There’s always an excuse.
When politicians decide they need to pass some odious legislation, there’s always an excuse. “We need it to combat terrorism”, they say, “We need it to protect you. Problem is, they never explain who is going to protect us from them...Or even, in some cases, who exactly they are protecting us from.
Take, for example, Section 1076. Most of you have probably never heard of Section 1076, because it’s one of those nasty little pieces of work that they jammed through while you were enthralled with Terri Schiavo, or Mark Foley, or Laci Peterson.
What Section 1076 does is allow the president to declare martial law in case of a terrorist attack, rebellion - so far so good, but goes on to include conspiracy or a “shortfall of public order”. The last two terms are not defined by the legislation.
So basically, the president can, at his sole discretion, declare martial law if he believes there is a conspiracy, or if what he perceives as “public order” isn’t up to his - and only his - standards.
Ho ho! Are you ready for that? Are you ready for military-enforced draconian law, just because the president believes that some pesky protesters should shut the hell up, or because he feels that there is a conspiracy for pesky protesters to not shut the hell up? By the wording of this section, the president could declare martial law at a WTO protest. You think Seattle was bad? Har har! You haven’t seen anything yet.
We are told that this legislation will only be used for combating terrorism, domestic and foreign, etc. We are told to trust them...Just like we were told to trust them with the Patriot Act, which was only to be used on terrorists. Oddly enough, one of the main uses for the Patriot Act is to arrest music pirates...so, by their word, Little Billy downloading the latest Evanescence single qualifies him as a terrorist.
But what of it? I mean, it’s all in the interests of the Perfect State™, right? And when you’re out to build something like that, sometimes you have to - in the words of the oath-breaking scumbag Ollie North - “break a few constitutional eggs”. Or maybe you have to break a few citizens...but they were noisy protesters who block traffic anyway, so to hell with them, right?
Well, I have an opinion on that.
The president has said, “You’re either with us, or you’re against us.” Well, Mister President, I have to say that I am against you. I am against you and everything you stand for, because I have always preferred a republic - with all its inherent dangers - over the “safety” and “protection” you offer...Because, you see, we’ve heard this joke before. Bismark told it, Hitler told it, Mussolini told it, hell, even Uncle Joe Stalin told it.
And it wasn’t funny any of those times, either.
So I guess it’s time we told a few jokes of our own. And we have lots of jokes, don’t we, friends?
Or kill me.
