USA's government, not people, make it great

[New Ager]

Riiiiight. Like Nixon's activities were in the interest of national security.

(In case you've forgotten, his illegal activities had nothing to do with national security, but were designed to silence his political opponents.)

Nixon??!?! When did he get into the discussion?

Okay, so more of arguing points I haven't made.

Wake up, pal.

I'm not the one running all over the century looking to back up lame comments by talking about dead Presidents.

Bush has asserted the right to hold anyone anywhere, even US citizens, indefinitely without trial merely on the basis of an accusation.

No, they were terrorists or basically enemy combantants.

More of that distortion of Bush.

And keep in mind, if he can do it, so can President Hillary.

Hillary will probably invite them for a White House brunch.

Under Bush's vision of Presidential Power, if Hillary gets in the White House, she should have the right to merely declare you an enemy and lock you up without a trial, access to an attorney, hebeas corpus, nothing, and keep you there til you die.

I guess it doesn't pay to be a terrorist.

I'm sorry, but my heart isn't bleeding for them.

Also keep in mind that Bush has lied about his administration's activities at every turn.

More distortion of Bush.

First he said there were no warrantless wiretaps. But there were. Then he said there was no unfiltered bulk surveilance. But there was. Etc etc etc.

Distortion of events.

And the worst of it is, such practices actually hinder the fight against terrorism. They encourage laziness and slopiness. Instead of having to actually figure out what's really going on and who's who, we can simply round up the usual suspects. History shows that this approach not only results in imprisonment of the innocent, but also allows many of the guilty to escape.

Yeah, because liberals are so good at fighting terrorism.

And those innocents, and their families, who could have been our allies, instead come to hate us and join the other side.

Innocent terrorists?!?!??! I guess to liberals if you disagree with the President you are innocent.

First of all, I'm not a Democrat or a liberal. I vote for Dems, Pubs, Independents, whoever I think will do the best job in office. Believe it or not, some people are not partisans.

And yet, you speak like a liberal and believe the whole liberal spiel.

Second, I don't agree that my government is my country, and I surely don't agree that the executive branch is my country.

It is when they are fighting a war.

By pointing out abuses of the Constitution by certain people in power, I am not "bashing my country". I am trying to preserve it.

When it's to further political agenda in a time of war and only that agenda is important and not our troops, it is.

I love my country, but not in the way you do. You love your country the way a four year old loves his mommy.

And yet, you talk like a four year old.

And because of that, you are easily made into a tool of those who would attempt to usurp power for themselves.

No, I defend my country in a time of war. I don't blindly follow a political agenda to hurt my country like liberals do.

The remaining presidential candidates are not extremists -- all those have been winnowed out.

Hillary? Obama? You are really in the tank for the Dems, aren't you?

Unlike you, the majority of people in this country are tired of the gridlock, the lies, the secrecy, the incompetence, on both sides of the aisle.

I think people are just tired of liberalism. Of course, many liberals like to hide who they are.

 

[New Ager]

Some liberals want us to be nice to terrorists.

Name one.

Or do you believe Muslim = terrorist?

Let's see...

"Let's don't interrogate those terrorists with waterboarding to save our country. Get them a lawyer."

"Don't hold those terrorists at Guatanamo, get them a lawyer and bring them to the states."

Those liberals.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Agreed. I keep hoping to hear more about that as the election cycle grinds on.

If I could ask the candidates one question, it would be, "Do you pledge to roll back the excessive and unconstitutional powers which Bush has usurped from the other branches?"

I would add, Do you plan to purge all the Bush appointees in the Justice Department and put the experienced non-partisan career lawyers back?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

What powers did Bush usurp from other branches?

You either know and are in denial or you have been living in a cave.

But out of respect for Piggy's answer this is a thread hijack question, I'll leave it at that. Start a new thread however, if you care, and I'll be happy to discuss the obvious with you.

 

[Piggy]

And you didn't address the rest of the post so I guess you were distorting those facts.

You guess? I recommend fact-checking instead of guessing. But that's because I'm a skeptic.

You mean like Bush trying to wiretap terrorists and not private citizens.

I hate to say this, but your ignorance is showing.

