original post, concerning "endowment by God." But I will play.

What about this notion of inherence. Are rights inherent? Of course they aren't. Something inherent is intrinsic, unable to be separated. Rights and laws are not inherent. How do we know this? Because they change according to who is in control. They are separated, not constant. Do rights exist absent humanity? Of course they don't. Does physics? As far as we know, yes. Physics doesn't change. The laws of physics are constant no matter who is in control.

The Founders great achievement was the separation of their individual beliefs about God from the granting of rights in a legal framework. That is why the Constitution starts with "We the People." It is a broadside over the bow of the "divine right," not only of the Church but of the tyranny of the "God-empowered" King. They understood the historical moral relativism of religion and monarchy through the ages. They wisely separated the sacred from the profane. Does that mean they didn't form their moral underpinnings from one or another religious philosophies? No. I never said that. But it does seem that they recognized that rights and the power that enforced them were ultimately consented to, empowered by, and enforced by the governed through the rule of law.

God did not write the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or subsequent Amendments. We the People did. The rights were not inherent, they were enumerated and agreed upon through a long and contentious debate. And they changed over time.

This gets to the foundation of the debate which now threatens to send us back into the pre-Darwinian dark ages. Science uncovers provable truth, provable through experimentation. I take it from your writing that you are in favor of such methods. If we consign rights to God, philosophical inherence or anything other than our social contract, we have removed it from our mortal (and moral) changing purview. If truly inherent, rights can not change with the times, as human experience (experimentation) demands.

(BTW: Moral relativism becomes the straw man as does "truth". Everything is relative to the observer, that exists in time and space. E=MC2. The "Right" needs to get over it.)

If we accept that no right is inherent, but that it is fought for through reason, debate, social contract and enlightenment, we can remove the sense of entitlement and complacency that now pollutes the public commons. This government is taking away your "inherent rights" as we speak, whether or not you or I believe they are inherent. It is up to both you and I to fight for them, or lose them to the totalitarian royalists who have taken the castle, in the name, of course, of God. I suspect God will sit the whole thing out.

Humans are important, as is all of wondrous creation. What we think is important. Words are important. In many respects we create the physical reality around us, alter our own cellular structure minute by minute through our own beliefs/addictions. Just ask Einstein, or a modern molecular biologist.

And remember, Nature always bats last.

Thanks for the post.

Cheers!

[dusmcj]

91. rights weren't conferred, they were recognized as inviolable

by the founding documents. This is the fundamental issue. They were identified as preexisting, and the Founders wrote into the nation's structure that government could not abridge them. That is simply not the same as granting them, or conferring them. Expressing them as propositions, it's the difference between saying "if you are subject to US law then these rights which you already have will not be violated" versus "if you are subject to US law then you have these rights".

I think we've burnt this one down to coals pretty much. The "moron" comment was not directly aimed at you, BTW, although as you may have divined, I'm not big on the product of human fabrications, I think there's more value in reinforcing an understanding that existing reality is far larger than we fathom most of the time and that the work lies in understanding it better; the appropriate actions will flow once the understanding becomes appropriate enough. But whatever, it wasn't intended as an ad hominem.

As a last thought, consider that if the fundamental guaranteed civil rights are viewed as inherent, then it is quite true that the complacent will consider that they're theirs and sit on their butts as they are stolen. (Although I believe that our current crop of complacents doesn't think about much at all, is at best unconsciously aware that they have a right to free speech etc., some of the time, unless someone with material power tells them they don't. I.e., they're not thinking that they're safe, rather, they're not thinking at all, except about their subsistence needs - where's that tit I was sucking on.) However, among the noncomplacent, it provides an advantage that it is accepted ab initio that the rights are appropriately held by all people, and that any abrogation of them by government is automatically inappropriate. Rather than having to refight the same battles that the Founders took care of for us. So that in the battle for public opinion, which is coequal in importance with the battle of legislation etc. so long as we are not in a state of violent insurrection, we have an advantage which we do not have if we need to revisit the question of whether these rights are appropriate, and reargue it all over again. Build on prior art, don't continually reinvent the wheel. Further, some rights -don't- change over time. That is precisely what the Founders attempted to identify - what rights are immutable, inviolable, inherent, whatever - what rights are, precisely, inseparable from the human entity, and while they may be violated, can never be removed.

