tp174.xml
Title
tp174.xml
Source
born-digital
Media Type
story
Date Entered
2003-03-03
TomPaine Story: Story
To Those Who Represent U.S. Citizens
Dissent is the life-blood of a free nation. The alarming and dangerous usurpation and consolidation of power by the Bush Administration has been an anemic drain of Libertys sustenance. The fears and uncertainties of the public must not be allowed to fuel the war machine of the far right. Starting another war with Iraq would kill, or as half of the world will believe, murder countless innocents.
John Ashcroft and the activities of his so-called Department of Justice (while heroically protecting us from the dangers of medicinal and agricultural hemp products) have been a betrayal to the publics safety. Along with his shameful waste of resources directed at victimless crime, the Attorney General has been shredding the Constitution as fast as much of corporate America has been shredding integrity.
The number of voters who share this view is growing into the millions.
George W. Bush had been casting a dark shroud of secrecy around the government well before September 11, 2001. His brazen act of sealing of the presidential libraries is not only an insult to the citizens who paid for them, it is theft and mockery of truth and history. The Freedom Of Information Act is now nearly extinct.
Homeland Security will surely generate even greater insecurity if it is enacted with the same lack of disclosure and open, informed debate that the USA Patriot Act received. The electorate is discovering what is being swept into law. Workers will have been denied their bargaining rights and have their livelihood subjected to the whims and dictates of the President. How many other Americans are horrified by the Bush Administrations stolen authority to label a U.S. citizen an enemy combatant and then proceed to indefinately incarcerate him and completely strip him of his constitutional rights? Operation TIPS would breed a culture of distrust and paranoia, and embolden informents and snitches of questionable reliability and intentions. Personal vendettas and unjust harassment by authorities must not replace the rule of law. We are well on our way towards witnessing our military become a political police force. How can all this not evoke an uneasy comparison to the state of emergency mentality of mid 1930s Germany?
These and other measures being rushed to implementation must be held up to careful scrutiny for inherent negative consequences. If the neglect or dismantling of the Bill Of Rights is the price we pay in order to purchase, at best, only limited protection from terror, then we have lost the War On Terrorism.
If you do not challenge or question this pervasive contempt for our rights, you have lost my vote.
Dissent is the life-blood of a free nation. The alarming and dangerous usurpation and consolidation of power by the Bush Administration has been an anemic drain of Libertys sustenance. The fears and uncertainties of the public must not be allowed to fuel the war machine of the far right. Starting another war with Iraq would kill, or as half of the world will believe, murder countless innocents.
John Ashcroft and the activities of his so-called Department of Justice (while heroically protecting us from the dangers of medicinal and agricultural hemp products) have been a betrayal to the publics safety. Along with his shameful waste of resources directed at victimless crime, the Attorney General has been shredding the Constitution as fast as much of corporate America has been shredding integrity.
The number of voters who share this view is growing into the millions.
George W. Bush had been casting a dark shroud of secrecy around the government well before September 11, 2001. His brazen act of sealing of the presidential libraries is not only an insult to the citizens who paid for them, it is theft and mockery of truth and history. The Freedom Of Information Act is now nearly extinct.
Homeland Security will surely generate even greater insecurity if it is enacted with the same lack of disclosure and open, informed debate that the USA Patriot Act received. The electorate is discovering what is being swept into law. Workers will have been denied their bargaining rights and have their livelihood subjected to the whims and dictates of the President. How many other Americans are horrified by the Bush Administrations stolen authority to label a U.S. citizen an enemy combatant and then proceed to indefinately incarcerate him and completely strip him of his constitutional rights? Operation TIPS would breed a culture of distrust and paranoia, and embolden informents and snitches of questionable reliability and intentions. Personal vendettas and unjust harassment by authorities must not replace the rule of law. We are well on our way towards witnessing our military become a political police force. How can all this not evoke an uneasy comparison to the state of emergency mentality of mid 1930s Germany?
These and other measures being rushed to implementation must be held up to careful scrutiny for inherent negative consequences. If the neglect or dismantling of the Bill Of Rights is the price we pay in order to purchase, at best, only limited protection from terror, then we have lost the War On Terrorism.
If you do not challenge or question this pervasive contempt for our rights, you have lost my vote.
Collection
Citation
“tp174.xml,” September 11 Digital Archive, accessed December 23, 2024, https://911digitalarchive.org/items/show/729.