Bush violated FISA, despite the fact that FISA allowed retroactive warrants up to 72 hours after the fact. To justify his illegal activities, he claimed that he needed absolute power to wiretap with no oversight in order to respond quickly, but you can't get any quicker than retro-active approval.

So, the only possible justification for the action was that he was wiretapping people who he felt the courts would not allow him to wiretap. And the FISA courts reject warrant requests extremely rarely.

In fact, Bush had approved unfiltered bulk wiretaps on American citizens.

Everyone in Washington wants to keep track of terrorists and legitimate terror suspects. Dems and Pubs alike. Despite the lies of certain partisans who claim the other side -- for utterly inexplicable reasons -- actually wants people to come here and kill us.

But Bush has proven himself incompetent. His attitude is, round 'em up, wiretap everyone, and we'll separate the wheat from the chaff later.

This is dangerous.

Ok, enough of the current events lesson.

The reason I bother to dive into all this is that I think it proves my point in the OP.

Fortunately, we have a Constitution which, if followed, corrects such abuses. And that is the strength of America.

But, as others have pointed out, this only works if the citizens care.

If everyone had your attitude, we'd slide quickly into tyrrany, as there would be no one to insist that the law be followed.

But I still stand generally by the OP. I think folks around the world want justice, just as much as we do. Sadly, many are prevented from having it by brutal regimes. Sadder still, some people in other nations (as well as some here) actually want totalitarianism.

My point is, because it is our Constitutional system of government which is the strength of our nation, we cannot allow it to be thrown aside.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

....
Where I am, there's a rising tide of late -- mostly among small-town businessmen, hinterland politicos, blue-collar talk radio fans, and such -- who have bought into the simplistic notion that government is inherently bad and that the "free market" always (always!) provides a better solution....

There are more than a few skeptics who also buy into this unsupportable belief, and Michael Shermer's latest book espouses it through and through. It got him bumped off my hero list.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

This thread reeks of A brave new world, State is better for you, trust in the state, center around the state. The Nanny state will take care of your needs, trust in big brother. In Soma we trust,theres no pain and suffering here. This thread feels like I'm stuck in A brave new world dialogue between John The Savage and Mustapha Mond.

You are confusing a good governmental system with a totalitarian governmental system. The two could not be further apart.

 

[Piggy]

Let's see...

"Let's don't interrogate those terrorists with waterboarding to save our country. Get them a lawyer."

"Don't hold those terrorists at Guatanamo, get them a lawyer and bring them to the states."

Those liberals.

Who are you quoting? I'm not familiar with anyone who has expressed those exact sentiments -- those are distortions of opinions which have been expressed publicly.

Also, you fail to recognize the following

1. Opponents of waterboarding are not soft on terrorism. They object to it because, first, torture is not a reliable means of extracting reliable intelligence, and second, our engaging in torture puts our soldiers at risk -- not from the terrorists, who are going to engage in horrific acts anyway, but from fence-sitters for whom our actions are actually meaningful. In other words, they believe it's a net loss in the war on terror.

2. Although there certainly are terrorists in Gitmo, without habeas, we don't know which ones are terrorists and which ones aren't, and that's dangerous, for reasons I've already explained. The problem with Gitmo is that the current administration is attempting to use it as a Constitution-free zone (back to the OP -- we need the Constitution!) in order to warehouse people they sweep up -- and some that were literally bought from people who simply showed up with them in tow -- without having to actually figure out what's what. And that's a good way to lose the war on terror.

People who oppose waterboarding and support habeas for Gitmo detainees are doing so because they want to defeat terror, and they believe (rightly, imo) that sloppy and careless and incompetent means of waging that battle should be stopped and replaced by more effective means.

 

[Piggy]

Stay On Topic, Please

Ok, I've tried to bring the tangents back to the OP, but some don't want to go there.

Please post only on-topic.

If irrelevant derails continue, I'll ask the mods to move them.

Please be respectful.

If anyone wants to discuss other topics -- such as the conduct of the war on terror, liberal politics, etc. -- without reference to the OP, please start a new thread.

I will no longer respond to off-topic posts, since I've not been able to bring them back to the subject of the thread.

