vision2020
RE: Free Speech Forum and March for Human Rights...
Minor
correction....
Rights are not 'granted'
or else they are not considered rights. They are protected or
guaranteed. You are granted a license to drive a car. You have a
right to peaceful public assembly. You are granted an audience with the
king (in olden times). You have a right to keep and bear arms (except
under Federal law in the 9th circuit). You are granted a license to do
business in the city of Moscow. You have a right to confront your accusers
at a fair and speedy trial.
Rights are (supposedly)
protected by the Federal government and that often requires force at the barrel
of a gun. Whether that force was used in suppressing Germany's bid for
world domination during the 40's or whether it was the National Guard in getting
rid of the suppression of blacks in the south in the 50's there are lots of
instances where our military has protected our rights and we owe them a debt
that is difficult to comprehend if you weren't there.
Yes, the Federal
Government is stomping on our rights 'right and left' at the moment (9th circuit
ruling last week for example) and we need to protest and demand our rights
back. The detaining of 'enemy combatants' with being charged, given access
to a lawyer, etc. is another blatant
infringement.
But I find it difficult
to fault the military directly. It's the politician that are passing the
unconstitutional laws. It's the executive branch that is enforcing them
and coming up with their own twisted, tortured, logic that they escape being
held accountable. The military doesn't really have many options short of a
coup at stopping a lot of the infringements. Yes, many of the
infringements are to make their jobs easier and they have taken the ball and run
with it. Just as most of the other beneficiaries of the other rights
infringements have done over the years. Should it be stopped?
YES! Do I blame them for the problem? Not
really.
And as I said nearly three years ago during
a different attack on our rights:
Inalienable rights are
not asked or pleaded for. They are demanded and taken, by force if
necessary. Stop this unjustified attack on our unalienable
rights.
Joe
Huffman
February 2,
2000
Don Kaag writes:
"[ROTC] provided the trained 'from the people' officers who commanded and
led the men and women who ensured that you could make a march like this.
They shed their blood to keep you free.
" 'For those who have served,
freedom has a taste---and a price---that
the protected will never know.'
(Found written on a piece of C-Rat box
cardboard, and nailed to a tree
outside a firebase near Khe Sahn, RVN,
1965.)"
And I have to wonder what freedom, exactly, was being protected at Khe
Sahn? I'm lucky--my dad came back from Operation Prairie II in Viet
Nam unharmed in mind or body, unlike many of his fellow Marines.
A citizen's right to protest war is not granted through the
magnanimity of the armed services. In fact, those rights have often
been suspended in U.S. history at the behest of the military in order to
protect it from criticism. It is our persistence and our conviction
that keep us marching, not the generosity of the military. And our
First Amendment rights, not the paternal good nature of the folks with the
guns, protect the expression of our dissent.
People can disagree in good conscience about particular wars, or about
war in general; although I have been a pacifist all my life for religious
reasons, I recognize that others have entirely different opinions held with
equal conviction. It's unfair and inaccurate, however, to claim that we
enjoy our position simply as a luxury accorded to us by the superior
self-sacrifice and moral superiority of those who serve in the armed
forces.
Melynda Huskey
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