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"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is in prison."
--Henry David Thoreau
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"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
-Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution
Click Here for Fourth Amendment News
In these times of mass hysteria, especially at our nation's airports, we must continue to remind ourselves, and others, of the fourth amendment's protections against search and seizure without Warrant.
In reponse to the fourth amendment, which does not allow for federally-enforced pat-downs, strip searches or baggage inspections in airports, subways, or anywhere else, many have commented to us in manners such as this:
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"we have to submit to being searched"
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"it's the only way to stop terrorists"
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"they'll never take advantage of the power to search randomly"
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"if you aren't guilty, what are you afraid of?"
The Populist Party Position: The federal government has gone much too far in taking our liberties at every little turn, and violations of the 4th amendment have been some of the most egregious. In forcing all Americans to submit to being searched like criminals just to travel, they have eliminated the fourth amendment in the name of security.
Nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government given the power to force citizens, without probable cause, to show their papers, remove clothing, submit their effects to search, and the like. Ben Franklin truly put it best with his famous comments:
"They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
For an excellent perspective, we urge you to read the late Harry Browne's powerful treatise, "If You Aren't Guilty, What Are You Afraid Of" | |
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A Nation with an Anesthetized Conscience
by Ben Tanosborn
The Bush administration has apparently done a creditable job in anesthetizing the American conscience in preparation for surgical procedures that permit unchallenged expansion of the empire, internationally; and major socio-economic restructuring, nationally. Nine-eleven gave Bush the anesthetics to put the nation to sleep, to get the population ready to go under the knife.
Read More...
The Diebold Congress
by Stephen Neitzke
Diebold hack-o-matic vote-counting software -- ditto ES&S and Sequoia -- is the only imaginable reason that politicians standing for reelection would continue the abject irresponsibility that this pack of predatory fascist criminals displays.
Read More...
Does Anyone Still Read History?
by Steve Osborn
I've been told over the years, "Write anything you want, but don't criticize Israel." I've had articles rejected a number of times because there was an implied criticism of Israeli politics. There comes a time when trying to educate, trying to wake up people means breaking that hitherto apparently sacred commandment.
Read More...
Your Taxes Subsidize China
by Ron Paul
Each year the people of the United States write a check to subsidize China, one of the most brutal, anti-American regimes in the world. Lately it has been in vogue for everyone in Washington to eagerly denounce the egregious abuses of the Chinese people at the hands of their communist dictators. Yet no one in our federal government has been willing to take China on in any meaningful way
Read More...
Terror Nation: Lies, Injustice, and the American Empire's Way
by Jason Miller
Suspension of civil liberties, concentration of power into the hands of the Executive branch, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocents civilians, collective punishment of millions through wanton destruction of infrastructure, widespread dissemination of depleted uranium, reduction of wasteful spending on "useless eaters" via massive cuts in entitlement spending, ongoing ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank, torture, denial of justice to "enemy combatants", massive tax cuts to the wealthy, obscene increases in defense spending, propaganda blitzes to keep the public believing horrendous lies, preemptive war, reduced government restriction of corporate exploitation of humans and the environment, and continued neocolonial expansion are all essential to the United States fulfilling its Manifest Destiny and ending the terrorist threat.
Read More... | |
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CLICK HERE TO READ MORE COMMENTARY »
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Collateral damage is nothing more than a euphemism for state-sponsored mass murder. It is the term given to people killed in military actions who were "not intentionally targeted." In reality, this is pure propaganda. It has always been morally just to protect innocent people against aggressors. But, on the other hand, it has never been moral, nor has it ever been necessary, to bomb cities filled with innocent people.
We rarely see the faces or know the identities of those reduced to the status of collateral damage. It is a gray area where the victim becomes less than a person. Interestingly enough, during the Vietnam War, both Henry Kissinger and Robert McNamara used the term "integers" to describe those civilian deaths that they preferred not to have publicized as human beings. Such is the amazing power of doublespeak.
Civilians killed incidental to what the dominant power refers to as "progress" are called collateral damage, while those killed intentionally are victims of "terrorism." But all too often, unfortunately, it's quite difficult to tell the difference between the two. Governments regularly do one and call it the other, but the end result is still the same; dead civilians. So, no matter name you give it (War on Terrorism, Spreading Democracy, Regime Change, Defending our Freedoms), when war is taken to a civilian population, isn't it nothing more than terrorism and murder, even if you later call the victims collateral damage?
Come to think of it, there is probably no term that is more repugnant and immoral than the one that discards the importance of other people's lives are mere collateral damage; especially when their deaths become incidental to the conquest of some military or political objective. As collateral damage, these people suffer the same outcome as fat discarded by a butcher.
It is important to note, however, that those who use the term "collateral damage" strategically always seem to apply it to foreigners; such as Iraqis and Afghanis. Even when a two-ton, laser-guided bomb is dropped on a small village, it's claimed that the mass deaths were "inadvertent" and "tragic," and that they could have been prevented if the "terrorists" would just stop fighting back, or as some of us call it, resisting. So, rather than treating these people as human beings victimized by evil actions, they are simply written off as collateral damage, i.e., rubble.
Excerpted Article. Read Full Essay Here:
http://www.populistamerica.com/collateral_damage_is_murder | |
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"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime."
- Ernest Hemingway
"It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets."
- Voltaire
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| About This Newsletter
The Populist Party of America newsletter is an opt-in list. Recipients must register to receive this newsletter. If you have received this newsletter in error or would like to unsubscribe, please click on the link at the bottom of this message.
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In closing, a huge thanks to every one of you for everything that you do. It is only through your support that we can all work together to make the real American dream come true; liberty, peace and prosperity!
In the spirit of liberty,
From All of Us on the Populist Party team
Copyright 2005-2006, The Populist Party of America | |
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