Thanks.

 

[UserGoogol]

This thread reeks of A brave new world, State is better for you, trust in the state, center around the state. The Nanny state will take care of your needs, trust in big brother. In Soma we trust,theres no pain and suffering here. This thread feels like I'm stuck in A brave new world dialogue between John The Savage and Mustapha Mond.

It's the people who say the United States's people who make it great who are the collectivists. "The people" but a collection of individuals united by nothing more than living in the same place and be ruled by the same government. To attribute the goodness of a nation to a collection of individuals united by nothing but an accident of birth (immigrants might be an exception because they choose to be here) is absurd. The People are better for you, trust in The People, center around The People. The People will take care of your needs. Trust in The People.

That said, there is an excluded middle between saying that America is great because of our country and saying it is great because of "our people." It could be the non-governmental institutions which America has, for instance. I don't know if this is the case though, since when America creates a good institution, it can spread to other countries. Although other governments have picked up some ideas from our government, it requires an act of annexation for another country to fully embrace our government in the way they might embrace our other institutions.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

New Ager, your view of reality is quite distorted. It amazes me people can see the world through such distorted lenses.

For example, the judicial system having oversight over the President's actions is not something that interferes with the President's ability to prevent terrorist acts. The oversight is to prevent the human nature of a person in a powerful position from abusing that power. Nixon abused his position of power to cheat on the election.

Why would getting a warrant for those wiretaps stop the wiretaps? Bush claimed there wasn't time. Turns out he could wiretap first, get the warrant second so that was not a reason warrants were interfering with legitimate reasons to wiretap. But Bush let that reply die by not responding. Wiretaps continue, no warrants, no one presses Bush anymore about getting the warrants, and people like yourself can only recall Bush saying he needed warrantless wiretapping to fight terrorism. You don't seem to recall the warrants are to protect us from our government spying on us. The warrants have nothing to do with some fantasy that liberals would have us protecting terrorist rights.

Why would a government spy on its citizens? There are only two reasons. To suppress dissent and manipulate elections.

Bush has demonstrated the same behavior replacing all the Department of Justice people with party henchmen. The fired attorney scandal faded away when Gonzales fell on his sword. But the henchmen (and women) quietly remain. The voter disenfranchisement schemes based on false claims of massive voter fraud found their way into federal election law and the public doesn't seem to have noticed.

These activities of wiretapping, and abuses in the Justice Department initiated by the President's administration and top Republican Party operatives were disclosed, a bit of scandal ensued, very little happened and they now continue sans limelight.

-

I see the government and the people as key players in our system. If the public doesn't object to abuses of power like Bush's and Nixon's then the system itself is not enough. People have to object when Congress ignores its oversight role. I think that is clearly happening. People can't wait to get rid of Bush. We don't know yet if it will be just another group of rulers on the animal farm or whether the system will recover.

I think the system will function as long as the public has access to information. I think that is an integral part of our system of government. The oversight of the public is just as critical as the checks and balances within the government. And they need to have free access to information about the government if the people are to provide their part of the oversight.

In addition to Bush's abuse of power within the system, the science of persuasion, the past lessons learned about keeping things secret and the concentration of broadcast ownership have increased the ability for leaders who want to abuse their power to do so.

Bush has tight control over the White House Press Corp, there is control of information coming out of Iraq, there is Rupert Murdoch who admits to a belief that control of the news content is fine with him and so on. I don't mean to imply a conspiracy here. Rather, Bush, his admin, and the Republican Party have become very adept at controlling and manipulating information. At the same time, the broadcast news has become a commodity, not a source of information. Some of corporate America has also become adept at controlling information. Look at Exxon's campaign to suppress the science of global warming.

There are many many aspects to this and it's hard to cover them all in a post. It may seem like I am ranting about multiple disconnected issues. The bottom line is people have to oversee the government, we need the governmental system we have to make that possible, if there weren't checks and balances then the people wouldn't have a chance of keeping their oversight role. And as important, is the part that a culture of an information savvy public plays in keeping everything functioning properly. Fortunately the Internet came along just as broadcast sources of information are fading. We'll be fine unless the powers that be gain control of Internet information access. Hopefully that won't happen.

