On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 20:48:02 GMT, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:

Guido wrote:
Ed Huntress wrote:


This is a time in US history when there are no clear goals, no
direction, no generally agreed idea of "progress." It is a time of
stagnancy and ennui. It will pass, but, until it does, absolutist
religion is an answer that is attractive to the many people who are
extremely uncomfortable with all of the uncertainty and lack of
direction.


Yep we were watching some documentary a week or so ago on
Fundamentalist/Creationist/IDers and there was an overwhelming sense
that here was a group of people looking for absolute assurances,
something solid they could cling to whilst the world around them
shifted.

The entire issue reminds me of the "Red Scare" of the 50's.
I have yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that anyone is
being denied the right to practice religion outside the confines of
Publicly financed places. There does, on the other hand, appear to be an
ongoing effort to subvert and divert public moneys to support an entire host
of religious groups or perspectives. That effort isn't meeting with much
success and it won't in all likelyhood.
Noone in the US is denied their religious preference or the ability to
practice it. That isn't the same thing as being able to use public resources
to promote the same.

Hummm could be. It sounds very similar to the big scare the leftists
are pushing about lack of freedoms, encroaching slavery, removal of
privacy etc etc.

Ive yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that anyone has
lost their freedoms or privacy because of interception of phone calls,
or having their library records checked, or even as a direct result of
the Patriot Act.

Lots of What ifs...much like the Religion thing, huh?

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 20:48:02 GMT, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:

Guido wrote:
Ed Huntress wrote:


This is a time in US history when there are no clear goals, no
direction, no generally agreed idea of "progress." It is a time of
stagnancy and ennui. It will pass, but, until it does, absolutist
religion is an answer that is attractive to the many people who are
extremely uncomfortable with all of the uncertainty and lack of
direction.


Yep we were watching some documentary a week or so ago on
Fundamentalist/Creationist/IDers and there was an overwhelming sense
that here was a group of people looking for absolute assurances,
something solid they could cling to whilst the world around them
shifted.

The entire issue reminds me of the "Red Scare" of the 50's.
I have yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that anyone
is being denied the right to practice religion outside the confines
of Publicly financed places. There does, on the other hand, appear
to be an ongoing effort to subvert and divert public moneys to
support an entire host of religious groups or perspectives. That
effort isn't meeting with much success and it won't in all
likelyhood.
Noone in the US is denied their religious preference or the ability
to practice it. That isn't the same thing as being able to use
public resources to promote the same.

Hummm could be. It sounds very similar to the big scare the leftists
are pushing about lack of freedoms, encroaching slavery, removal of
privacy etc etc.

I have heard little about lacking freedoms or encroaching slavery but
privacy is out the door for now.
Personally, I think your neighborhood could be made terrorist free for
certain if everybody's guns were confiscated.
That doesn't count for much but if W decides that is the case you're ****ed.
In fact, you will have ****ed yourself ( yes, Again).


Ive yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that anyone has
lost their freedoms or privacy because of interception of phone calls,
or having their library records checked, or even as a direct result of
the Patriot Act.

Well, Jose Padilla sure did. He'd be serving a legitimate prison sentence by
now if he'd been charged timely. As it is he may walk.
Pretty ****ing stupid don't you think?

--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com

On 30 Dec 2005 11:52:04 -0800, jim rozen
wrote:

In article .com, Gus says...

Their goal is pure and simple: to teach religion in public
schools. Read the court decsion about the Dover, PA case.

And how does that balance out what the ACLU has been doing for 40 years?

News Flash: Relgion is not to be taught in public schools. Never
was, never will be.

Does it matter if the courts, the constitution, the aclu, or
the school board, says it? Which one convinces you?

Jim

Actually Jim, religion is taught in public schools every day. There
are Islamic studies and so forth in many schools.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

On 30 Dec 2005 11:57:19 -0800, jim rozen
wrote:

In article , Gunner Asch says...

Jim...a large number of Libertairans are atheist or agnostics..and
they paid heavily. I kicked in a bit, and Im far from a born againer.

Once again, you display MooreOns Syndrome..where you have been
conditioned by the Left to kneejerk at the slightest mention of
religion, or Bush.

Ah, now I understand. The shrubbie has become a libertarian now?

How do you, as a card-carrying member, feel about that?

Jim

Jim..Im a Republitarian. Have been for years. Im a realistic
libertarian (small L) that believes some government is necessary.
Some. As little as possible. But I also believe in closed borders, etc
etc, unlike Large L libertarians.

Now you seem to think that my support of Bush and many, not all, but
many of his policies, somehow makes me some Nazi or whatever dreck you
currently use for demonization. In fact, I deplore many of Bush's
polcies, both for evading some important issues like immigration, and
others for not going far enough. He is a moderate. Shrug..and we
thought we had elected a Conservative. We were wrong. On the other
hand..we didnt elect a Marxist..which gives me hope. Nor are we likely
to, as the political spectrum rebounds from the very far Left shift
that occurred since the 60s (and before)

You tend to lean towards the Socialist end of the spectrum, and I tend
to lean to the Conservative end..but that doent make you a Marxist,
nor me some Nazi either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republitarianism

Republitarianism

The creation of the term republitarian is usually attributed to Larry
Elder, an American political pundit, radio talk show host, and author
who defines "republitarian" as "a member of the Republican Party who
holds libertarian ideals." [1] Another example would be Neal Boortz,
who describes himself as a neolibertarian. Another similar term is
liberventionist, the term used by isolationalist libertarians to
describe interventionist libertarians.

Presently, republitarians are represented in the Republican party by
the Republican Liberty Caucus, joining such codified groups within the
GOP such as the Log Cabin Republicans and the College Republicans.


Neolibertarianism is a political philosophy combining elements of
libertarian and conservative thought that embraces incrementalism and
pragmatism domestically, and a generally interventionist foreign
policy. Neolibertarianism holds that the best form of national
government is one that promotes capitalism and strong national defense
policies, including the use of pre-emptive military engagements if
necessary. It also holds that the federal government should concern
itself with these issues above all others, while leaving nearly every
other issue to more local political entities: state/provincial and
municipal governments, communities, and individuals. Neolibertarians
are sometimes described as "pro-capitalist conservatives" or
"libertarians who support the War on Terror."

To describe neolibertarians, Dale Franks says this: [2]

When given a set of policy choices,

* The choice that maximizes personal liberty is the best
choice.
* The policy choice that offers the least amount of necessary
government intervention or regulation is the best choice.
* The policy choice that provides rational, market-based
incentives is the best choice.

In foreign policy, neolibertartianism would be characterized by,

* A policy of diplomacy that promotes consensual government
and human rights and opposes dictatorship.
* A policy of using US military force solely at the discretion
of the US, but only in circumstances where American interests are
directly affected.

Putting a different spin on it, the website "Neo-Libertarian" says
that neo-libertarianism: [3]

...means making a political commitment to combat the initation of
force and fraud by the most effective and moral route possible;
paleo-libertarians deal in words and thoughts, while neo-libertarians
commit themselves to expanding freedom from the rhetorical world to
the real world. It's the difference between saying something for
freedom and doing something for freedom.

Moreover, it's a commitment to the universality of freedom; just
as calling oneself 'The Government' cannot legitimately add to one's
natural rights, drawing an invisible line on a map and calling it 'The
Border' cannot legitimately subtract from one's natural rights. People
in foreign lands have the same natural rights as people in the house
next door; neo-libertarianism is about finding the most practical ways
to stop infringements against the liberty of those around the globe,
including the use of force if necessary, just as we would use local
police and courts to stop infringements of liberty next door.

Put more succinctly: Individuals are the only morally significant
unit of political economy. Individuals are imbued with infinite
liberties circumscribed only by the rights of others to not be coerced
or defrauded. The central right of humanity is the right to resist an
agressor, even if you aren't the victim.


As you will note, Jim...based on our political bleeves..you would
allow the little old lady next door to be robbed, raped and murdered
on her front yard.

I wouldnt.

Read my sig again. With the above paragraphs in mind...ponder my (own)
quote again. And notice Ive been using it for quite some time.
Unchanged.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

Gunner Asch wrote:



Ive yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that anyone has
lost their freedoms or privacy because of interception of phone calls,
or having their library records checked, or even as a direct result of
the Patriot Act.


Well I would say interception of phone calls, is de facto a loss of
privacy.

Equally clearly, the news has had any number of reports of people
loosing their freedoms as direct result of the patriot act. Now
admittedly a number of them seem to have deserved to loose those
freedoms, but definitely as a result of the act.

jk

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
...

Ive yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that anyone has
lost their freedoms or privacy because of interception of phone calls,
or having their library records checked, or even as a direct result of
the Patriot Act.

