This is war! For the duration, we are going to have to give up some of the civil rights we have become accustomed to. We had better be prepared to lose some of our civil rights temporarily, or we will most certainly lose all of them, permanently.
And, don't worry that it is a slippery slope. We gave up plenty of civil rights during WWII, and immediately restored them after the victory, and in fact, added many more since then.
We won't quote Ben Franklin. Our choice is H. L. Mencken:
I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave.
4 comments:
What else to expect from the same "compassionately conservative" moron who has called for the death penalty against doctors who perform abortions? The voters in Oklahoma need to send Coburn packing back to his mobile home so he can brush his tooth, but somehow I have a feeling he'll probably be re-elected when the time comes...
Ron,
You write:
"What is wrong with men like Coburn? He rants about 'Muslim terrorists' being to blame for Sept. 11, 2001 ..."
... in a manner that implies you believe someone other than "Muslim terrorists" were to blame for Sept. 11, 2001.
Okay, I'll bite: Whodunit?
Regards,
Tom Knapp
Hi Tom:
The second half of the sentence says it:
He rants about "Muslim terrorists" being to blame for Sept. 11, 2001, and says all of us have to hand over freedoms to remain safe and secure.
Perhaps shockingly, I don't quarrel with Coburn when he identifies Muslim extremists as the culprits. When a Hispanic woman robbed banks in Virginia, the cops weren't eyeballing black women (or white men) for the crimes.
My complaint with Coburn on this issue is his call for all of us ("we") to give up some civil rights. Last I checked, the Sept. 11 hijackers weren't American citizens. So why punish American citizens for the actions of non-Americans?
I was in Oklahoma during the last election. Coburn was re-elected even though he told the Cherokee Nation they weren't "really" Native Americans and called the state legislature "a bunch of crap-heads."
Jeff Boggs
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