 

[Piggy]

Skeptigirl, how would you summarize your last post relative to the OP? I see how it pertains, but a recap would be helpful to get us back on track.

To all posters: Thanks for the insights! I would ask all reasonable posters here to please not allow the thread to turn into a harangue over left and right. Please do us all a favor and ignore irrelevant posts (or split them off into new threads for further discussion) and let us get back to the role of gov't and citizens.

Thanks again.

Your loving and adoring son -Piggy

 

[SezMe]

Aw, Piggy loves me. Gives me the warm and fuzzies all over.

Believe me, I'd like to show New Ager how he's wrong on point after point. But I'll honor your request after one quick shot.

No, they were terrorists or basically enemy combantants.

Approximately 5% of people held by the military in Iraq were actually enemy combatants. Most (~90%) were based on bribes.

About 50% of people held in Gitmo (some for years) were eventually released with no charges having been filed.

If there are any non-USAians still reading this thread who wonder where the stereotype of a "southern redneck" comes from, New Ager is the poster boy.

Now to the OP: I agree with a point made upthread. It is the form of government created by the constitution - especially the idea of three branches checking on the others - combined with an informed and involved citizenery that makes the USA work.

 

[Piggy]

Now to the OP: I agree with a point made upthread. It is the form of government created by the constitution - especially the idea of three branches checking on the others - combined with an informed and involved citizenery that makes the USA work.

And I think New Ager's posts actually contribute here, in a way he never intended, to illustrate that point.

The Constitution cannot endure if people do not do their homework, if we indulge in political ideology, fail to fact-check the political bloviators, and turn a blind eye to corruption of the law. If we all took New Ager's path, it wouldn't take long for our rights to be wiped out.

But although I agree essentially with this "middle path" view that's emerging on this thread, I still lean toward my original idea in the OP, and here's why.

I think in every nation, you have those who are more willing to be told what to think, and those who are more willing to think for themselves.

It is only when you have, not only a limited government, but a self-limiting government, that the independent spirit can hold sway, through wars and hard times and disasters, for centuries.

But it's hard to argue, on the other hand, the the American form of government could work everywhere.

So there must be something in the American character that is a good match with our form of government -- representative democracy, trial by jury, due process, separation of powers, a secular state, etc.

And I think it's largely a phenomenon of history. Here we had widely disparate groups who, in their colonial period, had to be enormously resourceful and inventive, and who then had to find a way to form a government that allowed them to get along despite their often conflicting views of the world, and of what is good.

Perhaps only rare circumstances such as those the colonies found themselves in -- at the right time in history, when Englightenment values were the philosophical fashion, and laymen could still make significant contributions to science -- permit the formation of such a system of governance.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Skeptigirl, how would you summarize your last post relative to the OP? I see how it pertains, but a recap would be helpful to get us back on track.

To all posters: Thanks for the insights! I would ask all reasonable posters here to please not allow the thread to turn into a harangue over left and right. Please do us all a favor and ignore irrelevant posts (or split them off into new threads for further discussion) and let us get back to the role of gov't and citizens.

Thanks again.

Your loving and adoring son -Piggy

I tried to, maybe it was buried in my thousand things I had to say on the matter.

...people have to oversee the government, we need the governmental system we have to make that possible, if there weren't checks and balances then the people wouldn't have a chance of keeping their oversight role. And as important, is the part that a culture of an information savvy public plays in keeping everything functioning properly. Fortunately the Internet came along just as broadcast sources of information are fading. We'll be fine unless the powers that be gain control of Internet information access. Hopefully that won't happen.

So, while the pandering speech, "Americans are great" is just that, typical voter rally speech, you can't just have the American system of government alone. On the other hand, if you didn't have they system we do have with the checks and balances, the people would have little power to stop a runaway dictator.

And if we lose control of true freedom of information, (not just free speech) then the people won't have the tools they need to keep a runaway dictatorship from developing.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

Even with our freedom of speech, and the government system of checks and balances, and people who understand what is needed to keep the government functioning properly, those would be runaway dictators could still develop as the people in power continually develop ways to thwart our system of checks and balances. Since it's not too hard to get the sheeple behind you, we could still lose it all.