As a thought experiment, consider that we assert that humans have the right not to be killed deliberately by other humans, and further, that this right is an inherent right which our civil society recognizes and legislates according to. Now, someone is killed deliberately by another person. By your argument, they lost their right not to be killed, because de facto, they were killed. I.e. the possibility that a right will be abrogated affects in some way its appropriateness or viability. I would posit that no, the murder victim is not an example that the right not to be killed deliberately can be lost, rather they are an example that it can be abrogated. The law in the civil society that I mentioned will ensure that abrogation (not theft) of that right will be met with punishment.

The notion that the only rights are those which we can defend leaves us in the disastrous position where there is no civil society, where we are left to rely for our survival on our individual efforts alone, rather than on the very communal agreements you cite about how social life is to be structured. And yes, while there is generally an excessive sense of "entitlement" in our society, usually regarding how much we can consume, we need to consider that a civil society is useless if we cannot rely on its conventions being observed as the common state, and that any other condition will be commonly agreed to be an exception, to be terminated as soon as possible. You better believe that I feel "entitled" not to be surveilled, not to have my speech suppressed, to associate with whomever I choose, etc., as long as I act within a framework of laws shaped according to those principles. And that I will consider any exceptions to that as abnormal conditions which I am "entitled" not to have to deal with and which I will therefore respond to with extreme prejudice. It's called civilization, and it's a cumulative object. I don't feel like rediscovering fire, the flush toilet, or democracy; smart people sometime back already did that for me, and so long as I don't presume entitlement to things which are not in fact in existence or practical to expect, I can work from that advanced state to try to help advance the human condition yet a little further. If we expect the system to work, it's likelier that it will, than if we don't. Action follows that expectation to realize it.

[texpatriot2004]

24. Impeachment NOW.

"In my opinion, we need to fight, resist, refuse to subsidize Washington in every way, and we must immediately begin impeachment proceedings against this particular president, not only because he has clearly earned impeachment, but in order to revive a national awareness of the intent of the Founding Fathers to circumscribe centralized state power, and their vision of a free and peaceful Republic."
Karen Kwiatkowski, Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel

[derby378]

25. Many thanks, Will

This is of paramount importance to the preservation of our Republic.

Impeachment NOW.

[petgoat]

38. Not NOW. Next December. After a Dem sweep of the

House and the Senate, Nancy Pelosi will be next in line to be
President after Bush and Cheney are impeached. And The Honorable
John Conyers will chairman of the House Judiciary Committee!

Pelosi in '07!

While we're waiting, let's all support these guys:

http://www.worldcantwait.net/

[electropop]

43. Pelosi '07, Boxer/Conyers '08!

:applause:

[emald]

78. Not now?????

WTF? Give this monkey any more days and he will, WILL, use the nuclear option. He's backed into a corner; he's already paved the way for using nukes in Iran; he's shown absolutley no reason when using force.

NOT NOW????

[derby378]

81. Gotta hand it to emald - he's got a point

America has been politically and judicially raped by the Bush regime since 2001. It's time for Lady Liberty to fight back, grab her assailant by the balls, and kick him in the ass until he tastes boot leather in his mouth.

[petgoat]

87. Agitating for Impeachment is Fine, Talking is Fine

But we get only one shot and it would be fatal to go off half-cocked.

Could be by November the Repubs will be falling all over each other to
help impeach and salvage some credibility for the Repub party.

For now, let's all demand: Bush Step Down and Take Your Program With You!

