That's the headline from the subversives at ABC news.

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2770381&page=1

Another one of Bush's wonderful signing statements exempting our federal government from its own laws.  This time it's for a "postal reform" bill.

The White House says not to worry because they've always had the power to do unreasonable searches and seizures.  The Heritage Foundation says it's to protect you against drug dealers and terrorists.  Besides--all together now:
"If you don't have anything to hide, you don't have anything to worry about!"

I'm always grateful for the hands-off, "Government that governs best governs least" approach of those Ronald Reagan Republicans!
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/08/sagrin.gif

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=154518

I read this in the paper this morning. It reminds me of a story told by Utah Phillips. I tried to find it but couldn't (but you can hear it on his song "Hallelujah I'm a Bum". So, I'm going to try to paraphase.


Utah said that he knew the FBI had been opening his mail for years. He said that they had to learn that radical stuff somewhere and it might as well have been from his mail. He said that he did "light farming" or "heavy gardening" and because he was on the road a lot, he wasn't always home to dig up the fields. One time he wrote to his partner, "Whatever you do, don't dig up the backyard because that is where the guns are buried." So the FBI came in and dug up the backyard and when he got home, the fields were ready for planting.  :D ;D ;D



Cat

I read this in the paper this morning. It reminds me of a story told by Utah Phillips. I tried to find it but couldn't (but you can hear it on his song "Hallelujah I'm a Bum". So, I'm going to try to paraphase.


Utah said that he knew the FBI had been opening his mail for years. He said that they had to learn that radical stuff somewhere and it might as well have been from his mail. He said that he did "light farming" or "heavy gardening" and because he was on the road a lot, he wasn't always home to dig up the fields. One time he wrote to his partner, "Whatever you do, don't dig up the backyard because that is where the guns are buried." So the FBI came in and dug up the backyard and when he got home, the fields were ready for planting.  :D ;D ;D



Cat

http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/14/sign10.gif
Ah, Utah Philips.  Who says radicals have no sense of humor?

All joking aside, this makes my blood boil.  Bush's signing statements are unconstitutional.  He swore an oath* to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.  That is his first duty as president of the United States.  He violates it time and again.  Congress has a duty under the constitution to impeach George W. Bush, and they're not going to do it.  They say, "Oh, well then we won't get anything else done."  You know something, I don't mind the rest of the agenda getting the back burner, even if it does hurt the country in the short run.  In the long run, congress setting a precedent that says "we will not tolerate a regal executive branch that thinks it's above the constitution" will do more to insure the safety and security of our republic than this bogus "war on terror."  As the folks back home say, "If you wanna make an omlet, you gotta break some eggs."  Even so, they're not going to impeach Bush.

If Bill Clinton declared he could open your mail if he d@mn will felt like it, every right-wing think tank and every right-wing pundit would be screaming for the president's summary ouster.  Every Bubba redneck would be throwing PBR cans at the TV screen and reaching for his gun rack.

Since Bush did it, he's a patriotic president protecting his people in a time of war.

Even the cool reception of this thread is startling to me.  The president of the United States nullifies the 4th amendment and it's like, Jimmy crack corn and I don't care.  Ain't gonna affect me!

The Bushies chalk it up to a matter of national security.  Of course it is.  When the executive branch is despised post-coup fascist regime, everything is a a matter of national security--for their crooked azzes!

http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/08/pyth.gif

Now I know who took my "High Times" magazine >:(  Now I'm sorry I blamed the neighbors kid.

http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/14/sign10.gif
Ah, Utah Philips.  Who says radicals have no sense of humor?

All joking aside, this makes my blood boil.  Bush's signing statements are unconstitutional.  He swore an oath* to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States of America.  That is his first duty as president of the United States.  He violates it time and again.  Congress has a duty under the constitution to impeach George W. Bush, and they're not going to do it.  They say, "Oh, well then we won't get anything else done."  You know something, I don't mind the rest of the agenda getting the back burner, even if it does hurt the country in the short run.  In the long run, congress setting a precedent that says "we will not tolerate a regal executive branch that thinks it's above the constitution" will do more to insure the safety and security of our republic than this bogus "war on terror."  As the folks back home say, "If you wanna make an omlet, you gotta break some eggs."  Even so, they're not going to impeach Bush.

