Tag: Individual Rights

Illusion Of Liberty

Since there is another doctor’s visit today I thought I would re-post something from The Daily Agitator on our illusion of liberty…..and just how it is being taken away one small step at a time.

Is It An Illusion Of Liberty?

Maybe you should spend a little time looking at what Project 2025 has in store for you if implemented completely and while you are at it….get off your ass and learn the policies and disregard the babbling buffoons and vote for your freedoms and not these lame ass promisies that will not be kept.

Just a thought!

Be Smart!

Learn Stuff!

I Read, I Write, You Know

‘cognito ergo me agitare’

Where’s The Outrage?

Let’s step back from Ukraine for awhile and take up another issue that has lost in the media……

Remember when it was revealed that the NSA was collected mega data on US citizens?

There was endless rants and posts about the affront to our rights to privacy…..and yet the newest report of a massive data collection of US citizens is gone by with few writing of the outrage…..

The Central Intelligence Agency has been collecting American’s private data without any oversight or even the minimal legal safeguards that apply to the NSA and FBI, an unconstitutional affront to our civil liberties.

According to a declassified report released yesterday by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB), the CIA’s surveillance program is reminiscent of the mass surveillance programs conducted by the NSA, though the details released thus far paint a disturbing picture of potential wide-scale violations of people’s privacy. To start, the CIA program has apparently been conducted outside the statutory reforms and oversight of the intelligence community instituted after revelations by Edward Snowden in 2013. The newly declassified CIA data collection program is carried out in conjunction with Executive Order 12333 and is therefore subject to even less oversight than the woefully under-supervised NSA surveillance programs subject to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The whos, whats, whys, and hows of this semi-disclosed CIA program are still unknown, and the public deserves the right to know exactly what damage has been done. Senators Ron Wyden and Martin Heinrich are already pressing for the release of even more information. In a partially-redacted letter sent to the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA Director on April 13, 2021, the senators have called for the public release of the full report about the CIA’s surveillance, which remains classified. The senators’ letter also demands answers about how the agency collects the data, what data is being collected, and the rules governing its storage and retention.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/02/we-need-answers-about-cias-mass-surveillance

Once again the American people show a disturbing indifference to the world around them….as long as their little pathetic sphere is blue skies and unicorns then they could care damn less at the loss of rights.

Collectively the American people could be filed away in the ‘Can’t Fix Stupid’ collection.

Turn The Page!

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Rights As A Weapon

The First amendment….the 2nd amendment….seem to the two most cited….probably because those are the only ones that mean anything to most Americans.

It always amuses me when in-bred dumbass stump jumpers start complaining about their rights…..when it comes to their incitement rhetoric or their right to pray to a shopping cart and especially when it is their right to own a 1000 weapons designed for combat…..and now it is their right to infect others with a disease because they do not like the precautions.

Where does all this stupidity end?

Best answer is no time soon….thanx to the lies and bullshit on social media….

I read a article about a book that touches on the situation of rights used as a weapon….

Human rights are generally thought of as defensive in nature. That is, they are held up by certain individuals and groups as a means to protect their dignity from the state or other malevolent actors. Moreover, rights are often viewed as either philosophically grounded in principles of human dignity and/or religiously endowed by a creator. Even absent a philosophical or religious grounding, rights are often regarded as legal concepts and taken as inviolate. These views of human rights treat them as generally positive and used by oppressed groups for liberal ends. In Rights as Weapons: Instruments of Conflict, Tools of Power, Clifford Bob cuts against the hagiography of human rights, and rights in general, to focus on the fundamental political nature of rights and how they are often used strategically, aggressively, and even for “illiberal ends”.

…

Rights as mobilizers. As Bob notes rights are particularly potent motivators of political action. He lists five reasons for this: 1) because rights are perceived as natural in that they have deep roots, 2) rights are also perceived as universal applying across space and time, 3) rights are perceived as absolute in that they are inviolate and can trump other political issues, 4) rights are perceived as apolitical putting them above other petty political squabbles, and finally, 5) rights are violated by one’s foes.

Review – Rights as Weapons: Instruments of Conflict, Tools of Power

Thoughts?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

More Important Than The Trial

Closing Thought–21Jan20

The country is laser focused on the Senate impeachment trial but there are events that should be more important…why?

The trial will be a silly exercise in the absurd.

One of the “Rights” we have is the right to vote for who we like or better yet as a citizen I have the right to vote without worry…..

Back in the old Jim Crow days in the South Blacks had to pay a “poll tax” to vote….or they we not allowed to exercise a right……but thankfully those days are gone…..not so FAST!

Florida’s state Supreme Court on Thursday ruled in favor of denying convicted felons the right to vote if they do not pay fines and fees associated with their incarceration, a decision that was immediately assailed by rights activists as an unconstitutional and immoral poll tax.

