I hate to bring war/politics up on the board..... — Page 3

On the other hand, it wasn't easy at all. On the other other hand it was only kind of easy. I'm just saying what I read in the Washington Times about how easy it was.

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On the other hand it's awful. In somebody else's opinion. I don't have one. I'm just trying to give time to the other point of view. Whatever it is. On the other hand, it's a blast.

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Sorry had to respond to one more thing...

"I do not think we should be checking 80 year old grandmothers for knitting needles or tall blond swedes. Who committed 9/11 & almost every other terrorist act? Hint, they came from the middle east. If I was from that area I would expect to be profiled & would accept it & not get my nipples in a twist over it."

Yes..just like those silly Japanese Americans should not have gotten their "nipples in a twist" over being sent to camps during WWII. After all..it was the Japanese who attacked us. Actually if we're going to search people who have committed the most terrorist acts on American soil...we should be searching middle aged white men.

well as long as we're going to talk facts...

"but one nifty little thing the patriot act does is makes it legal for the fbi to search your house without ever even telling you!"

this is factually incorrect. what the patriot act does do is broaden slightly the circumstances under which law enforcement can delay for a limited time when a subject is informed that a judicially approved search warrant has been executed. so they do have to tell you, just not right away. such searches have been on the books and utilized by law enforcement for decades primarily in drug enforcement and organized crime cases. the patriot act merely added a few more circumstances under which they might be utilized.

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actually erik, in the specific circumstance which you cited regarding the search provision, you're factually incorrect. also, i must confess ignorance of the term "national security letter" as that phrase does not appear anywhere in the text of the patriot act.

with regard to your "detentions" would not those and the other catalog of abuses under the aforementioned act be detailed in the inspector general's semi-annual report to the commissions on the judiciary of both the senate and the house? and there's this part:

Section 412

(c) REPORTS.—Not later than 6 months after the date of the
enactment of this Act, and every 6 months thereafter, the Attorney General shall submit a report to the Committee on the Judiciary of the House of Representatives and the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate, with respect to the reporting period, on—
(1) the number of aliens certified under section 236A(a)(3)
of the Immigration and Nationality Act, as added by subsection
(a);
(2) the grounds for such certifications;
(3) the nationalities of the aliens so certified;
(4) the length of the detention for each alien so certified;
and
(5) the number of aliens so certified who—
(A) were granted any form of relief from removal;
(B) were removed;
(C) the Attorney General has determined are no longer
aliens who may be so certified; or
(D) were released from detention.

so if people are missing, shouldn't their representatives already know who they are, where they are and how long they've been there?

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AAAAGGHHH!!! This thread makes my head hurt. I'm going back to reading about Patrick Wilson's butt. I need some happy time....

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To Papa Loves Mambo

At least some sanity on the board. Well said

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Wow this stuff just keeps popping up. Look what I came across I was surfing the web for news.
more invasion of privacy

Yes, a whopping 7 comments of support are at the end of the article.
For more interesting facts about the Bush administration click below. (Special thanks to the person who sent me this link via PM)

Daily dose of Bush

Auggie...a lot of my friends are surprised when I share this information with them too. You can find a lot of this stuff in the main stream press..but it isn't usually the headline.
I've gotten a lot of PMs about this thread. Some of them have been negative, but most have been similar to what you just posted.
A couple of people have called me "unreasonable" and that there's no point arguing with me because my mind is made up and I won't listen. This is completely untrue. If someone can show me how Bush is helping the country I'll be more than happy to listen.
What sickens me the most is that the Bush Administration is using 3000 innocent lost lives to push forward their agenda to help big business and oil companies while destroying the environment, stomping on civil rights, and blowing up the deficit. Meanwhile, an average of 9 americans a day are dying in Iraq.
Iraq...a place we were told we needed to wage war with all by ourselves, and right away, because they were an immediate threat to our safety. I guess Bush figured if he said Saddam had WMD's and ties with al Qaeda enough...we would all believe. Of course we now know this is not true. And the man we were supposed be so afraid of was found hiding in a dirt hole.
So now we did it for the Iraqi people. I guess we'll be coming after all the other ruthless dictators in the world now. Oh wait...they don't have oil.
But this administration likes to keep us scared. That way we can all think the Patriot Act is a good idea. In reality, we as Americans are more likely to die from the flu, in a car accident, or as a victem of gun violence than we are to be killed by a terrorist.

