I really hate being treated like a criminal when I'm just an incendiary.....

[Comment regarding the Cheney-Specter warrantless surveillance bill -- online petition at http://go.care2.com/e/M7NQ/6fg/CO8h ]


The essence of Anglo-American criminal law has for centuries said, "Innocent until proven guilty", and that ought to preclude treating American citizens as perpetually under suspicion. Casting the information net as wide as possible is bound to turn up more "false positives" than real threats, and cause irreparable damage to this government's credibility and citizens' trust in it. Warrants are supposed to be obtained for good reason, not the least of which is not harrassing the citizenry without due cause over their personal communications and opinions. Extending surveillance presumes that those under it are suspected of crime, and that is a supposition best restricted to those whose cases have been approved *as* suspicious by a formal warrants court. Otherwise you make the whole populace -- at least those who care about their honour -- feel like criminals in their own homeland. And we all know that that is the prime hallmark of a totalitarian regime, that no one is safe from the government's pettily-irrational snooping and pouncing. So don't let this bill pass into law and lead us deeper into that morass of power without accountability.


(Aside: Lame ducks act with reckless desperation...apres nous le deluge and all that. I wouldn't be atall surprised if this were rammed through just to spite the legislators that'll have to deal with it under Bush and try to rescind it as soon as they have a chance. Hope it fails, though...)

There's a difference between smarts and book-larnin'

So, this is what's got the politicos' panties in a bunch lately.....

( Senator Kerry vs. the White House.... )

Admittedly, it was awkwardly said and then hastily clarified....but then, it's really talking about two different things if you look at it closely enough, and neither side quite seems to grasp that. Failure to navigate the country's education system, regardless of actual intelligence, may very well lead to military enlistment as the most-likely way to gain financial stability.....and lack of practical intelligence, regardless of the amount of "education" that one has bought (navigating the educational system by money), can lead to some plenty stupid policy decisions -- like "getting stuck in Iraq."

I don't think that Senator Kerry meant anything against the actual intelligence of the average American soldier, but it is thin-skinned defensiveness/denial on the part of his attackers to ignore the fact that lack of successful formal education and the career paths it opens is a well-known reason why people join the military -- because what they've gotten so far hasn't worked for them and they want a better chance via training experience and college funding through the G.I. Bill. That's hardly unintelligent as a motivation, but it is exploited to cover over the risks and compromises, and it is a situation that makes educational and socioeconomic inequity highly advantageous to recruitment efforts, because it means they have leverage. Lack of opportunity = "hungry' recruits (remember The Firm?) = soldiers who will not question orders or make trouble, because they know they're both beholden and under the thumb of the DOD. Which is no fault of their own, but it is an insult to them that they are so obviously used.

That's one point in favour of universal socio-military service....not only would the rich not be able to buy their [kids'] way out of it, but it would desegregate the military services from being a bloc apart from civilians, desegregate the social assumptions of who can and does serve their country, and involve all citizens in the decisions (rights, training discipline, obligations, benefits, risks, rehabilitation) that go into such service -- and making sure that it is service, and not slavery, that is being practiced.

Oh, and make us think a lot more carefully about going to war, 'cause we'd know that it was all of our asses on the line. Something to think about the next time, eh?