Consider we've had many a leader who would be dictator if they could. Nixon and Bush certainly had/have the ethics to overturn our basic democratic principles, and I'm sure they are the rule, not the exception. Bush's and Rove's, et al, overt attempts to manipulate the electoral process rather than simply earn more votes have been documented. (I posted the extensive evidence in a recent thread.)

Propaganda is certainly not new, but I do believe the techniques are becoming more and more sophisticated all the time. The sheeple are nothing new and if you can get enough sheeple to follow you, even the people who remain aware and think for themselves cannot stop those in power. Look at the history of such movements from the Crusades to Hitler, to Mao.

McCarthyism and the Red Menace are two examples in this country where leaders were able to get the sheeple to give them more powers than the system of checks and balances includes. And that is most definitely the case with Bush and his use of the Terror Menace to thwart our Constitutional system of government. New Ager is an example of a sheeple letting the checks and balances slide supposedly to lessen a threat. Whether the threat is real or not, Bush has not made the case it warrants an exception to judicial oversight. Yet New Ager believes it does.

So the system matters a lot. But it can't be maintained on just the 'rules' on paper. You can't take the people out of the mix.

 

[proxywar]

How bizarre.

I can't find any such tendency in this thread, which has (for the most part) been a lively discussion regarding the relative roles of the structure of government -- to combat the extremes of autocracy on the one hand and populism on the other -- and the responsibilities and contributions of a politically aware and active citizenry.

I don't see anyone championing a Nanny State or blind faith in office-holders.

Your post reeks of paranoia and knee-jerk reaction, I'm afraid.

What hospital may I pick up my soma script from?

No need to get harsh with the name calling.
Like Jay-z said: I call a spade a spade, it is what is.

 

[proxywar]

It's the people who say the United States's people who make it great who are the collectivists. "The people" but a collection of individuals united by nothing more than living in the same place and be ruled by the same government. To attribute the goodness of a nation to a collection of individuals united by nothing but an accident of birth (immigrants might be an exception because they choose to be here) is absurd. The People are better for you, trust in The People, center around The People. The People will take care of your needs. Trust in The People.

complete government controlled collectivism worked out well for lenin hey? I don't hate the separate individuals in america, for Americans are like individual organisms making up a superorganism, who just happen to hate collectivist expanding government. Why the horrible semantics? Accident of birth, joke right? immigrants choosing to be here is absurd? Nice reactionary responds mr.despot.

That said, there is an excluded middle between saying that America is great because of our country and saying it is great because of "our people." It could be the non-governmental institutions which America has, for instance. I don't know if this is the case though, since when America creates a good institution, it can spread to other countries. Although other governments have picked up some ideas from our government, it requires an act of annexation for another country to fully embrace our government in the way they might embrace our other institutions.

America the nation was created by the people for the people. These people now americans continue to make it great. It's the expanding federal government the people of america think is abusing it's balance of power. So us meaning the people of america have a choice to make about this necessary evil called expanding federal government. Give it complete control or find a more innovative path for our institutions. Listen, I'm all about being a multilineal evolutionary thinker, which is why I know russian people were great when their communist government wasn't. You seem to want to embrace the old institutions of other countries in a new packaged unwilling to label it what it really is sort of way. I'm saying the people of america are more innovative than cheating off the kids test next to us.

 

[Thorn]

If the Constitution is divinely inspired, Civil Defense lawyers are the heavenly host...yet...I often hear the exact opposite. The Bill of Rights is divine by no means, and to be honest, it's the pinnacle of humanity, in my opinion.

 

[Billdave2]

Indeed. The old adage is 100% correct -- the Constitution cannot defend itself. It also cannot enforce itself. We must defend it, we must enforce it.

I just wish more people these days actually knew what was in it.

That is why it is the people and not the government that makes this country great. What would happen in most counties if you simply substituted forms of governement with out any other changes? Do you think Nigeria wouldbecome great overnight? How about most middle eastern countries, would they become great or would the people reject their new government?

ETA: In the words of a great american "the scariest thing you will ever here is "I'm from the governemnt and I am here to help you"".