oops my mistake...I didn't mean to put Americans..I meant people. Thought I edited that. But I agree it's a high price to pay...and for what? Dividends to the world...what dividends? I have no doubt the world will be a better place without Saddam. I'm not so sure how Iraq will fare. I'm not confident we won't screw that up. We don't have a good track record at replacing governments.


President Bush to match Herbert Hoover in Job Loss

a chance at a free and democratic country in the heart of the middle east. scoff. i know, i've heard it. my friends all do. but i think that history will look far more kindly on this president (or at least this administration) than those caught in the immediacy of hatred.

i'll say what i believe in and then you can slam my ideas all you want. i doubt that i have anything convincing enough here to change your mind anyway. but that said...

we invaded iraq becuase it was the only place in the region that we could effect regime change and possibly instill some form of democracy. the only way to eventually stop terrorism is to change the economic disenfranchisement of the arab peoples and that's not gonna happen with the status quo. so we took out the one dictator no one would cry too much over losing. if in his place we can help the iraqi people develop a government that can hold to a loose federalist system that will be responsible to its people and accountable to them, all of them, then it's worth having done this. even if we fail, it was worth doing. is there corruption at some levels in this enterprise? of course there is! it's a government exercise so there will undoubtedly be corruption somewhere. i don't think that poisons the entire undertaking.

that region of the world needs a chance. a free and democratic iraq in the center of the middle east will act as a beacon to the people in neighboring countries who already are clamoring for a more representative from of government. why do you think the mullahs in iran are so angry about this? becuase it will make it harder to oppress their own people when those people can look across the border and see a free people who can live the way they choose under a government that responds to their wishes and respects them rather than dictates to them under penalty of death. and if you question whether iran is yearning to breathe free, just read the writing of their own vice president, he's got quite a humorous website. but i doubt that anyone laughs when their newspapers call for his death. or when the clerics unleash their own version of the saddam fedayeen loose on students marching for reform.

the war on terror will not be won with guns and bombs, although that is a component of it. the war on terror will be won when the fanatics haven't got the huge impoverished underbellies of entire nations from which to draw their soldiers. showing the people of that rergion that there is another way is part of the path. thomas jefferson said that "the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." i know a lotta people don't think that it was our fight over there, but what makes them any less worthy of liberty than we?

people say that there are a lot worse dictators than saddam, and there are. but he was the one we could take down. will we succeed in helping the iraqis to create a new nation? i pray that we do. am i a romantic fool about what i see as our intentions there? perhaps so. do i sound like a dom rumsfeld press conference? you're darn tootin' i do. golly this was more fun than i thought.

anyway, that's what dividends i think this will pay to the world...less violence (sounds crazy huh?)...more freedom...some hope.

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Erik: Two letters to the Times today bring up points about Saddam and our relief over "got 'em."

1) Bush says the Iraqi people should try Saddam, because he was their foe. But that suggests a huge contradiction, in terms of his threat to us, doesn it? Bush thus implies that this man did NOT commit offenses against the US that would justify our trying him. If Saddam Hussein didn't commit sufficient offenses against US to warrant our trying him (like stockpiling WMDs that could blow us to smithereens in 45 minutes) -- why did we invade Iraq?

2) Lieberman (and a lot of Republicans -- but then, isn't Lieberman really becoming one too?) are severely attacking Dean for saying capturing Saddam has made us no safer. But if capturing Saddam HAS made us "safer," why hasn't Ashcroft appeared to lower the Homeland Security's famous color-coded safety index? We have no downgrade from "Heightened Alert." Yet remember how elevated it was just before the war -- to terrify the hell out of us all.

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