And you won't, either. They've made sure you'll never hear about it...

--
Ed Huntress

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
...

The creation of the term republitarian is usually attributed to Larry
Elder, an American political pundit, radio talk show host, and author
who defines "republitarian" as "a member of the Republican Party who
holds libertarian ideals." [1] Another example would be Neal Boortz,
who describes himself as a neolibertarian. Another similar term is
liberventionist, the term used by isolationalist libertarians to
describe interventionist libertarians.

Then there's the Arctic Circle chapter, the Blubbertarians.

Mortibootitarians (an ancient order of Republican hipboot embalmers); the
LiberwurstOnRyetarians (reactionary deli sandwich makers); and, of course,
the Neopolitarians (formerly known as the Society for the Liberation of Ice
Cream Scoops).

--
Ed Huntress

On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 22:08:26 GMT, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 20:48:02 GMT, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:

Guido wrote:
Ed Huntress wrote:


This is a time in US history when there are no clear goals, no
direction, no generally agreed idea of "progress." It is a time of
stagnancy and ennui. It will pass, but, until it does, absolutist
religion is an answer that is attractive to the many people who are
extremely uncomfortable with all of the uncertainty and lack of
direction.


Yep we were watching some documentary a week or so ago on
Fundamentalist/Creationist/IDers and there was an overwhelming sense
that here was a group of people looking for absolute assurances,
something solid they could cling to whilst the world around them
shifted.

The entire issue reminds me of the "Red Scare" of the 50's.
I have yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that anyone
is being denied the right to practice religion outside the confines
of Publicly financed places. There does, on the other hand, appear
to be an ongoing effort to subvert and divert public moneys to
support an entire host of religious groups or perspectives. That
effort isn't meeting with much success and it won't in all
likelyhood.
Noone in the US is denied their religious preference or the ability
to practice it. That isn't the same thing as being able to use
public resources to promote the same.

Hummm could be. It sounds very similar to the big scare the leftists
are pushing about lack of freedoms, encroaching slavery, removal of
privacy etc etc.

I have heard little about lacking freedoms or encroaching slavery but
privacy is out the door for now.
Personally, I think your neighborhood could be made terrorist free for
certain if everybody's guns were confiscated.
That doesn't count for much but if W decides that is the case you're ****ed.
In fact, you will have ****ed yourself ( yes, Again).

But W wont decide that. Thats one of the things we can be sure of. As
I said..Im seeing lots of "what ifs", including from you as you wrote
above, but nothing "Is".


Ive yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that anyone has
lost their freedoms or privacy because of interception of phone calls,
or having their library records checked, or even as a direct result of
the Patriot Act.

Well, Jose Padilla sure did. He'd be serving a legitimate prison sentence by
now if he'd been charged timely. As it is he may walk.
Pretty ****ing stupid don't you think?

You mean Abdullah Al Muhajir?
Im rather sure he has been sucked dry, and if worst comes to worst..we
ship him back to Pakistan, and they stand him up against a wall and
simply shoot him.
But in November he was formally charged:

Padilla was charged with three counts -- conspiracy to murder U.S.
nationals, conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and
providing material support to terrorists.


What makes you think he may walk? As far as I can tell..its a toss up
wether a military court or a Federal court tries and convicts him.

Either way..the little scumbag is hosed.

Gunner


"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 14:57:30 -0800, jk wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:



Ive yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that anyone has
lost their freedoms or privacy because of interception of phone calls,
or having their library records checked, or even as a direct result of
the Patriot Act.


Well I would say interception of phone calls, is de facto a loss of
privacy.

Equally clearly, the news has had any number of reports of people
loosing their freedoms as direct result of the patriot act. Now
admittedly a number of them seem to have deserved to loose those
freedoms, but definitely as a result of the act.

jk

We are talking about the innocent, not the guilty.

Now...would it be ok to wire tap Osama bin Ladin, in your opinion, if
he were calling one of his minions here in the US?

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

"Gus" wrote in message
oups.com...

jim rozen wrote:
In article .com, Gus
says...

Their goal is pure and simple: to teach religion in public
schools. Read the court decsion about the Dover, PA case.

And how does that balance out what the ACLU has been doing for 40
years?

News Flash: Relgion is not to be taught in public schools. Never
was, never will be.

Does it matter if the courts, the constitution, the aclu, or
the school board, says it? Which one convinces you?

Jim

I agree that public schools should not "teach" religion but I also
think that the ban on even mentioning Christmas or the ban on school
kids from mentioning God has gone too far.
I don't know, I've read the constitution and I can't find a lot of the
stuff that the ACLU says is in there. School boards are running scared
of ACLU threats so they aren't a good source of what's right either.
I suppose the Dover case you're mentioning has to do with intelligent
design. The way I heard it, there was no "teaching" of it. A
4-paragraph statement was to be read at the start of the year's science
class stating that there was another theory of origins and if anyone
was interested they could check out a certain book.
Now the good judge apparently called this "teaching of religion" but I
personally think he was out to lunch. Atheism is also a religion of
sorts but schools don't mind teaching that.

GW

Schools don't teach Atheism, Atheism isn't a religion, and if you don't
understand why the court disallowed the ID people from giving their
statement at the beginning of biology class you should read the judge's
decision, all 139 pages of it. It explains very clearly why the people
supporting ID, i.e. Creationism were completely wrong in what they were
insisting the school do. After reading that decision you ought to understand
what it was about and why the judge, even though he was a Bush appointee,
ruled against the Creationists.

Hawke

On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 18:16:19 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
.. .

Ive yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that anyone has
lost their freedoms or privacy because of interception of phone calls,
or having their library records checked, or even as a direct result of
the Patriot Act.

And you won't, either. They've made sure you'll never hear about it...


ooohhh...the infamous THEY. Same "they" as flys the black
helicopters, and runs the mind control satillites? And have a flock
of aliens on ice at Area 51?

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 22:08:26 GMT, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 20:48:02 GMT, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:

Guido wrote:
Ed Huntress wrote:


This is a time in US history when there are no clear goals, no
direction, no generally agreed idea of "progress." It is a time
of stagnancy and ennui. It will pass, but, until it does,
absolutist religion is an answer that is attractive to the many
people who are extremely uncomfortable with all of the
uncertainty and lack of direction.


Yep we were watching some documentary a week or so ago on
Fundamentalist/Creationist/IDers and there was an overwhelming
sense that here was a group of people looking for absolute
assurances, something solid they could cling to whilst the world
around them shifted.

The entire issue reminds me of the "Red Scare" of the 50's.
I have yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that
anyone is being denied the right to practice religion outside the
confines of Publicly financed places. There does, on the other
hand, appear to be an ongoing effort to subvert and divert public
moneys to support an entire host of religious groups or
perspectives. That effort isn't meeting with much success and it
won't in all likelyhood.
Noone in the US is denied their religious preference or the ability
to practice it. That isn't the same thing as being able to use
public resources to promote the same.

Hummm could be. It sounds very similar to the big scare the leftists
are pushing about lack of freedoms, encroaching slavery, removal of
privacy etc etc.

I have heard little about lacking freedoms or encroaching slavery but
privacy is out the door for now.
Personally, I think your neighborhood could be made terrorist free
for certain if everybody's guns were confiscated.
That doesn't count for much but if W decides that is the case you're
****ed. In fact, you will have ****ed yourself ( yes, Again).

But W wont decide that. Thats one of the things we can be sure of.

Hillary might and I wouldn't be so sure W won't. You talk an awful lot about
killing American citicens and that sounds pretty much like a terrorist to
me.

As
I said..Im seeing lots of "what ifs", including from you as you wrote
above, but nothing "Is".

Well you see that's the thing. Laws aren't worth much if you can't count on
them.




Ive yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that anyone
has lost their freedoms or privacy because of interception of phone
calls, or having their library records checked, or even as a direct
result of the Patriot Act.

Well, Jose Padilla sure did. He'd be serving a legitimate prison
sentence by now if he'd been charged timely. As it is he may walk.
Pretty ****ing stupid don't you think?

You mean Abdullah Al Muhajir?

Who?

Im rather sure he has been sucked dry, and if worst comes to worst..we
ship him back to Pakistan, and they stand him up against a wall and
simply shoot him.


Why would an American citizen be shipped anywhere to be shot by the US
government?
Have I missed something?

But in November he was formally charged:

Yes, having been held for three years he was. Just before the Supremes would
have had the opportunity to rule on the legal basis for his detention BTW. I
found that interesting.


Padilla was charged with three counts -- conspiracy to murder U.S.
nationals, conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and
providing material support to terrorists.


