Tuesday, May 17, 2011

The knock on the door

By Capt. Fogg

We've got a hard core Socialist Radical in the White House if you listen to people like the Koch Brothers -- and make no mistake, we do listen to them whether we want to or not and whether the slander comes from their mouths or the thousand mouths that speak their words. Yet the slide toward the right, the slide toward authoritarianism, the slide toward the business of America being war, continues without much popular resistance. Unless you mean the resistance of the voters of course but the voters don't matter since they're drawn along like hyena puppies following their mother, snarling about Socialism and Taxes.

Can we blame Obama, who hasn't done much to stop the wars, close the torture chambers and offshore prisons, end the DADT charade, temper the growing power of the Executive Branch or give us the kind of transparency in government we were promised? Sure we can, but if every naive campaign promise had been acted upon, we'd still have a long way to go to stop that slide.

Even while the Republicans, including my own Representative Tom Rooney, (R-FL) are howling about Obama exceeding his powers by authorizing a no-fly zone in Libya, his party has proposed giving the president even more war powers. The House Armed Services Committee's National Defense Authorization Act would authorize the United States to use military force anywhere there are terrorism suspects, including within the U.S. itself, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. Yes, yes, I know, you hate the ACLU Libtards, but I don't suppose you like the idea of a president sending the marines to your neighborhood or invading any country the president suspects may be harboring "terrorists" either. As it stands there was little opposition in the house save for one member of the House Armed Services Committee: Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) who was the sole dissenter. Now let's all raise our right arms and shout "Libtard."

The President didn't ask for this awesome power boost. He didn't suggest that he needed it. He didn't ask for the extra billions in military spending or another extension of the Afghanistan War. It was the smaller government folks. It was the Republican House hissing with a forked tongue from both sides of their smirking mouths.

Yes, we're sliding and it's not toward Socialism but toward a military/police surveillance state. It's the courts, like the Indiana Supreme Court that has handed us a ruling suggesting that Indiana Police no longer need warrants nor to be in hot pursuit nor need they have probable cause to enter and search your home for any reason - and may beat hell out of you with impunity if you "resist."

“A right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence,"reads the decision.


And we're babbling about Planned Parenthood and NPR and the ACLU Commies and against right of the government to flood some fields to save millions of people or take poison of the store shelves in violation of sacred property rights. We're fantasizing about being economic secessionists free or restriction or responsibility. We're oozing lofty proclamations about property rights and the government of no government like medieval monks talking about angels and pinheads and hunting for witches and heretics.

Obama can't fix this and all the Republicans can do is offer people like Tim Pawlenty, Michelle Bachmann. Maybe we can't fix it either and if you want to know who's to blame, you need look no farther than your bathroom mirror.

6 comments:

  1. WTF? Military force used in the states? That's so scary; I can't believe that Congress would even consider such a step.

    The Posse Comitatus Act, passed in 1878, limits the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement. It's not a blanket exclusion, for instance a governor may call out the National Guard to handle law enforcement in face of a disaster or emergency. If you recall, it was the National Guard that offered protection to the students who integrated the schools.

    This is down right scary if Congress is considering repealing Posse Comitatus. Bush got Congress to pass a temporary exclusion so that the military could engage in law enforcement activities following Katrina but that exclusion law was repealed.

    Posse Comitatus prohibits Army and Air Force personnel and units of the National Guard under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress. The Navy and Marine Corps are prohibited by a Department of Defense directive, not by the Act itself and the Coast Guard, under the Department of Homeland Security, is exempt from the Act. I repeat, the idea that Congress would authorize repeal of Posse Comitatus is truly scary and Captain, I fear that your dire prediction of a police state is right on target.

    I realize that I'm being repetitive but I share your dismay and concern and I feel quite discomfited by this information. If the ACLU is correct then we, the people, need to act and contact our congress persons and tell them, hell to the no!

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  2. Disturbing article from 2008 by Greenwald regarding an apparent loophole in the Posse Comitatus Act that has already allowed a blending of military and police action for homeland security purposes. Link to article.

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  3. I'm really suffering from outrage overload. Giving a damn is too painful and maybe sitting on the sidelines while it all slides down hill is the only way to preserve what sanity I have left. Trying to stop it is like trying to stop a glacier with a cigarette lighter.

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  4. Let's try this again with proofreading!

    I empathize Captain. As much as I try to maintain my optimism that we can all make a difference, there are times when I just want to retire to my front porch with a good book and a glass of lemonade and forget about it.

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  5. Well guess what I'm doing this afternoon -- well ok, it's the back porch but close enough.

    We can't let them take the joy of living away from us.

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  6. Not that I want to go and sound all trustful of a SCOTUS that seats the likes of Messieurs Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, but this Indiana decision is just so ridiculously beyond the pale that I can't imagine the SCOTUS won't strike it down. In essence, the ruling seems to imply that the police are always right and citizens have no rights that a policeman is bound to regard.

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