If Bill Clinton declared he could open your mail if he d@mn will felt like it, every right-wing think tank and every right-wing pundit would be screaming for the president's summary ouster.  Every Bubba redneck would be throwing PBR cans at the TV screen and reaching for his gun rack.

Since Bush did it, he's a patriotic president protecting his people in a time of war.

Even the cool reception of this thread is startling to me.  The president of the United States nullifies the 4th amendment and it's like, Jimmy crack corn and I don't care.  Ain't gonna affect me!

The Bushies chalk it up to a matter of national security.  Of course it is.  When the executive branch is despised post-coup fascist regime, everything is a a matter of national security--for their crooked azzes!

http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/08/pyth.gif



I couldn't agree with you more. It does make me angry-VERY ANGRY! I can't believe that more people aren't outraged by this.



Cat

Maybe with the Dems in control they'll put the reign on things.  (Hopefully!!)

Maybe with the Dems in control they'll put the reign on things.  (Hopefully!!)



That is what I am hoping but I am not getting my hopes up too high.



Cat

That is what I am hoping but I am not getting my hopes up too high.



Cat


It can't get any worse with them in power.  Let's hope they remember the reasons why we elected them.

"No One's In Control When The Government's The Enemy."

Ugh, this is disgusting.
My mail is my own personal business. Now, I have nothing to hide, but you know that wont be the half of it. Anything said against this administration is considered an act of near terrorism. We all remember the old guy up in Montana or wherever it was that had Narcs on him within the hour because he'd said he wished somebody would get rid of the POTUS.

E-mail! The last bastion of freedom.. you so know the NSA Echelon System has been reading your e-mail for years!

Now I know who took my "High Times" magazine >:(  Now I'm sorry I blamed the neighbors kid.


Exactly.  Whether or not you have a subscription to "High Times" is constitutionally nobody's business but your own.  Today I would feel uneasy about subscribing to publications such as "High Times," "Hustler," or "Soldier of Fortune" because I'm nervous about the government.  The fact that I feel that way at all is a serious problem.  That's called a "chilling effect" and we as a nation fought against this kind of intimidation for over 100 years.  Now we're just lying down and taking it.

Where is the Libertarian Party?  Every time a Democrat says boo about gun control, those guys go apoplectic.  Bush rescinds the right to habeas corpus and gives himself permission to seize your personal mail and I don't hear from the libertarians.
::)

Exactly.  Whether or not you have a subscription to "High Times" is constitutionally nobody's business but your own.  Today I would feel uneasy about subscribing to publications such as "High Times," "Hustler," or "Soldier of Fortune" because I'm nervous about the government.  The fact that I feel that way at all is a serious problem.  That's called a "chilling effect" and we as a nation fought against this kind of intimidation for over 100 years.  Now we're just lying down and taking it.

Where is the Libertarian Party?  Every time a Democrat says boo about gun control, those guys go apoplectic.  Bush rescinds the right to habeas corpus and gives himself permission to seize your personal mail and I don't hear from the libertarians.
::)


Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  Bush and company have thumbed their nose at it all.

The scary thing, Max, is that its NOT just Bush and his cronies. Its NOT just the Republican party. For the last 30 years our society has become more and more restrictive and bureaucratic. In 1955 if you had told people that they were going to have to undergo criminal background checks just to rent an apartment, or that the government was going to be able to see what you checked out at the library, or CERTAINLY if you had told them the government would be able to read your mail one day, they would have scoffed. If faced with such things in their own time, they would have gone nuts. I think our society is now full of people who are too chickensh*t, or possibly just too ignorant to wake up and realise whats going on. This is an era of rules, it goes way beyond just having a normal sense of the rule of law.

Another thing that would have REALLY outrages a person from the 1950s to hear about today is how there are laws now that require you to carry some form of official government I.D., and that technically you can actually be arrested for "failure to identify". Talk about "show me your papers, comrade"! :D

The scary thing, Max, is that its NOT just Bush and his cronies. Its NOT just the Republican party. For the last 30 years our society has become more and more restrictive and bureaucratic. In 1955 if you had told people that they were going to have to undergo criminal background checks just to rent an apartment, or that the government was going to be able to see what you checked out at the library, or CERTAINLY if you had told them the government would be able to read your mail one day, they would have scoffed. If faced with such things in their own time, they would have gone nuts. I think our society is now full of people who are too chickensh*t, or possibly just too ignorant to wake up and realise whats going on. This is an era of rules, it goes way beyond just having a normal sense of the rule of law.