What makes you think he may walk? As far as I can tell..its a toss up
wether a military court or a Federal court tries and convicts him.

He is an American citizen and because he was denied due process there won't
be any evidence that will be admitted in a Federal court if his detention is
ruled to have violated his constitutional rights. That will be decided by a
court and not W.
The DOJ just went through this in another case about a month ago and the
perp walked. I'd say another criminal is about to go free. That's not right
and it wouldn't be happening if the law had been followed. It wasn't.


Either way..the little scumbag is hosed.

It might or might not happen that a lot of cases go out the window for the
lack of admissible evidence soon. How happy will you be to see these people
go free when they could have been convicted and put away?


I do have a question for you though. If Bush is so smart why in hell isn't
Saddam dead. I mean, didn't anybody in the administration realize that his
trial would be exactly the sort of mockery we don't need? His dead body
would have been a better example than what we are seing today and Hussein
has no rights. He really was the enemy.

--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com

Ed Huntress wrote:
The hard-boiled born-again are not a vast majority. Those who believe
in God
are a vast majority, but they have always been. And we have shown no
real
tendency to become a theocracy despite that fact.

Absolutely.


The issue now is that certain evangelicals are getting a little frisky
and
are trying to intrude their religion into government and into the
schools.
They are being resisted. They are not likely to succeed, nor are they
likely
to become a "vast majority."

It seems to me that the anti-religion forces have been trying to remove
any mention of god from public places for about 40 years or so. They
appear to want to change our society to fit their views. Now some
people have had enough and are resisting. Their goal seems to be to
keep things the same, not change anything.

Indeed..even here in Politically Correct California..I noticed many
many more defiant Merry Christmas wishes, than in the past number of
years. Folks are just tired of the "war on Christmas" and the war on
religion. The Left had best watch their step....the last time they
****ed off the People to this extent..Bush got elected twice..and they
lost control of the Congress for the foreseeable future.

Gunner


Actually this year's war was not on Christmas, it was a war by Christians
against all non Christians. In a typical case of the pot calling the kettle
black, Christians, who are the majority, started attacking every non
Christian in the country. Using the ruse of a war on Christmas, the
Christians went on the offensive again, like they have been doing for the
last 20 years or so, in which they, like fundamentalist Muslims, want to
return the country to at state where religion dominates daily life. The
clear strategy is to make it appear that a non Christian minority was trying
to impose is views on the Christian majority when in fact it was the
Christians who continued to impose their religion on everyone else. Their
goal is to reinsinuate Christianity into schools, courts, Congress, the
public square, and everywhere else, in a big way. This year's tactic was to
blame the victim. Unfortunately, it went nowhere and as much as the
Christians want it they are no better off than they were before.

Luckily for us, the forseeable future has already shown some hints at the
direction the country is headed. After 11 years of Republican majorities and
a steady decline in the popularity of the Republican Congress and President
as well as the continuing bad news in Iraq the forecast for the next
election is looking a lot like a good old fashioned ass kicking for the
Republican party. Should the Democrats make big inroads into the Republican
controlled government I should be very interested to hear your explanations
as to why the public rejected the Republicans who you seem to think will be
in the majority forever.

Hawke

Hawke wrote:
"Gus" wrote in message
oups.com...

jim rozen wrote:
In article .com, Gus
says...

Their goal is pure and simple: to teach religion in public
schools. Read the court decsion about the Dover, PA case.

And how does that balance out what the ACLU has been doing for 40
years?

News Flash: Relgion is not to be taught in public schools. Never
was, never will be.

Does it matter if the courts, the constitution, the aclu, or
the school board, says it? Which one convinces you?

Jim

I agree that public schools should not "teach" religion but I also
think that the ban on even mentioning Christmas or the ban on school
kids from mentioning God has gone too far.
I don't know, I've read the constitution and I can't find a lot of the
stuff that the ACLU says is in there. School boards are running scared
of ACLU threats so they aren't a good source of what's right either.
I suppose the Dover case you're mentioning has to do with intelligent
design. The way I heard it, there was no "teaching" of it. A
4-paragraph statement was to be read at the start of the year's science
class stating that there was another theory of origins and if anyone
was interested they could check out a certain book.
Now the good judge apparently called this "teaching of religion" but I
personally think he was out to lunch. Atheism is also a religion of
sorts but schools don't mind teaching that.

GW

Schools don't teach Atheism, Atheism isn't a religion, and if you don't
understand why the court disallowed the ID people from giving their
statement at the beginning of biology class you should read the judge's
decision, all 139 pages of it. It explains very clearly why the people
supporting ID, i.e. Creationism were completely wrong in what they were
insisting the school do. After reading that decision you ought to understand
what it was about and why the judge, even though he was a Bush appointee,
ruled against the Creationists.

Hawke

If the judge had come up with 139 pages of the opposite conclusion
would you have thought it was so good?

Webster says that religion is a cause, principle, or system of beliefs
held to with ardor and faith. I think that the way some people hold to
atheism it could qualify as some sort of religion.

Don't atheists claim to "know" what does not exist in every nook and
cranny of the universe? Although they are stuck on this tiny speck of a
planet and they haven't been any place else they still know that God
doesn't exist anywhere in time and space and beyond. Knowing everything
is called being omniscient. So I guess that if they are omniscient,
they must be god. If they don't know everything then they must be
sticking by their beliefs by some kind of faith.

On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 21:18:40 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
.. .

The creation of the term republitarian is usually attributed to Larry
Elder, an American political pundit, radio talk show host, and author
who defines "republitarian" as "a member of the Republican Party who
holds libertarian ideals." [1] Another example would be Neal Boortz,
who describes himself as a neolibertarian. Another similar term is
liberventionist, the term used by isolationalist libertarians to
describe interventionist libertarians.

Then there's the Arctic Circle chapter, the Blubbertarians.

Mortibootitarians (an ancient order of Republican hipboot embalmers); the
LiberwurstOnRyetarians (reactionary deli sandwich makers); and, of course,
the Neopolitarians (formerly known as the Society for the Liberation of Ice
Cream Scoops).


Then there are the Rinos..of which Ed is a proud member .

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...
"Gus" wrote in message
oups.com...

Ed Huntress wrote:
The hard-boiled born-again are not a vast majority. Those who believe
in
God
are a vast majority, but they have always been. And we have shown no
real
tendency to become a theocracy despite that fact.

Absolutely.


The issue now is that certain evangelicals are getting a little frisky
and
are trying to intrude their religion into government and into the
schools.
They are being resisted. They are not likely to succeed, nor are they
likely
to become a "vast majority."

It seems to me that the anti-religion forces have been trying to remove
any mention of god from public places for about 40 years or so.

Yeah, well, that corresponds roughly to the span of time over which the
theocrats have been trying to stick them in. Notice that the big issues,
the
Ten Commandments in the courthouse and so on, are of pretty recent
vintage.
Likewise, introducing religion into biology classes.

They
appear to want to change our society to fit their views. Now some
people have had enough and are resisting. Their goal seems to be to
keep things the same, not change anything.

It's a little like racial discrimination, as I see it. We've had a law
against discrimination for a very long time, but it's still a task to get
some people to live up to the law. Likewise, living up to the
Constitution,
which says we won't establish religion, is a never-ending battle.

FWIW, I happen to believe that the fundamental constitutional principle is
that the government will not encourage or promote any religion, or any
group
of religions. But I don't think it was intended for the government to
prevent citizens from expressing their religion in public settings. There
was a Supreme Court ruling that drew a fine line between the two, and I
think it was a fine decision.

In other words, at Christmastime, if the people of a town want a manger
and
a Christmas display in the town square, I'm all for it. But they'd better
also allow any other religious display, at the appropriate religious
holidays.

--
Ed Huntress

See the problem with that? If everyone was of one religion it wouldn't be a
problem for them to put up displays related to their religious practices.
Unfortunately, we no longer have a country where everyone, or nearly
everyone, is of the same religion. Now we have Christians, Muslims, Jews,
Buddhists, Wicca's, Atheists, and various others. The trend is for there to
be ever more diversity. So how can you have any one group putting up their
religious displays on public ground? You can't it wouldn't be fair. Then if
you let every group do the same thing it starts to get ridiculous. The only
reasonable thing is to deny all of them the right to display their religion
in public places. No one is depriving anyone of their religion. But since so
many different ones are going to want to do the same thing the only fair
thing is to say no one gets to use the public square to put up their
religious trappings. The problem is that since there is a large majority of
Christians they think they are entitled to do whatever they want and ****
everyone else. That goes against everything their religion supposedly stands
for but hey, who ever said that religious people are consistent? If you are
interested in peace and fairness you simply say; no religious displays on
public property, end of problem.