March in January!

http://www.worldcantwait.org/

[Supersedeas]

26. out Nixoned-Nixon

[Peace Patriot]

33. It's going to be a difficult, and possibly long, hard battle to recover

our Republic, as designed by the Founders, and to make some improvements that will help safeguard future generations from fascist juntas. But we should take heart from what is happening throughout South America right now--an absolutely amazing democratic transformation--the election of leftists representing the great majority of the people, Latin America's poor (made poor by centuries of exploitation by our corporate predators, and violently suppressed by our chosen dictators), in at least four major states, Brazil, Venezuela, Argentina, and, yesterday, Bolivia!--because I think the key to it all has been ELECTION REFORM, accomplished by the people themselves, with help from nonprofit EU, OAS, and Carter Center election monitoring groups (who also help set up transparent election systems--Venezuela, for instance, has OPEN SOURCE CODE electronic voting, with paper trail).

Election reform.

It's pretty amazing what you can do, by way of good public policy, if you possess the right to vote.

It could be sooner rather than later, here, if we could use the Bushites' current disrepute and criminality to get Russ Holt's bill HR 550 through the House. It bans undisclosed software, among other things. It has 169 co-sponsors. (Sign the petition at: http://www.rushholt.com/petition.html )

[electropop]

44. Done!

BTW, it's "Rush" not "Russ."

[Pachamama]

35. I said the same exact words to my husband "We (the US & its citizens) are

in deeper trouble and danger than we realize".

Seeing that she said this too, just confirms my intuition and concerns for our nation's future...

I fear Bush and the Neo-cons more than terrorism...seriously....

[in_cog_ni_to]

36. we must immediately begin impeachment proceedings against this particular

president,


YES! Do it! JUST DO IT!

[wiggs]

37. Sometimes I think impeachment isn't enough. Not nearly. JAILTIME.

Aside from disgrace, impeachment merely means that they cannot continue immoral, dishonest, incompetent actions from the WH. It does not unring the bell.

For the irreparable damage done to our foreign relations, treasury, environment, economy, political system, and military, only jailtime seems like real accountability.

[PinkyisBlue]

66. Impeachment isn't enough.

You're so right. The only thing these thugs care about is money, so hit them where it hurts most---the pockets!! Make them pay back every penny they stole from the US treasury to line their pockets. Turn their own bankruptcy laws against them so that they have to pay up. Bush can work the rest of his life at McDonald's to pay for his crimes, and it will be the first time in his life he'll actually be working. Let him live on minimum wage. Let him have no health care coverage.

[reichstag911]

80. What?

You actually think McDonald's would hire him? They do have some standards, you know!

[MellowOne]

39. ** knows he's above the law

He has gotten away with so much, what's one more little thing like this? Manipulate and market a war, steal two elections, hey, no problem.

[bajamary]

40. thanks for the post

Thanks for posting this. Rep. Lewis has called for Bush's impeachment. What's happening with the rest of the Democrats?

[Nothing Without Hope]

41. K & R. She's retired, so she can speak. Let's hope for many more

truth-tellers to finally wake up the American public to the terrible situation we are in.

Bush has declared his dictatorship - that the Constitution means nothing, that he can do whatever he wants. He and his handlers believe that with everything controlled, including NorthCom with its ready plans for domestic martial law, nothing can stand against him.

We have to prove this wrong, or democracy will not only be dead, it will be unrevivifiable.

[wakemewhenitsover]

42. But can awareness be heightened before Alito is confirmed?

[The Backlash Cometh]

45. Boy, the only thing that would be better is finding out that the White

House LIHOP'd or MIHOP'd so that their 9/11 excuse vanishes in mid air.

[AuntiBush]

46. DC anti-constitutionalist...

... Says-it-all!!!! And how she believes this use of NSA against American citizens is illegal. At least now we know *somehow* we're the enemies. :puke:

Excellent William Pitt & thanks for posting this most significant viewpoint from Karen Kwiatkoski. :thumbsup:

Having an Orwellian moment, again. Shew.

[lyonn]

50. Paragraph that certainly got my attention:

"Why would the President deliberately circumvent a court that was already wholly inclined to grant him domestic surveillance warrants?" asked columnist David Sirota in a recent essay. "The answer is obvious, though as yet largely unstated in the mainstream media:

because the President was likely ordering surveillance operations that were so outrageous, so unrelated to the War on Terror, and, to put it in Constitutional terms, so 'unreasonable' that even a FISA court would not have granted them. This is no conspiracy theory - all the signs point right to this conclusion. In fact, it would be a conspiracy theory to say otherwise, because it would be ignoring the cold, hard facts that we already know."

