The Allegator

"I do not deny the allegation, I deny the allegator." – Jesse Jackson

Home Archives for Censorship

Dirty Politcs by the Obama Administration?

In this interview Ron Paul talks a bit about the stimulus bill, and the process by which it was introduced.

Ron Paul is an honest guy, so I’ll take him at his word until I see strong evidence otherwise.

Obama made a campaign promise to publish all legislation five days ahead of time to allow congress and the public to peruse it. He didn’t do this for the stimulus.

It could be argued that the stimulus is an emergency measure and should be exempt, but he also didn’t do this for children’s health insurance, which was hardly an emergency since it doesn’t kick in until mid-year. But this was more than a simple broken campaign promise; according to Ron Paul, the bill wasn’t revealed until the midnight before the vote, and was 1,000 pages.

This was made worse by making only five hard copies available, which seems to me to be a clear tactic to prevent the opposition from being able to work together to get it read and discussed before the vote.

Lets get this info out to the public at large. I want to see either a denial, an explanation, or a loss of credibility over of this one. If it is true, it is disappointing.

Extraordinary Rendition

Under the Bush administration, the CIA began a practice of nabbing people off of the streets all over the world (Extraordinary Rendition). They would be stripped, drugged, and flown via secret flights to secret locations, often allegedly chosen because of their lax laws on torture and interrogation. They were mistreated and interrogated, all without accusation, trial, or notification to either the country they were stolen from or their families. Many were released after years of torture without so much as an official accusation or apology.

Barack Obama has been conspicuously silent about the practice. He created a task force to reexamine renditions to make sure that they “do not result in the transfer of individuals to other nations to face torture”, but has otherwise taken no action to ban the practice. The L.A. Times cites an anonymous source within the Obama administration as saying, “The legal advisors working on this looked at rendition. It is controversial in some circles and kicked up a big storm in Europe. But if done within certain parameters, it is an acceptable practice.”.

At some point things like this have to fall under some sort of oversight. The danger of knowledge of capture affecting results is a short term one. Once an individual is noticed as missing, any organization they belong to would act under the assumption of capture. The risk of corruption that inevitably follows government unaccountability is then the greater threat. I could support the practice under very short term conditions. I can’t see holding anyone or more than a week without at least notification to their country of origin. Obama has banned torture and closed Gitmo. He has some credibility on the subject with me, but I’m going to be watching this one closely. I’ll update this post as more becomes available.

Unbelieveable! Pat Buchanan steps over the line in the sand!

Today, the post on the official Pat Buchanan website is entitled “Has Israel Become A Neo-Nazi Germany?”

Pat has done the unthinkable for a major political commentator, he has invoked Godwin’s law at the highest level, comparing the Jewish state to Nazi Germany.

James Carville once said about Hillary and Obama, “If she gave him one of her cojones, they’d both have two.” 

I would say of Pat Buchanan that if he gave Bush one of his cajones, the man wouldn’t be able to lift it.

Does freedom of speech work both ways?

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Traditionally the freedom of speech granted by the first amendment is thought of as the right to express yourself without being arrested for your viewpoint, but does it also protect you from being forced to express a viewpoint you don’t agree with? Some examples.

Could the government force you to:

  1. Do a public service announcement telling kids not to smoke?
  2. Take wedding photos for a gay marriage? Paint their portrait? Does it have to look good?
  3. Decry the holocaust in your blog post about the SS?
  4. Swear on a bible to tell the truth?
  5. Pledge allegiance to the flag? Complete with Under God?
  6. Photograph an equal number of women and men for your book on sumo wrestlers?

The constitution was drafted as a document to protect the few from the majority and the weak from the powerful.

If the government can force you express yourself in one way, chances are good that they will claim the right to do so in the others. For speech to be truly free, it cannot be coerced, however it would make our legal system more difficult if no one could be forced into incriminating others. The problem with the grey area in between is that those in power inexorably pull the greyscale towards their own desired ends, and the will of the people to defend the rights of those they disagree with often falters, especially in light of the uphill battle fighting the powers-that-be always entails.