In a statement condemning the ruling (pdf), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ACLU of Florida, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund said the ruling “does not—indeed, cannot—alter what the U.S. Constitution requires.”

“A federal court has already held that the state cannot deny people the right to vote because of their inability to pay financial obligations,” the groups said in their statement. 

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/01/16/its-2020-and-floridas-supreme-court-just-ruled-favor-poll-tax

This is sick!

Trying to eliminate people from voting……

This will probably go to the US Supreme Court…as it should,,,,but I have NO confidence that this will be struck down by a mostly conservative court.

If not then this idea will spread throughout the South especially…..and the areas the the GOP has successfully purged voters from the rolls.

I Read, I Wrote, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Who Is Weaponizing Religious Liberty?

Nothing I like better than a bunch of babbling buffoons that want religion to be part of politics……makes sure that real problems are ignored.

Back in the days, many years ago, it was a joy to be part of the political process….but then we got all these semi-literate d/bags on the Right….let me be more specific….the Religious Right…..that turn the whole process into some sort of religious litmus test and started chipping away at the very rights that we all say we love…..

Now it is just a menage of BS after BS…..if it is not abortion then it is prayer or the whole Christian nation thing…..I would love to punch holes in this bullsh*t but I do not feel the urge to bad mouth otherwise spiritual people……

In more recent years these “people” have turned our religious liberty into some sort of weapon….aimed at the very heart of this republic…..

It takes a right-wing village to turn a cherished American principle into a destructive culture-war weapon.

In 2016, for the second year in a row, more than 100 anti-equality bills targeting LGBT people were introduced in state legislatures, many of them described as measures to protect religious liberty. This flood of anti-LGBT and “religious liberty” legislation is not the result of isolated local efforts. It is part of a larger campaign by Religious Right groups to resist and reverse advances toward equality for LGBT Americans by portraying equality as inherently incompatible with religious freedom. That effort began well before the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 marriage equality ruling, but it has kicked into overdrive since.

Religious Right organizations have long equated criticism with persecution, and portrayed legal and political defeats as attacks on Christianity and religious freedom. Efforts to frame opposition to reproductive choice and LGBT equality as religious liberty issues picked up steam with the issuing of the Manhattan Declaration in 2009. This manifesto, co-authored by right-wing Catholic intellectual Robert George, pledged that its signers would refuse to “bend” to “any rule purporting to force us to bless immoral sexual partnerships, treat them as marriages or the equivalent, or refrain from proclaiming the truth, as we know it, about morality and immorality and marriage and the family.” Since then, Religious Right groups, their allies at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and allied politicians have increasingly framed their opposition to marriage equality, nondiscrimination laws, reproductive choice, and the contraception coverage requirement under the Affordable Care Act as questions of religious liberty.

Source: Who Is Weaponizing Religious Liberty? | People For the American Way

There are so many that are concerned about the appearance of Sharia law but do not see where there is little difference in Sharia and the extremism that they want us all to follow….

At what point do we return to the ideals of Jefferson, Adams and Paine?  The separation of church and state…..would be a good place to start.

What’s the Evidence Mass Surveillance Works?

The Paris attacks and the subsequent raids that killed the so-called “mastermind” has brought up the whole scenario about surveillance once again…..the hot button issue in the digital age…..

Extreme measures will be put into effect as soon as possible…..there is even some talk about the possibility of closing borders in Europe…..there will be stricter countermeasures put into place….

But the question that should be asked and fully answered is….will these measures be effective?

Officials are again pointing to the need for mass surveillance to take down terrorists. Here’s what we know about how well it works.

Good question, right?

Source: What’s the Evidence Mass Surveillance Works? Not Much – ProPublica

Stop Ya Belly Achin’!

Thinking back a couple of years I recall that the web was batcrap crazy over a person’s on-line privacy….that was a couple of crises ago and now it does not seem to be that damn important….we just move on to the next crisis that the media has for us……

I know how most of the people that I follow feel about the threat we are facing from ISIS…..some are all for sending in the troops and make short work of them…..and others are less aggressive, shall we say……

For those that are of the aggressive mind let me ask you…..how do you feel about your privacy?

Should we jump and allow the government all access to our stuff or shall we be more cautious?

The Director of the CIA has opened up about your privacy issue…….

Civil liberty advocates are worried that a spate of ISIS attacks will bring a renewed push for more-intense government surveillance, and comments by CIA chief John Brennan won’t make them feel any better. Following the downing of Flight 9268, last week’s suicide bombings in Beirut, and Friday’s Paris massacre, Brennan slammed the “hand-wringing” over government spying, the New York Times reports. “I would anticipate that [Paris was] not the only operation ISIL has in the pipeline,” he said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, per Foreign Policy. And it’s not only just those in the US who want to reinvigorate the NSA-style prying blasted by Edward Snowden: Per the Times, British PM David Cameron is pushing for more aggressive surveillance, while French President Francois Hollande is trying to expand surveillance powers there.