Thanks Will for info.

[Cha]

52. That's beautiful, man..

Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski says it so eloquently..

"we have a President and administration that has out-Nixoned Nixon in every negative way, with none of the Nixon administration's redeeming attention to detail in domestic and foreign policy. It may indeed mean that the constitution has flat-lined and civil liberties will be only for those who can buy and own a legislator or a political party. We will all need to learn how to spell 'corporate state,' which for Mussolini was his favorable definition of fascism."

[1776Forever]

55. Thank God for people like this who tell it like it really is!!!

I was listening to CSPAN on Saturday morning and could not believe what most of the Repub's who called in were saying - "I believe he did the right thing." They are so brain washed with the "terrorist" message that they can't think past their noses! Get the terrorist and make sure you do it right but don't put a terrorist government in its place! We are going to be in for some rocky days ahead. It has to be the majority of the people to speak out against this fascist Administration for it to reach the level of impeachment that will give us the Constitutional rules of law back to our nation! We can't let this go any further - please write or call your elected officials and let them know - you will see which ones you can really depend on after doing so. Maybe the Repub's will finally realize they are going down with this ship or staying afloat by speaking out against it!

FASCISM – “A philosophy or system of government that advocates or exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with an ideology of belligerent nationalism.” - The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, New College Edition, copyright 1969, printed 1976.
(also)
- “A political philosophy and movement of extreme nationalism, militaristic imperialism, suppression of civil rights, and opposition to democratic social progress, expressed through the efforts of a fanatic minority to seize complete political power.” - The Grosset Webster Dictionary, revised edition, copyright 1947, printed 1978.:kick:

[SmileMaker]

56. She has a radio show now and would make a good President

http://mp3.rbnlive.com/Karen05.html

Sat., December 17, 2005: Playlists: M3U | RAM (Individual MP3s: Hr1 Hr2 )
Guest: Ray McGovern's 27-year career as a CIA analyst spanned administrations from John F. Kennedy to George H. W. Bush. Ray is now co-director of the Servant Leadership School, which provides training and other support for those seeking ways to be in relationship with the marginalized poor. The School is one of ten Jubilee Ministries, not-for-profit organizations inspired by the ecumenical Church of the Saviour and established in an inner-city neighborhood in Washington, DC.http://www.afterdowningstreet.org. http://www.tompaine.com/ http://truthout.com/.

Sat., December 10, 2005: Playlists: M3U | RAM (Individual MP3s: Hr1 Hr2 )
Guest: Albert Lorentz

Sat., December 3, 2005: Playlists: M3U | RAM (Individual MP3s: Hr1 Hr2 )
Guest: Dahr Jamail www.DahrJamailIraq.com

[lonestarnot]

57. Completely taken over! We must stand up and fight!

[bloom]

58. "Radical militant librarians?"

:crazy:

I like to hear what Karen Kwiatkowski has to say - thanks for posting.

Someone on Democracy Now was saying how the Supreme Court in the 70's found Nixon spying to be illegal - while the court now - with Roberts and Alito, etc. - would likely not.

[lonestarnot]

59. No you are absolutely wrong on this. They must follow the law! They

are the Supreme Law of the land. They must follow the law! Wait and see!

[bloom]

60. Unfortunately we have the example

of the 2000 election and what the Supreme Court did with that.

I hope for better - but I'm not optimistic.

It would be quite a blow.

[lonestarnot]

61. 2000 election is not precedence for this illegal shit. Can't compare.

This is an apple to orange comparison.

[bloom]

79. seems to me

the 2000 election decision was a good example of the court deciding something they had no business deciding in the first place - along ideological lines - just to get the Republicans in office.

So I don't see it as much of a stretch to have them decide something to keep Republicans illegally in office - that they put in there to begin with.

I'm sure they could come up with something convoluted - just like Gonzales and the torture memo...

