Posted by Anthony Martin
Fri, 09 Nov 2007 14:02:00 GMT
Imagine what the public reaction might be, if one day the House of Representatives approved legislation that required citizens to register their religious affiliation with a new federal department called the Religious Registry Council, also amending the REAL ID Act of 2005.
Upon registration with the RRC, everyone’s religious affiliation would be categorized and recorded in a central database. Then, when each citizen receives his or her standardized, federal ID, a corresponding religious symbol is added to the front of the card, right beside the photo.
Those who do not elect to associate with a religious affiliation would not have a symbol. Those who want to associate with a new religion not part of the registry can fill out paper-work to add a new religion to the registry. Some people may have their own unique religion. Others might be part of an established religion. It doesn’t matter to the government.
You can register Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Latter Day Saints, Jedi, whatever.
What harm would it do? Congress isn’t making a law establishing religion, right? It’s just a centralized database. It’s just being collected for security measures. It will save lives.
Because we all know some religions are more violent than others, and having data ahead of time, before those who are part of those violent religions become radicalized, would represent another tool for law enforcement to prevent terrorist attacks. It would also prevent some forms of racial profiling, since people who register with certain affiliations give hints in the form of rich demographic data that the government can use in one way or the other. Some people would be hassled more based on their RVPI (Religious/Violence Probability Index), not their skin color.
Ok, maybe I didn’t sell the idea very well, but the truth is, I didn’t intend to.
Here’s the point I intended to illustrate with the above nonsense. Somehow, we all know this is absolutely wrong. Somehow, we know intrinsically that this is no different than what Nazi Germany did to their Jewish population. We can all plainly see how this added “security” is itself a violation. Asking for citizens to identify their religious affiliation so that data can be collected for security measures is wrong, even if there is objective documentation that guarantees it can save lives. Somehow, there’s a line, and we know it cannot be crossed.
This week, President Pervez Musharraf defended his military dictatorship and subsequent crackdown on dissidents, comparing it to U.S. actions after 9/11. Pakistani (state approved) television reported that Musharraf announced elections will be held in Pakistan before February 15. The announcement comes following former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s statement that she will not delay major protests scheduled for today.
Pakistan is following the lead that the U.S. demonstrated and continues to demonstrate for the world. The Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act, REAL ID Act, and HR 1955 represent an obvious erosion of our rights. It doesn’t matter if the “wave of abuses” has or has not been observed. The mere existence of these legislative monstrosities as signed by President Bush are themselves a violation.
We know that my fictitious Religious Registry Council idea would be a violation even before the “wave of abuses.” We know it is a violation even if we all stipulate that it would save lives. There are lines we won’t cross. Yet, we have crossed them before.
Posted by Anthony Martin
Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:34:00 GMT
Eric Margolis says that the democracy movement and the Islamic militants are fighting the dictatorship. The key point made in this interview was the statement, when Margolis continued:
What we call Islamic Terrorism, or this so-called Faux War on Terror, that’s used as a justification by “right-wingers” everywhere, to undermine democratic systems, the main impetus behind Islamic militancy is against dictatorial governments in the Muslim world. They’re not fighting against the west, they’re fighting against western imposed governments in their areas.
Posted by Aaron Jackson
Fri, 21 Sep 2007 15:26:00 GMT
I asked my brother Adam, from The Sitter Downers, to help me explain why leaving Iraq is a bad idea. Below are his comments which I agree with wholeheartedly.
I am most likely in the minority in believing that we should stay in Iraq. War is terrible. I don’t like it. I wish people didn’t have to die. I wish the world was at peace, but since I’m not a lib…
1) If we left there would be no order whatsoever. The Iraqi government and military is not ready to do the job, even though it should be by now. If there is a chance that something like Cambodia would happen again, like after we left Vietnam, we should stay.
2) We started this mess (sort of) so we should finish it. There are Sheiks in Iraq who are going out on a limb in their respective communities, and they are counting on us to back them up.
3) Bin laden has referred to us a paper tiger. Al-Queda and the middle east in general think that America doesn’t have the stomach for war, and they are right. Our soldiers operate under ridiculous rules of engagement. That is to say, we are at war but aren’t allowed to be killers. More “ruthlessness” during this war may have ended it by now. Our enemies are counting on what the North Vietnamese counted on and received. They are hopelessly out gunned, but they know that if they make things bad enough and gruesome enough there is a large element in America who don’t understand war is necessary and let their emotions rule in regard to it. The terrorists are hoping to win by default. When we’ve had enough we leave. In my opinion America needs to remind the bad guys that we are tougher than they are. In effect the war is “good for our brand”. We will never do this of course. We need to erase the notion that America has a lot of weapons but wont use them. The overall policy of appeasement/apathy through the last fifteen or so years is part of, in my opinion, what opened the window for 9/11. There were numerous attacks on American interests during the 90’s that we basically did nothing about. Unfortunately the people we are dealing with aren’t nice guys and they understand one thing—a bullet to the head.
4) Iran is actively involved in Americans dying, with fighters and weapons coming over the border. Not to mention, their President wants to destroy is real. This is another country that we should not be sending weak signals to. Leaving Iraq is not only surrendering to Al-Queda, it is also surrendering to Iran. With Iran injecting itself into the world stage we would be stupid to send a message like that.
5) Oil. The left’s accusations is that we went to war for oil and in a sense I believe we did. Some would have you believe that the US went to take Iraq’s oil and start shipping it over here—BS. Whether the left likes it or not, oil is the life’s blood of the world, and we need to protect our interest where the oil is. Having an oil producing country friendly to us, right in the middle of the whole mess would be huge. Whether or not that will ever happen I don’t know.
6) Our investment in billions of dollars and thousand of dead Americans is huge. Four thousand Americans dead. Twenty five thousand wounded. I’m not OK with leaving all that behind in the sand.
7) The main reason not to leave is what we are doing there. We are killing terrorists, and they are joining up and showing up to be killed. Those men want us dead and my kids dead so they must die. We have been killing 1,500 terrorists a month. It took less than twenty to bring about 9/11.
8) Leaving = Surrender
9) Our enemies will never win in a firefight. They are COUNTING on the American populace to win for them. Dissenters may be genuine in their opinions but they need to use a little more wisdom when expressing those opinions—especially those that are on the public stage. Anti-war sentiments, no matter how well intentioned, wind up on Al Jezeera used as propaganda against our soldiers.
I am willing to give a little on why we went the first place, and I freely admit that we have screwed up a couple things in a major way that we should have known better about. But the current reality is that we are there, and to leave tomorrow would be insane.
