Suggestion - everyone add this to your signature line and let's reframe the protection vs rights debate.
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To add to your signature line:
Bush is claiming unilateral imperial powers under the guise that he is protecting us from bad people. But his oath of office doesn't ask him to protect WE THE PEOPLE, it swears him to protect the CONSTITUTION.
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." - US Constitution, Article II, Section 1
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Suggestion - everyone add this to your signature line and let's reframe the protection vs rights debate. Use it at the bottom of your emails, blog entries, etc. Write your representatives. Write letters to the editor. We are told "they hate our freedom", but I have a hard time even IMAGINING how terrorists could attack our freedoms. But BUSH can, CONGRESS can, and the SUPREME COURT can. This isn't a fight for our men and women in uniform.
It is OUR fight. For OUR rights and freedoms.
Do you support the Constitution? Then send this to everyone in your address book. And call the Capital Switchboard [ 1-800-426-8073 ]and let your Senators and Representatives know that you expect THEM to protect your Constitutional rights by holding official hearings on NSA spying on Americans and asking for the appointment of an independent council to investigate if the President broke the law.
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To add to your signature line:
Bush is claiming unilateral imperial powers under the guise that he is protecting us from bad people. But his oath of office doesn't ask him to protect WE THE PEOPLE, it swears him to protect the CONSTITUTION.
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." - US Constitution, Article II, Section 1
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More on Protection:
What is Bush protecting us from?
Death?
He may THINK God is talking to him, but even his Grand Wizard Karl Rove and his Bad Witch Condi cannot protect us from the Grim Reaper.
If we want him to protect us from death because we were saddened by 3,000 deaths on 9/11, far better that he pass a law immediately banning:
- tobacco sales and usage
- animal products sales and consumption
- alcohol sales and usage
- car sales and usage
Those things separately and together kill far, FAR more people than Muslims with box cutters, but we would never allow the President to infringe on our freedoms in those areas even if he claimed it was to PROTECT us.
If it is NOT our death that the spying is intended to prevent, what else?
Torture by bad guys?
No. His policies have made torture by bad guys much more likely as torture is now seen by the world as "the American way".
Attack by WMD - by chemical or biological weapons? Well, if he was concerned about that, why haven't we heard anything about the anthrax attacks in YEARS? And why DID Whitehouse staff start taking Cipro on 9/11, two weeks before the first anthrax letter was sent, and a month before we know there was a deliberate biological attack underway?
Thousands of people throughout our history have risked or given their lives to secure our rights and freedoms.
So what sense does it make to give them up for the illusive and impossible goal of "security"?
What is security anyway? THAT is the question we should be asking.
Is it economic security? Then why are our jobs outsourced and our largest companies allowed to default on their pension promises?
Is it health security? Then why was Congress tricked into passing a crazy Medicare plan which mainly protects the bottom lines of drug companies. Why is the richest country the world has ever known STILL not providing health care for ALL of its people?
Is security the ability to care for and educate our children? Then why are so many being left behind?.. why are so many living in poverty?.. why are so many schools struggling and cutting back?
After Katrina we should have no illusions that Bush et. al. have any interest in the security and wellbeing of the American people, nor that their cronies have any ability to provide for our needs.
A question for the Religious Right Bush supporters... didn't Christ teach that we are to hold to our values and beliefs even under pain of torture and even unto death, because this life isn't all there is?
So why should we give up our freedoms and rights for the promise of protection... a promise which Bush has no power to fulfill?
"The welfare of the people in particular has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience." - Albert Camus (1913-1960)