Hawke

Ed Huntress wrote:
snip

In other words, at Christmastime, if the people of a town want a manger and
a Christmas display in the town square, I'm all for it. But they'd better
also allow any other religious display, at the appropriate religious
holidays.

That sounds logical and fair to me.

"jk" wrote in message
...
Gunner Asch wrote:



Ive yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that anyone has
lost their freedoms or privacy because of interception of phone calls,
or having their library records checked, or even as a direct result of
the Patriot Act.


Well I would say interception of phone calls, is de facto a loss of
privacy.

Equally clearly, the news has had any number of reports of people
loosing their freedoms as direct result of the patriot act. Now
admittedly a number of them seem to have deserved to loose those
freedoms, but definitely as a result of the act.

jk


If the government starts overstepping its boundaries and depriving people of
their freedoms like it has done so many times in the past, what makes you
think you are going to know about it? When people start "disappearing" and
getting wrongly imprisoned it usually takes quite a while before anyone
knows anything about it.

Hawke

In article .com, Gus says...

I suppose the Dover case you're mentioning has to do with intelligent
design. The way I heard it, there was no "teaching" of it.

As you say, not what the court found. Also not what the
rest of the voters found, because by the time the case came
to trial, the idiots who tried to ram religious education
into public schools had been resoundingly defeated by the
"anti-ID" slate of board candidates.

Basically those folks wanted to teach religion in public
schools, and lied about their motives to get it installed.

They're in hot water now, as those lies are going to
cost them court fees, and the other parties' lawyer fees.

Good.

Jim


--
==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

In article .com, Gus says...

Webster says that religion is a cause, principle, or system of beliefs
held to with ardor and faith. I think that the way some people hold to
atheism it could qualify as some sort of religion.

You are wrong.

Jim


--
==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

Gus wrote:
Ed Huntress wrote:
snip

In other words, at Christmastime, if the people of a town want a
manger and a Christmas display in the town square, I'm all for it.
But they'd better also allow any other religious display, at the
appropriate religious holidays.

That sounds logical and fair to me.

It is but it won't "energize" your political "Base" so the BS starts.
How screwed up is that!

--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com

In article , John R. Carroll
says...

I have heard little about lacking freedoms or encroaching slavery but
privacy is out the door for now.
Personally, I think your neighborhood could be made terrorist free for
certain if everybody's guns were confiscated.
That doesn't count for much but if W decides that is the case you're ****ed.
In fact, you will have ****ed yourself ( yes, Again).

John, John.

I'm surprised at you.

Given the seriousness of the war we are engaged in, I would think
you would consider it an *obligation* to suggest that the police
search any and all of his property, vehicles, safe deposit
boxes, workplaces, or any other location where there might be
dangerous weapons.

Given that he feels that no warrants are needed if a national
security issue is involved (we wouldn't want to give 'aid and
comfort' to that enemy, eh?) it would be a simple matter for
them to confiscate anything that might possibly used as,
or used to make, a weapon.

At some point a court might consider giving it back after
due process. Then again, given the state of our bill of
rights - maybe not.

Jim


--
==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

In article , Ed Huntress says...

FWIW, I happen to believe that the fundamental constitutional principle is
that the government will not encourage or promote any religion, or any group
of religions. But I don't think it was intended for the government to
prevent citizens from expressing their religion in public settings.

Ed, you are familiar with the wording, right?

Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion

[that's the part that says the government shall not pay for
or establish an religious activities]

nor the free exercise thereof.

[that second part says that the government cannot prohibit anyone
from religions practices of any kind]

For all the wingnut whackos who want the government to sponsor
religion, I would politely request you simply move to a country
that already *has* state-sponsored religion.

Only trouble is g while they are missing that first part, they
are also missing the second, 'free exercise' clause. What that
means is that the fundie whackos might find themselves in a
passle of hot water when they start stamping their petulant
little tootsis for their particular brand of snake oil, and the
nasty goverment comes in an throws their stupid asses in jail
for doing what they take for granted in the US - attending
the church of their personal choice whenever and wherever
they want.

Like I said before - the US Consitution: Love It, or Leave.

Jim


--
==================================================
please reply to:
JRR(zero) at pkmfgvm4 (dot) vnet (dot) ibm (dot) com
==================================================

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 18:16:19 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
.. .

Ive yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that anyone has
lost their freedoms or privacy because of interception of phone calls,
or having their library records checked, or even as a direct result of
the Patriot Act.

And you won't, either. They've made sure you'll never hear about it...


ooohhh...the infamous THEY. Same "they" as flys the black
helicopters, and runs the mind control satillites? And have a flock
of aliens on ice at Area 51?

Same "theys" who just revealed themselves with the secret spying operation.
Same "theys" who won't reveal who they have in captivity to relatives and
lawyers who have inquired.

Once your government goes secret, nobody knows what's going on.

--
Ed Huntress

jim rozen wrote:
In article .com, Gus says...

I suppose the Dover case you're mentioning has to do with intelligent
design. The way I heard it, there was no "teaching" of it.

As you say, not what the court found. Also not what the
rest of the voters found, because by the time the case came
to trial, the idiots who tried to ram religious education
into public schools had been resoundingly defeated by the
"anti-ID" slate of board candidates.

Basically those folks wanted to teach religion in public
schools, and lied about their motives to get it installed.

They're in hot water now, as those lies are going to
cost them court fees, and the other parties' lawyer fees.


The following is the text which was to be read to the biology class
before covering the topic of Darwin's theory of evolution:

"The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about
Darwin's theory of evolution and eventually to take a standardized test
of which evolution is a part.

Because Darwin's theory is a theory, it continues to be tested as new
evidence is discovered. The theory is not a fact. Gaps in the theory
exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a
well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.

Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs
from Darwin's view. The reference book, "Of Pandas and People," is
available in the library along with other resources for students who
might be interested in gaining an understanding of what intelligent
design actually involves.

With respect to any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open
mind. The school leaves the discussion of the origins of life to
individual students and their families. As a standards-driven district,
class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve
proficiency on standards-based assessments."

Since this 4-paragraph statement is what all the hubbub is about,
exactly which religion was Congress, er, um, I mean the school board
establishing?

Ed Huntress wrote:
"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 18:16:19 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
...


Once your government goes secret, nobody knows what's going on.

You are implying that he ever did Ed :)

--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com

"Gus" wrote in message
oups.com...

Webster says that religion is a cause, principle, or system of beliefs
held to with ardor and faith. I think that the way some people hold to
atheism it could qualify as some sort of religion.

Some people.


Don't atheists claim to "know" what does not exist in every nook and
cranny of the universe?

Not many. There are different philosophies of atheism, but the most common
one I see today is what you might call "scientific" atheism, which is based
on the way science deals with things that haven't been proven. To say "I
don't believe in God" doesn't mean they're convinced that God does not
exist. Rather, their position is that there is no evidence (evidence that
qualifies under the terms of science) that God does exist.

It isn't a positive denial, in other words. It's a lack of a support for the
assertion. They see no reason to believe.

This is slightly different from the way we conceive of agnosticism. An
agnostic needs evidence one way or the other before he will assert anything.
The scientific atheist needs positive evidence before he'll believe the
assertion. It may look like a fine line, but it's really not that fine. It
is a different way of deciding what you believe.

--
Ed Huntress

Ed Huntress wrote:
"Gus" wrote in message
oups.com...

Webster says that religion is a cause, principle, or system of beliefs
held to with ardor and faith. I think that the way some people hold to
atheism it could qualify as some sort of religion.

Some people.


Don't atheists claim to "know" what does not exist in every nook and
cranny of the universe?

Not many. There are different philosophies of atheism, but the most common
one I see today is what you might call "scientific" atheism, which is based
on the way science deals with things that haven't been proven. To say "I
don't believe in God" doesn't mean they're convinced that God does not
exist. Rather, their position is that there is no evidence (evidence that
qualifies under the terms of science) that God does exist.

It isn't a positive denial, in other words. It's a lack of a support for the
assertion. They see no reason to believe.

This is slightly different from the way we conceive of agnosticism. An
agnostic needs evidence one way or the other before he will assert anything.
The scientific atheist needs positive evidence before he'll believe the
assertion. It may look like a fine line, but it's really not that fine. It
is a different way of deciding what you believe.

--
Ed Huntress

Good explanation.
GW

I agree that public schools should not "teach" religion but I also
think that the ban on even mentioning Christmas or the ban on school
kids from mentioning God has gone too far.
I don't know, I've read the constitution and I can't find a lot of the
stuff that the ACLU says is in there. School boards are running scared
of ACLU threats so they aren't a good source of what's right either.
I suppose the Dover case you're mentioning has to do with intelligent
design. The way I heard it, there was no "teaching" of it. A
4-paragraph statement was to be read at the start of the year's
science
class stating that there was another theory of origins and if anyone
was interested they could check out a certain book.
Now the good judge apparently called this "teaching of religion" but I
personally think he was out to lunch. Atheism is also a religion of
sorts but schools don't mind teaching that.