“I do hope that this is going to be a wake-up call, particularly in areas of Europe, where there has been a misrepresentation of what the intelligence and security services are doing, by some quarters that are designed to undercut those capabilities,” said Brennan. The debate has renewed tensions in the Muslim community, where allegations of discrimination are once more bubbling up. “I think all Americans want to be kept safe from violence of any kind,” the director of Muslim Advocates tells the Times. “But we know that blanket surveillance of people based on religion and race doesn’t work.” GOP Rep. Peter King doesn’t think we have a choice when it comes to profiling. “We have to put political correctness aside” and snoop on Muslim communities because “that’s where the threat is coming from.”

“Hand wringing”?  Is that what it is called to be concerned over my right to privacy?

Does this incident warrant the giving up of your right to privacy?

The problem with giving up rights to privacy for the sake of national security is noble but the problem is that government seldom returns a persons right to privacy back to their control once they have had access to it…..even if the threat is abated…..

There has to be a balancing act between the needs of the government and the individual’s right to privacy…..so far I have seen nothing that shows me the government can be trusted…..on any level.

Please sound off…..

Racial Dog Whistles, The Confederate Flag And The Long Shadow Of The GOP’s ‘Southern Strategy’ | ThinkProgress

With all the shootings and death that has occurred in the last year something needs to be addressed…..I know many do not want to talk about such things but believe it is here and it is real…..

Racism is not disappearing……instead it is starting to run sort of rampant……it took the Nazis about 20 years for their ideals to be put into action……and today the thoughts and the desires from the 1950’s are starting to surface and at an alarming rate…….

So yeah…..we DO need to talk about it and find a way for it to disappear forever within our society…….

 

Racial Dog Whistles, The Confederate Flag And The Long Shadow Of The GOP’s ‘Southern Strategy’ | ThinkProgress.

The Question Of Marriage

All the rage on Twitter, in blogs and in the news is the question of marriage…..most notably that of same sex marriage.  But all this back and forth, the proclamations of doom and the sheer amount of lunacy around the subject.

I have not posted much on this for this is none of my business who a person marries……it is a commitment by two people to each other……and in that it is a personal and a private decision that NO one should have a say other than the two people.

Have I made myself clear?

But the subject of marriage peaked my interests and I did some surfing in the more radical, looney tunes Right wing blogs on the subject……I just wanted to see just how ignorant these morons can be.

I eventually found a subject that I felt passionate about….interracial marriage and how it was at one time illegal in certain states, most of whom were in the South.

But first a little background…..I am a product of an interracial marriage…..my father was white and mother was Native American, Apache to be exact.  My daughter is the product of an interracial marriage……her mother is Thai.

With all that said I will continue this thought……when I was working for the state housing authority we were always dealing with people of interracial marriages and at one point one of my co-workers and and with a little participation from a couple of other workers were talking about this situation…..my co-worker was against it because he said it was difficult to decide which culture the child should be raised in…….I let him talk and quote the Bible (I guess) and then I said that is would be a simple decision.  He looked at me roughly and said how so?

I would raise my interracial child as an American.

The debate ended about there.

Okay all that background stuff out of the way……I found a site where these people were almost violently opposed to interracial marriage…..they want to go back to the days of Jim Crow….one even quoted the judge in the Living v Virginia…..a mixed race couple that were being persecuted for being married……

At the age of 18, Mildred became pregnant, and in June 1958 the couple traveled to Washington, D.C. to marry, thereby evading Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924, which made interracial marriage a crime. They returned to the small town of Central Point, Virginia. Based on an anonymous tip,[8] local police raided their home at night, hoping to find them having sex, which was also a crime according to Virginia law. When the officers found the Lovings sleeping in their bed, Mildred pointed out their marriage certificate on the bedroom wall. That certificate became the evidence for the criminal charge of “cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth” that was brought against them.

The Lovings were charged under Section 20-58 of the Virginia Code, which prohibited interracial couples from being married out of state and then returning to Virginia, and Section 20-59, which classified miscegenation as a felony, punishable by a prison sentence of between one and five years. The trial judge in the case, Leon M. Bazile, echoing Johann Friedrich Blumenbach‘s 18th-century interpretation of race, wrote:

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

On January 6, 1959, the Lovings pleaded guilty and were sentenced to one year in prison, with the sentence suspended for 25 years on condition that the couple leave the state of Virginia. They did so, moving to the District of Columbia.

The site I was on was this old fart racist that said that the judge’s statement should be the RULE of the land……of course I could not let that go without voicing an opinion……

I explained to him my ancestry and said……If we are to live by that statement then it is time for…..ALL YOU HONKIES GO HOME!

I await his reply.