Another thing that would have REALLY outrages a person from the 1950s to hear about today is how there are laws now that require you to carry some form of official government I.D., and that technically you can actually be arrested for "failure to identify". Talk about "show me your papers, comrade"! :D


What you are seeing is the collapse of the middle class in a post-industrial society.  Trust no one.  You're credit score determines your mobility.  Trust no one.  Keep tabs on all.  Fear, fear, fear.  The gap between the rich and the poor is now greater than at any time since 1929.  The rich are getting fewer and richer, and the poor are getting more numerous and poorer.  TRUST NO ONE.  You are a subversive merely for suggesting a landlord should not have access to your background records, or an employer should not be able to check your credit score.  I notice how the average person born post-1980 takes the fascist state for granted.  It's the way things ought to be.  They've don't remember life before Reagan, and they aren't interested in finding out about it. 

On a different thread, our resident Rush Limbaugh condemned people for saying they would work harder if they made more money.  He said, first you work harder and then you make more money.  It ain't necessarily so.  And the prevailing myth is that millionaires work harder than the rest of us.


The disparity between this lie and reality makes us all more suspicious and less civil. 

Our country's cultural decadence gives the illusion of greater freedom.  Pornography was illegal in the 1950s and it's ubiquitous today, so we must be less repressed, right?  Hey, a t*tty bar on every corner means were free!  Sure, have fun guys.  As Dude correctly points out, the average American today, as opposed to fifty years ago, has less wealth, less mobility, less privacy, and gets monitored, scrutinized, and rated by the corporate-government complex in ways even George Orwell never imagined. 

Why should we expect privacy in our postal transactions?  We gave it up everywhere else.  The sad thing is we did not lose our privacy to a government that imposed itself against our will, we really lost our privacy to private corporations (and the private credit bureaus) who sold us a line that they were on our side! 

Take note.  When TV networks broadcast those "free credit report" ads, they always say, "find out the good news, you have more purchasing power than you thought!"  On the contrary, more Americans are in more debt than ever before, and for most what you find out from the credit bureaus is onerous and oppressive.  But not according to those slick commercials!  Got a bad credit score, bud?  You must be some kind of irresponsible azzwhole!
::)

Young Britons today have more upward mobility than young Americans.  That has never been true since the founding of the United States.  But it's true now.  The truth is if you are born in America today, you have a less of a chance of living at or above your parents' standard of living.  Yet the right-wing media continues to trot out the lie that work ethic will make you rich if you just expend enough faith and elbow grease. 


How is this true?

I guarantee you, if I decided to stay in Britain I would be in a much worse state than If I were living in the US.

It's impossible to find a decent job, buying a house is becoming.. literally impossible.. as you are far more likely to end up with a 150% mortgage.

I'm not disagreeing with you that the gap is getting bigger, but Yo, gimme facts.

The problem is that the American public acquieces to everything that bush does.  Support the President right or wrong, what kind of crap is that.  Despair, and thoughts of staying close to the border, passport ready and in hand.  Is this the kind of country I want my child to inherit, or be subjected to after I am gone.  The people, the people, I despair.  >:(

Man, I didn't trust anyone to begin with...now I REALLY don't. >:(

Man, I didn't trust anyone to begin with...now I REALLY don't. >:(

Oh, so you were lying to me before, huh?
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/09/smhair.gif

Now is the time for Mike to play Devil's Advocate.

I am curious.  Where in the Constitution that you have a right to privacy in your mail?  By defintion, the mail leaves your possession, and then is sent randomly by the US Government.  From the moment you drop it in the box (or the carrier picks it up), it is then in the control of the Government.  And I have to admit, like it or not, there is a clear precident that they do have the right to inspect things that are in their possession and control.

The answer?  If you are paranoid about having your mail searched, do not use the Postal Service.  Instead send all packages and letters through a private company, like Fed-Ex, UPS, DHL, or somebody else.  Because at that time, a warrant would be required because it is not in Government control.

I do not care for the idea myself.  But I can also see how and why they are making the claim.  After all, if a buddy gives you a duffelbag to take to Oregon with you, is it not "in your possession" if you are stopped by the cops, and they find it full of grass?  Do you not have the right to inspect something in your control with or without a warrant?

edit: Sorry, I'll just keep my mouth shut.