GW

Schools don't teach Atheism, Atheism isn't a religion, and if you don't
understand why the court disallowed the ID people from giving their
statement at the beginning of biology class you should read the judge's
decision, all 139 pages of it. It explains very clearly why the people
supporting ID, i.e. Creationism were completely wrong in what they were
insisting the school do. After reading that decision you ought to
understand
what it was about and why the judge, even though he was a Bush
appointee,
ruled against the Creationists.

Hawke

If the judge had come up with 139 pages of the opposite conclusion
would you have thought it was so good?

Webster says that religion is a cause, principle, or system of beliefs
held to with ardor and faith. I think that the way some people hold to
atheism it could qualify as some sort of religion.

Don't atheists claim to "know" what does not exist in every nook and
cranny of the universe? Although they are stuck on this tiny speck of a
planet and they haven't been any place else they still know that God
doesn't exist anywhere in time and space and beyond. Knowing everything
is called being omniscient. So I guess that if they are omniscient,
they must be god. If they don't know everything then they must be
sticking by their beliefs by some kind of faith.

Look at it this way. Say that you are convinced that there are extra
terrestrials and that they visit, and have visited the earth many times over
thousands of years. Say that you and thousands or even millions of other
people believed the same thing. Now I come along and say no, there are no
ETs and there is no evidence there are any. While you and your fellow ET
believers may qualify as a religion but as for me, who simply does not
accept the truth of your belief, not agreeing with your group doesn't make
me and people who also disagree with your group part of a religion. We
simply don't believe in a concept there is no evidence which supports it.
It's the same with Atheism. People saying they don't think there is a God
simply see no evidence proving that belief and reject it's veracity. That
hardly makes one part of an organized religion, does it.

As to the creation case, I would accept any ruling by a judge that was based
on empirical facts and sound reasoning that was not impeded by any kind of
personal bias. In this case the judge was a Bush appointee and I believe a
churchgoer. But after seeing very easily through the phony assertions of the
ID advocates his only choice was to reject their claims. That's why I would
accept his analysis of the case at face value. Don't you?

Hawke

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 03:02:33 GMT, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 22:08:26 GMT, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 20:48:02 GMT, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:

Guido wrote:
Ed Huntress wrote:


This is a time in US history when there are no clear goals, no
direction, no generally agreed idea of "progress." It is a time
of stagnancy and ennui. It will pass, but, until it does,
absolutist religion is an answer that is attractive to the many
people who are extremely uncomfortable with all of the
uncertainty and lack of direction.


Yep we were watching some documentary a week or so ago on
Fundamentalist/Creationist/IDers and there was an overwhelming
sense that here was a group of people looking for absolute
assurances, something solid they could cling to whilst the world
around them shifted.

The entire issue reminds me of the "Red Scare" of the 50's.
I have yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that
anyone is being denied the right to practice religion outside the
confines of Publicly financed places. There does, on the other
hand, appear to be an ongoing effort to subvert and divert public
moneys to support an entire host of religious groups or
perspectives. That effort isn't meeting with much success and it
won't in all likelyhood.
Noone in the US is denied their religious preference or the ability
to practice it. That isn't the same thing as being able to use
public resources to promote the same.

Hummm could be. It sounds very similar to the big scare the leftists
are pushing about lack of freedoms, encroaching slavery, removal of
privacy etc etc.

I have heard little about lacking freedoms or encroaching slavery but
privacy is out the door for now.
Personally, I think your neighborhood could be made terrorist free
for certain if everybody's guns were confiscated.
That doesn't count for much but if W decides that is the case you're
****ed. In fact, you will have ****ed yourself ( yes, Again).

But W wont decide that. Thats one of the things we can be sure of.

Hillary might and I wouldn't be so sure W won't. You talk an awful lot about
killing American citicens and that sounds pretty much like a terrorist to
me.

Hillary, is a Liberal. A far leftist, no matter how stridently she has
tried to portray herself a centrist. Long before Bush, the Left has
tried to remove our guns, and they will try long after Bush.

But its a nice strawman you bring to the table. Did you give it a
name? Perhaps Harvey might be nice?

As
I said..Im seeing lots of "what ifs", including from you as you wrote
above, but nothing "Is".

Well you see that's the thing. Laws aren't worth much if you can't count on
them.

Sure. Ask any Leftist. They hate laws. Except their own. They try to
find workarounds for everyone elses. Like the Constitution.




Ive yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that anyone
has lost their freedoms or privacy because of interception of phone
calls, or having their library records checked, or even as a direct
result of the Patriot Act.

Well, Jose Padilla sure did. He'd be serving a legitimate prison
sentence by now if he'd been charged timely. As it is he may walk.
Pretty ****ing stupid don't you think?

You mean Abdullah Al Muhajir?

Who?

John John John...you babble about Jose..but yet you know nothing about
him???

Im rather sure he has been sucked dry, and if worst comes to worst..we
ship him back to Pakistan, and they stand him up against a wall and
simply shoot him.


Why would an American citizen be shipped anywhere to be shot by the US
government?
Have I missed something?

Evidently the stroke did something to your reading comprehension.

But in November he was formally charged:

Yes, having been held for three years he was. Just before the Supremes would
have had the opportunity to rule on the legal basis for his detention BTW. I
found that interesting.

So do I. Treading right at the edge but not stepping over..mighty
tricky footwork. But then..the Enemy Combatant thing is new to all of
us.

Padilla was charged with three counts -- conspiracy to murder U.S.
nationals, conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and
providing material support to terrorists.


What makes you think he may walk? As far as I can tell..its a toss up
wether a military court or a Federal court tries and convicts him.

He is an American citizen and because he was denied due process there won't
be any evidence that will be admitted in a Federal court if his detention is
ruled to have violated his constitutional rights. That will be decided by a
court and not W.
The DOJ just went through this in another case about a month ago and the
perp walked. I'd say another criminal is about to go free. That's not right
and it wouldn't be happening if the law had been followed. It wasn't.

Time will tell wont it? Got $5 you want to waste?



Either way..the little scumbag is hosed.

It might or might not happen that a lot of cases go out the window for the
lack of admissible evidence soon. How happy will you be to see these people
go free when they could have been convicted and put away?

When he walks..Ill put $5 in an envelope and send it to you. If he
goes to the joint..send me $5. Deal?


I do have a question for you though. If Bush is so smart why in hell isn't
Saddam dead. I mean, didn't anybody in the administration realize that his
trial would be exactly the sort of mockery we don't need? His dead body
would have been a better example than what we are seing today and Hussein
has no rights. He really was the enemy.

He was indeed. But then..we generally follow the rules and simply
shooting him in the back of the head would have been against the law.

Vince Foster still dead?

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 01:10:21 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 18:16:19 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
.. .

Ive yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that anyone has
lost their freedoms or privacy because of interception of phone calls,
or having their library records checked, or even as a direct result of
the Patriot Act.

And you won't, either. They've made sure you'll never hear about it...


ooohhh...the infamous THEY. Same "they" as flys the black
helicopters, and runs the mind control satillites? And have a flock
of aliens on ice at Area 51?

Same "theys" who just revealed themselves with the secret spying operation.

They didnt reveal themselves..someone else did. Thats why they call it
a secret operation. Governments do that. Most of them are quite legal.

Same "theys" who won't reveal who they have in captivity to relatives and
lawyers who have inquired.

Good. Now Im sure some wonk from a leftist newsrag will get the scoop.
And broadcast it. Dont you just love traitors in the US? And we
hardly ever execute them anymore. Hummm Julius and Ethel were the last
IRRC.

Once your government goes secret, nobody knows what's going on.

This is news? Btw...if the government is secret..how come we know so
much about what they are doing?

Enquiring minds want to know.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

On 30 Dec 2005 19:21:42 -0800, "Gus" wrote:


Hawke wrote:
"Gus" wrote in message
oups.com...

jim rozen wrote:
In article .com, Gus
says...

Their goal is pure and simple: to teach religion in public
schools. Read the court decsion about the Dover, PA case.

And how does that balance out what the ACLU has been doing for 40
years?

News Flash: Relgion is not to be taught in public schools. Never
was, never will be.

Does it matter if the courts, the constitution, the aclu, or
the school board, says it? Which one convinces you?

