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Whitaker's Current Articles January 31, 2004
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January 31, 2004 --
Shouting Out the Truth
January 31, 2004 --
Freedom Requires Discrimination
January 31, 2004 --
The Patriot Act is a Triumph of Nondiscrimination
January 31, 2004 --
The
Right Wants Everybody to be a Child, the Left Wants Everybody to
be a Criminal
Fun Quote:
In 1680, under the rigid Puritan laws governing
Massachusetts, one was not allowed to buy more than five quarts of
beer per day.
This stringent rule was made tolerable by the
fact that you could purchase all the opium you wanted.
Shouting
Out the Truth
A Supreme Court justice once said, "Freedom of speech does not
include the right to shout ‘Fire!' in a crowded theater."
I must have heard that piece of hogwash a thousand times, and
every time the person quoting it thought he was being Truly Wise.
But what if there IS a fire in a crowded theater? Am I supposed
to walk quietly to the exit and let everybody else cook?
What scares me is that I am the only person who has ever brought
that up.
In Britain, the question I just posed has been answered.
Joseph Pierce was sentenced to a year in prison for "inciting
racial hatred." The court admitted that everything
Pierce said was factual, but it also declared (The Crown versus
Joseph Pierce, 1986) that "The truth is no excuse."
So if there is a fire in a British theater and you see it, walk
to the exit and keep your mouth shut.
America has not degenerated to that extent yet.
Another Truly Wise quote is, "Freedom means you have the right to
do whatever you want to, so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else."
In other words, I can say anything I want to say, but only so long
as not one person is offended by it.
Freedom Requires Discrimination
Right after the September 11 attack, they began strip searching
grandmothers at airports. The reason for that was that the Feds
didn't want to discriminate.
The Secretary of Transportation was a Japanese-American, and
Japanese-Americans had been mistreated during World War II. So
he didn't want Arabs discriminated against. He didn't want
profiling because of a sixty-year-old grudge. He insisted that
everybody be treated like a potential terrorist.
Lawyers love to say that a repeat criminal who lives outside the
law has just as many rights as you and me. What they don't
mention is that that means that you and me get treated just like
repeat criminals.
If everybody is treated like a terrorist, there is no freedom. If
everybody is treated like a career criminal, freedom is a myth.
But I have never heard anybody mention that fact.
If illegal aliens are just "undocumented workers," that means that
you and I are here only at the pleasure of those who issue those
"documents."
If illegal aliens have all the rights of a citizen, that means
that you and I are without a country. They have Mexico, we are
in the United States only because we are "documented."
Allowing the Secretary of Transportation to oppress all of us
because he has a sixty-year-old grudge is insane. Treating
everybody like a repeat criminal is insane. Saying that you and I
only have a right to reside in the United States because those who
issue documents let us stay here is insane.
And insanity as national policy has consequences.
The Patriot Act is a Triumph of
Nondiscrimination
Under the Patriot Act, everybody is a potential terrorist. The
FBI can search your house randomly, because if the law said
anything else, it would be discriminating. Some people have
found this shocking.. They shouldn't.
Once you accept the idea that everybody should be treated as a
career criminal, you have given up your rights. Once you accept
the idea that potential terrorists cannot be profiled, you have
declared that you yourself should be treated as a potential terrorist.
Once you accept the idea that illegal aliens are "undocumented
aliens," it means you are only in this country because those who
issue those documents, the Federal authorities, let you be here.
So those who let you live in this country, the Federal
Authorities, have a right of search and seizure which is
unlimited.
You cannot limply accept each stage of the process and then
suddenly get upset when the logic you have accepted turns into the
Patriot Act.
And if everybody is a potential terrorist, if everybody is a
criminal, if everybody lives here at the sufferance of those who
issue documents, how can we be free?
The
Right Wants Everybody to be a Child, the Left Wants Everybody to
be a Criminal
The right wants to censor the Internet. They say they are
all for freedom, they are just concerned about the children.
The right says that children can get into adult movies, so there
should be no adult movies.
That means that any communications medium children can get access
to should be treated as a medium for children.
If you treat everybody like a child, you don't need a
dictatorship.
The right wants to censor the Internet in the name of the
children. The left wants to censor violence. Any citizen who
owns a gun is regarded by leftists as being the same as a repeat
criminal who has a gun.
When it comes to guns, the left often uses the right's excuse.
They say that the National Rifle Association wants to hand out
guns to kids.
There is a coalition for censoring the Internet. Leftists who
want to treat everybody like a criminal are making common cause
with the rightists who want to treat everybody like a child.
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