[KittyWampus]

62. Fascism.... seems the appropriate term.

[Spiffarino]

64. Karen is my heroine.

She's also a Western North Carolina gal from Brevard.

She's no Democrat, either. Strictly Libertarian, but possessed of great integrity and courage. She was the only person in the Pentagon who let on about what the OSP was doing while they were doing it.

It's probably fortunate for her that few people were listening or she would surely have been the victim of a car crash/plane wreck/drowning/suicide.

[Laurab]

68. "because he has clearly earned impeachment"

In fact, he's a super overachiever on that one thing.

Clearly he needs to go, and it's so good to see the "I" word in so many different places tonight. I hope it gets louder and louder.

[nolabels]

70. "refuse to subsidize Washington in every way"

Now that's the ticket!

Tax revolt anyone :shrug:



P.S. This brings up the epiphany I had thirty-seven years ago when I was about ten,
it was that deep underestanding WE ARE ALL ON OUR OWN :scared:

[Just Me]

71. Why? Why is this happening?

Why the hell is this administration still in charge?

[rman]

73. They've got a large support network

"Today the path to total dictatorship in the United States can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by Congress, the US President, or the people. Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system, another body representing another form of government, a bureaucratic elite which believes our Constitution is outmoded and is sure that it is the winning side. All the strange developments in foreign policy agreements may be traced to this group who are going to make us over to suit their pleasure. This political action group has its own local political support organizations, its own pressure groups, its own vested interests, its foothold within our government, and its own propaganda apparatus."
- Senator William Jenner, 1954

[emald]

74. if there is no impeachment

then stick a fork in it. It's over.

Really, how fucking far away from democracy are we going to go before we finally realize that the constitutional democracy we advocate for the rest of the world is gone for us. I personally believe that unless we see this cabal of criminals into prison quickly then corporatisim will have won.

IMPEACH NOW

[JPZenger]

75. Must be Illegitimate, or Would Have Gone to Court

Since there was a process in place under Federal law to secretly and quickly approve wiretap requests by a judge, and since the Federal law even allowed retro-active approvals, why didn't the Bush Administration ask for approval? All but 4 requests of the court in 26 years were approved.

The only answer is that the Bush Administration was doing wiretaps that they didn't even want a single judge to know about. Or, they were non-terrorism requests that they thought the judge wouldn't approve.

After 9-11, any judge would have approved any request that appeared to be connected to real terrorists. So, who exactly was the Administration spying upon?

[rucky]

77. or they're simply testing the boundaries of executive power

something they've been doing since 9/12.

[rucky]

76. Kwiatowski needs to run for office.

somewhere for something.

[Wind Dancer]

83. She speaks the truth.

http://www.hijackingcatastrophe.org/

Lt. Colonel Kwiatkowski contributes a wealth of info in Hijacking Catastrophe, one of the best documentaries on the PNAC and the dangers we face in this country.

From her bio:
Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski (Air Force, ret.)

Karen Kwiatkowski is recently retired from active duty in the United States Air Force as a Lieutenant Colonel. Her final assignment was as a political-military affairs officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Under Secretary for Policy, in the Sub-Saharan Africa and Near East South Asia (NESA) Policy directorates. During Lt. Col. Kwiatkowski's time at NESA, she worked the North Africa desk, in the sister office to the Office of Special Plans, and witnessed first-hand the way the rationales for the war in Iraq were constructed inside the Pentagon. She is the author of two books on African issues, African Crisis Response Initiative: Past Present and Future (US Army Peacekeeping Institute, 2000) and Expeditionary Air Operations in Africa: Challenges and Solutions (Air University Press, 2001), teaches with the University of Maryland University College and American Public University System, and is an adjunct faculty in Political Science at James Madison University. She is a regular contributor to LewRockwell.com, and has had articles about her work with the Department of Defense published recently in the American Conservative.

[Caoimhe]

84. Thanks for this! n/t

[gasperc]

89. ok, wow

fucking fuckers!!!!

I don't who to be more angry at, Bush or the assholes who voted for them