Jim

I agree that public schools should not "teach" religion but I also
think that the ban on even mentioning Christmas or the ban on school
kids from mentioning God has gone too far.
I don't know, I've read the constitution and I can't find a lot of the
stuff that the ACLU says is in there. School boards are running scared
of ACLU threats so they aren't a good source of what's right either.
I suppose the Dover case you're mentioning has to do with intelligent
design. The way I heard it, there was no "teaching" of it. A
4-paragraph statement was to be read at the start of the year's science
class stating that there was another theory of origins and if anyone
was interested they could check out a certain book.
Now the good judge apparently called this "teaching of religion" but I
personally think he was out to lunch. Atheism is also a religion of
sorts but schools don't mind teaching that.

GW

Schools don't teach Atheism, Atheism isn't a religion, and if you don't
understand why the court disallowed the ID people from giving their
statement at the beginning of biology class you should read the judge's
decision, all 139 pages of it. It explains very clearly why the people
supporting ID, i.e. Creationism were completely wrong in what they were
insisting the school do. After reading that decision you ought to understand
what it was about and why the judge, even though he was a Bush appointee,
ruled against the Creationists.

Hawke

If the judge had come up with 139 pages of the opposite conclusion
would you have thought it was so good?

Webster says that religion is a cause, principle, or system of beliefs
held to with ardor and faith. I think that the way some people hold to
atheism it could qualify as some sort of religion.

Don't atheists claim to "know" what does not exist in every nook and
cranny of the universe? Although they are stuck on this tiny speck of a
planet and they haven't been any place else they still know that God
doesn't exist anywhere in time and space and beyond. Knowing everything
is called being omniscient. So I guess that if they are omniscient,
they must be god. If they don't know everything then they must be
sticking by their beliefs by some kind of faith.

Atheism is just another faith based belief system.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

On 30 Dec 2005 19:45:24 -0800, jim rozen
wrote:

In article .com, Gus says...

Webster says that religion is a cause, principle, or system of beliefs
held to with ardor and faith. I think that the way some people hold to
atheism it could qualify as some sort of religion.

You are wrong.

Jim

Actually..he is right.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

"Hawke" wrote in message
...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

It's a little like racial discrimination, as I see it. We've had a law
against discrimination for a very long time, but it's still a task to
get
some people to live up to the law. Likewise, living up to the
Constitution,
which says we won't establish religion, is a never-ending battle.

FWIW, I happen to believe that the fundamental constitutional principle
is
that the government will not encourage or promote any religion, or any
group
of religions. But I don't think it was intended for the government to
prevent citizens from expressing their religion in public settings.
There
was a Supreme Court ruling that drew a fine line between the two, and I
think it was a fine decision.

In other words, at Christmastime, if the people of a town want a manger
and
a Christmas display in the town square, I'm all for it. But they'd
better
also allow any other religious display, at the appropriate religious
holidays.

--
Ed Huntress

See the problem with that? If everyone was of one religion it wouldn't be
a
problem for them to put up displays related to their religious practices.
Unfortunately, we no longer have a country where everyone, or nearly
everyone, is of the same religion. Now we have Christians, Muslims, Jews,
Buddhists, Wicca's, Atheists, and various others. The trend is for there
to
be ever more diversity. So how can you have any one group putting up their
religious displays on public ground? You can't it wouldn't be fair.

Yeah, I see the problem with that, but I also see another problem -- one
that's only come to me as I've aged and mellowed. That other problem is that
you can try too hard to squeeze religion out of civil life by scrubbing and
abrading all evidence of it from public places -- from the commons. In the
balance, it's destructive to do so, IMO. It can be something like censoring
news.

I've not tried to shape this into words and I won't make a serious effort
now. But here is the underlying idea: We live in a society that's dominated
by one group of closely related religions and it's unrealistic to expect it
not to assert itself. So be it, so far. We also live in a system that has
decided government and religion shall be kept separate. Also good, so far.
We have avoided regulating the practice of religion except in rare cases: no
sacrificing of chickens in public parks, for example. g

So we should go as far as we can to allow expression of all religions while
keeping government out of it. Now, in our excessive zeal, we've gone from
avoiding government favoritism and support for one religion to disallowing
any expression of religion in publicly supported places. The trend has
fostered a sense that religion not only has to be kept out of public places,
but that it also must not be acknowledged, even in public schools. No "Merry
Christmas." But most people are thinking "Merry Christmas." It's in their
thoughts.

Too much social delicacy, IMO. Instead of equal treatment, we wind up with
universal avoidance. In doing so we leach some of the color and life out of
our culture, not to mention a recognition of the importance of religion to
our history. There is more to religions than their underlying beliefs, and a
government that doesn't acknowledge them is a government that is one more
step removed from the lives of the people living with that government. It's
one more bit of unreality that separates government from life as it really
is.

In the tradeoff, I'll take Christmas displays in public places. Also other
religious displays. But we're dominated by Christianity. I expect to see
more Christian displays, as I would expect to see more displays of other
religions in other parts of the world. I prefer this to the blandness of no
displays at all. I'm not worried that it will add to the weight of
prosyletizing so much as I'm worried that avoiding it will disconnect us a
bit more from the reality of civil life.

The only
reasonable thing is to deny all of them the right to display their
religion
in public places.

I think that's too much reasonableness and that it bleeds too much out of
our civil life.

If you are
interested in peace and fairness you simply say; no religious displays on
public property, end of problem.

But you've created another problem, and I think it's a worse one.

--
Ed Huntress

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 02:59:22 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Hawke" wrote in message
...

"Ed Huntress" wrote in message
...

It's a little like racial discrimination, as I see it. We've had a law
against discrimination for a very long time, but it's still a task to
get
some people to live up to the law. Likewise, living up to the
Constitution,
which says we won't establish religion, is a never-ending battle.

FWIW, I happen to believe that the fundamental constitutional principle
is
that the government will not encourage or promote any religion, or any
group
of religions. But I don't think it was intended for the government to
prevent citizens from expressing their religion in public settings.
There
was a Supreme Court ruling that drew a fine line between the two, and I
think it was a fine decision.

In other words, at Christmastime, if the people of a town want a manger
and
a Christmas display in the town square, I'm all for it. But they'd
better
also allow any other religious display, at the appropriate religious
holidays.

--
Ed Huntress

See the problem with that? If everyone was of one religion it wouldn't be
a
problem for them to put up displays related to their religious practices.
Unfortunately, we no longer have a country where everyone, or nearly
everyone, is of the same religion. Now we have Christians, Muslims, Jews,
Buddhists, Wicca's, Atheists, and various others. The trend is for there
to
be ever more diversity. So how can you have any one group putting up their
religious displays on public ground? You can't it wouldn't be fair.

Yeah, I see the problem with that, but I also see another problem -- one
that's only come to me as I've aged and mellowed. That other problem is that
you can try too hard to squeeze religion out of civil life by scrubbing and
abrading all evidence of it from public places -- from the commons. In the
balance, it's destructive to do so, IMO. It can be something like censoring
news.

I've not tried to shape this into words and I won't make a serious effort
now. But here is the underlying idea: We live in a society that's dominated
by one group of closely related religions and it's unrealistic to expect it
not to assert itself. So be it, so far. We also live in a system that has
decided government and religion shall be kept separate. Also good, so far.
We have avoided regulating the practice of religion except in rare cases: no
sacrificing of chickens in public parks, for example. g

So we should go as far as we can to allow expression of all religions while
keeping government out of it. Now, in our excessive zeal, we've gone from
avoiding government favoritism and support for one religion to disallowing
any expression of religion in publicly supported places. The trend has
fostered a sense that religion not only has to be kept out of public places,
but that it also must not be acknowledged, even in public schools. No "Merry
Christmas." But most people are thinking "Merry Christmas." It's in their
thoughts.

Too much social delicacy, IMO. Instead of equal treatment, we wind up with
universal avoidance. In doing so we leach some of the color and life out of
our culture, not to mention a recognition of the importance of religion to
our history. There is more to religions than their underlying beliefs, and a
government that doesn't acknowledge them is a government that is one more
step removed from the lives of the people living with that government. It's
one more bit of unreality that separates government from life as it really
is.

In the tradeoff, I'll take Christmas displays in public places. Also other
religious displays. But we're dominated by Christianity. I expect to see
more Christian displays, as I would expect to see more displays of other
religions in other parts of the world. I prefer this to the blandness of no
displays at all. I'm not worried that it will add to the weight of
prosyletizing so much as I'm worried that avoiding it will disconnect us a
bit more from the reality of civil life.

The only
reasonable thing is to deny all of them the right to display their
religion
in public places.

I think that's too much reasonableness and that it bleeds too much out of
our civil life.

