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The Red Pill
Patriotism vs Patriot Act written by Anonymous Fourth of July is in remembrance of the day we won liberties. Today, we face a political climate ready to take those liberties away. Think not? Have you read the Patriot Act? Have you read the Homeland Security Bill? Or the Security Enhancement Bill of 2003 (a piece of literature the government refused to acknowledge as real until it was found by independent sources)? They’re big and easy to find, but don’t be intimidated by their length. There is no excuse for you to be uninformed on what they have to say. Amongst many chilling bits of reading, within these documents, you will find sections describing the ability of the FBI and the CIA to conduct unrestricted surveillance of the American public. This is something that has been going on for years, but between these new pieces of legislation they are now admissible in court. See, before these documents came to be there was nothing these intelligence-gathering agencies could do with the information they were putting together. Not directly, anyway, or in a court of law. You will also find sections removing the power of judicial review and oversight. This means the FBI and the CIA no longer need warrants or any probable cause to tap your phones or spy on your e-mails. There are also provisions for the government’s ability to declare almost anyone they want an “enemy combatant.” Once you’ve been declared an enemy combatant, you are a war criminal, and your chances of getting a fair trial with a jury of your peers become nonexistent. This is the part where you hand me some crap about “well, if you’re not doing anything wrong… blah blah blah” — well, that’s what Hitler told the Jews before he sent them all to work becoming lampshades and ash. With this legislation, the definition of an enemy combatant is anyone who “may” have endangered human life in a violation of federal or state law. You will also find items detailing the ability of the federal government to use wartime martial-law powers domestically and internationally without congress declaring that a state of war exists. You will find sections about DNA databases, the use of torture in extracting information from suspected terrorists, forced vaccinations, and the list goes on. This is only the tip of the iceberg. The amount of damage the Patriot Act, by itself, does to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is staggering. In combination with the Homeland Security Bill and the Security Enhancement Act (Patriot Act 2) it becomes an outright slap in the face for everyone who loves this country. This is something to think about over the July 4 weekend while you’re lighting shit on fire and weeping at how beautifully red goes with white and blue, all the while instilling in your children a gung-ho attitude that will carry over to the age where they’re old enough to put their fingers on the button to set off the really big fireworks. Freedom, liberty, justice and things that blow up — that’s what it’s all about. The military industrial complex has spent more on things that blow up in the last four decades than the monetary value of every factory, machine, road, bridge, water, sewage system, airport, railroad, power plant, office building, shopping center, school, hospital, house put together. That’s over $15 trillion on machines of death2, and that includes the brainwashed robot soldiers they produce as well. All of that, and still you aren’t safe? They need to convince you to give up civil liberties as well? Is giving up liberties a price you are willing to pay in order to fight terrorism? How many civil liberties are you willing to give up to live in a world free from terrorism? That’s an interesting question when you try and figure out who the terrorists are. The IRA are terrorists to the English. The Tibetans are terrorists to the Chinese. The Democratic Party is terrorists to the military dictatorship in Burma. Terrorism takes many forms and not all of them wear towels on their heads and have no agenda other than a hatred for your way of life. So who are the terrorists? Who are the people that all this weaponry and questionable legislation is supposed to be protecting you from? Can you swallow, at face value, that the terrorists out to get you wreak their havoc with nothing more than a hatred of your way of life? To me it sounds like nothing more than a play to your fear and intolerance. Nothing more than a grotesquely oversimplified sound bite that conjures up all sorts of terrifying imagery of crazed religious zealots foaming at the mouth, loading their AK-47s and sending a prayer to Allah with every bullet that the streets of American cities will flow with blood. Your whole life you have been listening to spoiled rich white men tell you that the world outside of America is full of either an ally or an enemy. This doctrine implies the fact that there is a constant war being fought which serves the dual purpose of creating an atmosphere of fear, as well as eliminating the crazy notion that there are other people just like you out there. By eliminating that possibility and making you terrified of evil men with bombs, the spoiled rich white man is able to make himself out as the only one who will protect you from those who threaten to put food on your table. Have you stopped to consider that? Whatever terrorist network is out there, it absolutely pales and looks stupid in comparison to the budget and manpower of the institutions that are supposed to be protecting you from these groups. You have to realize that the population of Islamic fundamentalists is relatively small. I can’t state this as fact, but I would wager that if you numbered all the individuals employed by our intelligence agencies you would end up with an integer greater than that of all Islamic fundamentalists. They’re like orthodox Jews. They represent a small fraction of people who practice their faith. I would also like to stress the word fundamentalist as well. All this means is that they make their faith a priority in their lives. No different than a Christian fundamentalist or a Buddhist monk. The ones you are told to fear are a small percentage of this group, usually funded or trained by the same people who are trying to sell you the “protection” you think you need. Now, fundamentalists of any religion are not stupid people by most definitions. They are usually well read, at least in the literature pertaining to their beliefs and probably well aware of current events. So a small percentage of Islamic fundamentalists who watch American foreign policy dick around in their countries until they get angry enough to do something about it. Jihad is the call to fight someone who has invaded your home. You do the math. We have been propping up dictators and manipulating oil flow and trying to sell coke in these countries for the past three decades. Your leaders know this. It doesn’t really bother them. They’re going to be safe in any case, because they have created Islamic terrorism as a tool to cause fear. But if a couple terrorists want to blow YOU up, that’s OK. That just strengthens their claims that truth and justice and freedom are on their side. They aren’t trying to stop the terrorists. They don’t need or want to. If they did, they would cease and desist all the activities that breed terrorists in the first place. Of course, all this sounds crazy, but that’s because you’ve been distracted. You’ve been denied the realization that it’s not just the lives of people in other countries the spoiled rich white men want to control. It’s yours as well, and if you think you’re safe, well, you are for the moment as long as you don’t say anything. If you insist on speaking out, you’re still safe as long as you have the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in your corner. Commence laughter now. Hot cup of Patriot Act, anyone? Maybe a steaming pile of Homeland Security? It’s safe to open your mouth as long as you’re stuffing it with oppressive legislation and fear of an invisible enemy. Hope you had fun over the Fourth. http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/terrorism/hr3162.pdf ? http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/terrorism/hr5710homsecbil.pdf |