If you are
interested in peace and fairness you simply say; no religious displays on
public property, end of problem.

But you've created another problem, and I think it's a worse one.


Well reasoned and pragmatic. You are doing pretty good on your 12
step program. I glad I recommended "Fallen Conservatives CAN become
Conservatives again" to you.

Keep up the good work.

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 03:02:33 GMT, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 22:08:26 GMT, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 20:48:02 GMT, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:

Guido wrote:

Hillary, is a Liberal. A far leftist, no matter how stridently she has
tried to portray herself a centrist. Long before Bush, the Left has
tried to remove our guns, and they will try long after Bush.

Yes and they will have some dandy new tools if they can throw away any
oversight by the other branches of government.



Well you see that's the thing. Laws aren't worth much if you can't
count on them.

Sure. Ask any Leftist. They hate laws. Except their own. They try to
find workarounds for everyone elses. Like the Constitution.




Ive yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that anyone
has lost their freedoms or privacy because of interception of
phone calls, or having their library records checked, or even as
a direct result of the Patriot Act.

Well, Jose Padilla sure did. He'd be serving a legitimate prison
sentence by now if he'd been charged timely. As it is he may walk.
Pretty ****ing stupid don't you think?

You mean Abdullah Al Muhajir?

Who?

John John John...you babble about Jose..but yet you know nothing about
him???

What's to know? If he's an American, he has rights. It really is that
simple. As near as I can tell, there isn't a showing that he has actually
done anything related to the stated reasons for his detention.

December 31, 2005
Padilla Lawyers Urge Supreme Court to Block Transfer
By NEIL A. LEWIS
WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 - Lawyers for Jose Padilla told the Supreme Court on
Friday that it should not grant the government's emergency request to have
him transferred from a military brig to civilian custody to face terrorism
charges in a civil court.

The lawyers acknowledged that Mr. Padilla would prefer to be in civilian
custody eventually. But they said it appeared that the only reason for the
government's rush to move him was to bolster the administration's efforts to
discourage the Supreme Court from reviewing the crucial underlying issue of
whether President Bush had the authority to detain Mr. Padilla, an American
citizen, as an enemy combatant for more than three years.

"The government had the power to transfer Padilla from physical military
custody for more than three years, yet only now does it deem swift transfer
imperative," Mr. Padilla's lawyers argued in their brief filed Friday.

They noted that the justices are scheduled to consider whether to review Mr.
Padilla's case at their private conference on Jan. 13. After that, the
lawyers said, it would be acceptable to move Mr. Padilla.

When Mr. Padilla (pronounced puh-DILL-ah) was first arrested in Chicago at
O'Hare Airport in May 2002, the authorities said he was considering a plot
to explode a radioactive "dirty bomb" in some American city. But in the
criminal indictment issued in November, the government made no mention of
the dirty bomb plot and instead charged him with fighting against American
forces alongside members of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

The issue of Mr. Padilla's transfer is the latest development in what has
become a complicated and extraordinary legal battle, not only between the
government and Mr. Padilla, but also between the Justice Department and a
federal appeals court that has usually been a reliable supporter of Mr.
Bush's authority in the fight against terrorism.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth
Circuit provided Mr. Bush with a sweeping victory in September, saying he
had the power to detain Mr. Padilla, a former Chicago gang member who allied
himself with radical Islamists, as an enemy combatant.

But the Bush administration said in November that it no longer needed that
authority because it had decided to charge Mr. Padilla in a civilian court.
In addition, the Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to drop its
review of the power of Mr. Bush to declare a citizen an enemy combatant,
saying the Padilla case was now moot. The appeals panel refused to agree to
transfer Mr. Padilla from military custody to civilian.

Judge J. Michael Luttig wrote in the opinion declining the transfer that the
administration appeared to be trying to manipulate the case to avoid a
Supreme Court review of the September ruling. Judge Luttig also warned that
the administration's behavior in the case could jeopardize its credibility
before the courts in other terrorism cases.

The Justice Department, in a strongly worded application to the Supreme
Court earlier this week, said the appeals court panel had overstepped its
bounds in denying Mr. Bush's request to transfer Mr. Padilla and asked the
justices to order an immediate transfer. The department asserted that Mr.
Padilla was agreeable to the transfer. On Friday, his lawyers made it clear
that they felt the government mischaracterized their views regarding the
transfer.



Why would an American citizen be shipped anywhere to be shot by the
US government?
Have I missed something?

Evidently the stroke did something to your reading comprehension.

But in November he was formally charged:

Yes, having been held for three years he was. Just before the
Supremes would have had the opportunity to rule on the legal basis
for his detention BTW. I found that interesting.

So do I. Treading right at the edge but not stepping over..mighty
tricky footwork. But then..the Enemy Combatant thing is new to all of
us.

Three years without being charged isn't treading on the edge of anything.
It's false imprisonment.
The courts are reviewing that issue right now. I'll copy the part that is
concerning here.
Keep in mind that Luttig is about as conservative a jurist as they come:

"Judge J. Michael Luttig wrote in the opinion declining the transfer that
the administration appeared to be trying to manipulate the case to avoid a
Supreme Court review of the September ruling. Judge Luttig also warned that
the administration's behavior in the case could jeopardize its credibility
before the courts in other terrorism cases."




Time will tell wont it? Got $5 you want to waste?

Not really and I doubt you do either.




Either way..the little scumbag is hosed.

It might or might not happen that a lot of cases go out the window
for the lack of admissible evidence soon. How happy will you be to
see these people go free when they could have been convicted and put
away?

When he walks..Ill put $5 in an envelope and send it to you. If he
goes to the joint..send me $5. Deal?

If the courts rule his detention to be illegal he will. They might. Bush
just got slapped down on this last week and the courts are expressing
increasing concern that they will have to throw out what otherwise would be
good cases. You should be as well.




I do have a question for you though. If Bush is so smart why in hell
isn't Saddam dead. I mean, didn't anybody in the administration
realize that his trial would be exactly the sort of mockery we don't
need? His dead body would have been a better example than what we
are seing today and Hussein has no rights. He really was the enemy.

He was indeed. But then..we generally follow the rules and simply
shooting him in the back of the head would have been against the law.

He was armed and the enemy. I don't know what "law" you are talking about
but the ROE in that instance would have equalled dead in my book.



--
John R. Carroll
Machining Solution Software, Inc.
Los Angeles San Francisco
www.machiningsolution.com

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 01:10:21 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 18:16:19 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"Gunner Asch" wrote in message
.. .

Ive yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that anyone
has
lost their freedoms or privacy because of interception of phone
calls,
or having their library records checked, or even as a direct result
of
the Patriot Act.

And you won't, either. They've made sure you'll never hear about it...


ooohhh...the infamous THEY. Same "they" as flys the black
helicopters, and runs the mind control satillites? And have a flock
of aliens on ice at Area 51?

Same "theys" who just revealed themselves with the secret spying
operation.

They didnt reveal themselves..someone else did. Thats why they call it
a secret operation. Governments do that. Most of them are quite legal.

Legitimate ogvernments do that under the law. This administration -- not the
government, but one branch that has become a loose cannon -- just violated
the law, flatly, and admittedly. Now we'll see how the other two branches
handle it. The resolution of the case is a constitutional issue. Most
constitutional authorities think that the Court will not uphold what the
administration has done. But few people think that charges will be brought.
I doubt if they should be, but it would be good if the Court declared the
actions unconstitutional. Having a president make it up as he goes along is
not a good thing for the long run.

Same "theys" who won't reveal who they have in captivity to relatives and
lawyers who have inquired.

Good. Now Im sure some wonk from a leftist newsrag will get the scoop.
And broadcast it. Dont you just love traitors in the US? And we
hardly ever execute them anymore. Hummm Julius and Ethel were the last
IRRC.

That's right. The burden of proof for treason has tightened up --
undermining the government is not enough, you have to prove complicity with
a foreign power -- so they rarely bring an explicit charge of treason to a
court. They find other charges. Ollie North got off on a technical appeal,
for example, and Gordon Liddy got a light sentence because he was such a
pathetic dupe. In the early 19th century, either one could have been
executed for treachery.

Regarding the role of the press, it's always a question of whether you like
your government to work in secret or in the open. You apparently prefer
secret government, at least, this month. g

Jefferson, like you, went back and forth on the issue of how much lattitude
the press should have. But when he wasn't being personally attacked by the
press he could be philosophically principled about its role:

"The functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will
the liberty and property of their constituents. There is no safe deposit for
these but with the people themselves, nor can they be safe with them without
information. Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is
safe." --Thomas Jefferson to Charles Yancey, 1816.

When the government doesn't like the press, it's usually because the
government has something embarrassing to hide from the people -- like its
spying on US citizens. Or, in the case of the Pentagon Papers, the fact that
the whole Tonkin Gulf Affair was a fake, trumped up in secret to get the
American people to support war against North Vietnam.


Once your government goes secret, nobody knows what's going on.

This is news? Btw...if the government is secret..how come we know so
much about what they are doing?

How much do you think we know? We know they ran a secret spying operation
that George Bush said we would never do without court warrants. We know that
they chose to ignore the cautions from the CIA about the quality of
"intelligence" about the supposed Iraqi WMDs.

But those are just a couple of things that the press tripped over. When you
have a government that's operating like that, and you pick up a couple of
small pieces of evidence that proves it, how do you know how much more
they're doing behind our backs?


Enquiring minds want to know.

We sure do.

--
Ed Huntress

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 08:59:58 GMT, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 03:02:33 GMT, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 22:08:26 GMT, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:

Gunner Asch wrote:
On Fri, 30 Dec 2005 20:48:02 GMT, "John R. Carroll"
wrote:

Guido wrote:

Hillary, is a Liberal. A far leftist, no matter how stridently she has
tried to portray herself a centrist. Long before Bush, the Left has
tried to remove our guns, and they will try long after Bush.

Yes and they will have some dandy new tools if they can throw away any
oversight by the other branches of government.



Well you see that's the thing. Laws aren't worth much if you can't
count on them.

Sure. Ask any Leftist. They hate laws. Except their own. They try to
find workarounds for everyone elses. Like the Constitution.




Ive yet to see a credible piece of objective evidence that anyone
has lost their freedoms or privacy because of interception of
phone calls, or having their library records checked, or even as
a direct result of the Patriot Act.

Well, Jose Padilla sure did. He'd be serving a legitimate prison
sentence by now if he'd been charged timely. As it is he may walk.
Pretty ****ing stupid don't you think?

You mean Abdullah Al Muhajir?

Who?

John John John...you babble about Jose..but yet you know nothing about
him???

What's to know? If he's an American, he has rights. It really is that
simple. As near as I can tell, there isn't a showing that he has actually
done anything related to the stated reasons for his detention.

December 31, 2005
Padilla Lawyers Urge Supreme Court to Block Transfer
By NEIL A. LEWIS
WASHINGTON, Dec. 30 - Lawyers for Jose Padilla told the Supreme Court on
Friday that it should not grant the government's emergency request to have
him transferred from a military brig to civilian custody to face terrorism
charges in a civil court.

The lawyers acknowledged that Mr. Padilla would prefer to be in civilian
custody eventually. But they said it appeared that the only reason for the
government's rush to move him was to bolster the administration's efforts to
discourage the Supreme Court from reviewing the crucial underlying issue of
whether President Bush had the authority to detain Mr. Padilla, an American
citizen, as an enemy combatant for more than three years.

"The government had the power to transfer Padilla from physical military
custody for more than three years, yet only now does it deem swift transfer
imperative," Mr. Padilla's lawyers argued in their brief filed Friday.

They noted that the justices are scheduled to consider whether to review Mr.
Padilla's case at their private conference on Jan. 13. After that, the
lawyers said, it would be acceptable to move Mr. Padilla.

When Mr. Padilla (pronounced puh-DILL-ah) was first arrested in Chicago at
O'Hare Airport in May 2002, the authorities said he was considering a plot
to explode a radioactive "dirty bomb" in some American city. But in the
criminal indictment issued in November, the government made no mention of
the dirty bomb plot and instead charged him with fighting against American
forces alongside members of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

The issue of Mr. Padilla's transfer is the latest development in what has
become a complicated and extraordinary legal battle, not only between the
government and Mr. Padilla, but also between the Justice Department and a
federal appeals court that has usually been a reliable supporter of Mr.
Bush's authority in the fight against terrorism.

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth
Circuit provided Mr. Bush with a sweeping victory in September, saying he
had the power to detain Mr. Padilla, a former Chicago gang member who allied
himself with radical Islamists, as an enemy combatant.

But the Bush administration said in November that it no longer needed that
authority because it had decided to charge Mr. Padilla in a civilian court.
In addition, the Justice Department urged the Supreme Court to drop its
review of the power of Mr. Bush to declare a citizen an enemy combatant,
saying the Padilla case was now moot. The appeals panel refused to agree to
transfer Mr. Padilla from military custody to civilian.

Judge J. Michael Luttig wrote in the opinion declining the transfer that the
administration appeared to be trying to manipulate the case to avoid a
Supreme Court review of the September ruling. Judge Luttig also warned that
the administration's behavior in the case could jeopardize its credibility
before the courts in other terrorism cases.

The Justice Department, in a strongly worded application to the Supreme
Court earlier this week, said the appeals court panel had overstepped its
bounds in denying Mr. Bush's request to transfer Mr. Padilla and asked the
justices to order an immediate transfer. The department asserted that Mr.
Padilla was agreeable to the transfer. On Friday, his lawyers made it clear
that they felt the government mischaracterized their views regarding the
transfer.



Why would an American citizen be shipped anywhere to be shot by the
US government?
Have I missed something?

Evidently the stroke did something to your reading comprehension.

But in November he was formally charged:

Yes, having been held for three years he was. Just before the
Supremes would have had the opportunity to rule on the legal basis
for his detention BTW. I found that interesting.

So do I. Treading right at the edge but not stepping over..mighty
tricky footwork. But then..the Enemy Combatant thing is new to all of
us.

Three years without being charged isn't treading on the edge of anything.
It's false imprisonment.
The courts are reviewing that issue right now. I'll copy the part that is
concerning here.
Keep in mind that Luttig is about as conservative a jurist as they come:

"Judge J. Michael Luttig wrote in the opinion declining the transfer that
the administration appeared to be trying to manipulate the case to avoid a
Supreme Court review of the September ruling. Judge Luttig also warned that
the administration's behavior in the case could jeopardize its credibility
before the courts in other terrorism cases."

They are going to have to has out if he is an Enemy Combatant first,
or an American first..and thats the key to everything.

Unfortunatley..or fortunately...such a situation hasnt cropped up
before in this fashion..so there is no precident to work from.




Time will tell wont it? Got $5 you want to waste?

Not really and I doubt you do either.




Either way..the little scumbag is hosed.

It might or might not happen that a lot of cases go out the window
for the lack of admissible evidence soon. How happy will you be to
see these people go free when they could have been convicted and put
away?

When he walks..Ill put $5 in an envelope and send it to you. If he
goes to the joint..send me $5. Deal?

If the courts rule his detention to be illegal he will. They might. Bush
just got slapped down on this last week and the courts are expressing
increasing concern that they will have to throw out what otherwise would be
good cases. You should be as well.

if again. You got lots of Ifs this evening.



I do have a question for you though. If Bush is so smart why in hell
isn't Saddam dead. I mean, didn't anybody in the administration
realize that his trial would be exactly the sort of mockery we don't
need? His dead body would have been a better example than what we
are seing today and Hussein has no rights. He really was the enemy.

He was indeed. But then..we generally follow the rules and simply
shooting him in the back of the head would have been against the law.

He was armed and the enemy. I don't know what "law" you are talking about
but the ROE in that instance would have equalled dead in my book.

He was captured in a hole in the ground without incident. And if we
had shot him..it would have created yet another martyr. Frankly..we
should have shot him, put him back in the hole, filled it with cement
and never told anyone. And the same goes with bin Laden. Publicly
dead..he becomes a martyr. "whereabouts unknown", he is simply a blip
on the screen. Which may well be why he hasnt been heard from in a
while...he is dead, and no one is talking. Hence..no martyrs.

Shrug..

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 04:08:34 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

They didnt reveal themselves..someone else did. Thats why they call it
a secret operation. Governments do that. Most of them are quite legal.

Legitimate ogvernments do that under the law. This administration -- not the
government, but one branch that has become a loose cannon -- just violated
the law, flatly, and admittedly.

Got cites?

Gunner

"Pax Americana is a philosophy. Hardly an empire.
Making sure other people play nice and dont kill each other (and us)
off in job lots is hardly empire building, particularly when you give
them self determination under "play nice" rules.

Think of it as having your older brother knock the **** out of you
for torturing the cat." Gunner

On Sat, 31 Dec 2005 07:16:36 GMT, Gunner Asch
wrote:

Same "theys" who just revealed themselves with the secret spying operation.

They didnt reveal themselves..someone else did. Thats why they call it
a secret operation. Governments do that. Most of them are quite legal.

Per the neocon party's own lawyers.
Not per the US Constitution as I recall it.
OTOH We don't really expect you to recall or know what that is.
--
Cliff