Results 1 to 5 of 5

Thread: An Unbearable and Choking Hell

  1. #1

    An Unbearable and Choking Hell

    An Unbearable and Choking Hell: The Loss of Our Freedoms in the Wake of 9/11

    By John W. Whitehead
    September 15, 2014

    “I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”—Osama bin Laden (October 2001), as reported by CNN

    What a strange and harrowing road we’ve walked since September 11, 2001, littered with the debris of our once-vaunted liberties. We have gone from a nation that took great pride in being a model of a representative democracy to being a model of how to persuade a freedom-loving people to march in lockstep with a police state.

    What began with the passage of the USA Patriot Act in October 2001 has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse. Since then, we have been terrorized, traumatized, and tricked into a semi-permanent state of compliance. The bogeyman’s names and faces change over time—Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and now ISIS—but the end result remains the same: our unquestioning acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in exchange for the phantom promise of safety and security.

    Ironically, just a short week after the 13th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we find ourselves commemorating the 227th anniversary of the ratification of our Constitution. Yet while there is much to mourn about the loss of our freedoms in the years since 9/11, there has been little to celebrate.

    The Constitution has been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded to such an extent that what we are left with today is but a shadow of the robust document adopted more than two centuries ago. Most of the damage has been inflicted upon the Bill of Rights—the first ten amendments to the Constitution—which historically served as the bulwark from government abuse.

    Set against a backdrop of government surveillance, militarized police, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, eminent domain, overcriminalization, armed surveillance drones, whole body scanners, stop and frisk searches, roving VIPR raids and the like—all sanctioned by Congress, the White House and the courts—a recitation of the Bill of Rights would understandably sound more like a eulogy to freedoms lost than an affirmation of rights we truly possess.

    As I make clear in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, the Constitution has been on life support for some time now. We can pretend that the Constitution, which was written to hold the government accountable, is still our governing document. However, the reality we must come to terms with is that in the America we live in today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.

    Consider the state of our freedoms, and judge for yourself whether this Constitution Day should be a day of mourning, celebration or a robust call to action:

    The First Amendment is supposed to protect the freedom to speak your mind and protest in peace without being bridled by the government. It also protects the freedom of the media, as well as the right to worship and pray without interference. In other words, Americans should not be silenced by the government. Yet despite the clear protections found in the First Amendment, the freedoms described therein are under constant assault. Increasingly, Americans are being arrested and charged with bogus charges such as “disrupting the peace” or “resisting arrest” for daring to film police officers engaged in harassment or abusive practices. Journalists are being prosecuted for reporting on whistleblowers. States are passing legislation to muzzle reporting on cruel and abusive corporate practices. Religious ministries are being fined for attempting to feed and house the homeless. And protesters are being tear-gassed, beaten, arrested and forced into “free speech zones.” But to the founders, all of America was a free speech zone.

    The Second Amendment was intended to guarantee “the right of the people to keep and bear arms.” Yet while gun ownership has been recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court as an individual citizen right, Americans remain powerless to defend themselves against government agents armed to the teeth with military weapons. Police shootings of unarmed citizens continue to outrage communities, while little is being done to demilitarize law enforcement agencies better suited to the battlefield.

    continued...https://www.rutherford.org/publicati...in_the_wake_of
    "The Patriarch"



  2. Remove this section of ads by registering.
  3. #2
    “I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”—Osama bin Laden (October 2001), as reported by CNN

    “I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”—Osama bin Laden (October 2001), as reported by CNN

    “I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”—Osama bin Laden (October 2001), as reported by CNN

  4. #3
    However, the reality we must come to terms with is that in the America we live in today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.

    However, the reality we must come to terms with is that in the America we live in today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.

    However, the reality we must come to terms with is that in the America we live in today, the government does whatever it wants, freedom be damned.

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    “I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”—Osama bin Laden (October 2001), as reported by CNN

    “I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”—Osama bin Laden (October 2001), as reported by CNN

    “I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”—Osama bin Laden (October 2001), as reported by CNN

    Interesting that such a statement should issue from the pie hole of Bin Laden, of all people. The quintessential boogeyman, "master terrorist", and presumed adherent and advocate of sharia. Why, then, does he speak in such apparent tone as this? "Freedom and human rights in America are doomed" tacitly implies that they exist(ed) here in the USA. THAT implication does not seem likely from the mind of a man who presumably deems the tenets of Islam and its expression in sharia to constitute the very definition of "freedom" and "human rights". If our assumptions about Bin Laden are correct, then IMO such words he would never have spoken, but would have couched his sentiment in very different terms. Therefore, it would seem our assumptions about who he was and that for which he stood are in some significant error.
    Last edited by osan; 09-24-2014 at 06:03 PM.
    freedomisobvious.blogspot.com

    There is only one correct way: freedom. All other solutions are non-solutions.

    It appears that artificial intelligence is at least slightly superior to natural stupidity.

    Our words make us the ghosts that we are.

    Convincing the world he didn't exist was the Devil's second greatest trick; the first was convincing us that God didn't exist.

  6. #5
    What began with the passage of the USA Patriot Act in October 2001 has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse. Since then, we have been terrorized, traumatized, and tricked into a semi-permanent state of compliance. The bogeyman’s names and faces change over time—Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and now ISIS—but the end result remains the same: our unquestioning acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in exchange for the phantom promise of safety and security.

    It's going to get worse - MUCH worse - before it ever starts to get better. There will come a time, and I believe that time is coming soon, when each and every one of us is going to have to make the most difficult decision of our lives.



Similar Threads

  1. CA-“They’re killing me!” Unbearable Body Cam Shows Cops Suffocate Innocent Man to Death
    By Anti Federalist in forum Individual Rights Violations: Case Studies
    Replies: 2
    Last Post: 01-29-2016, 05:37 PM
  2. Replies: 11
    Last Post: 05-14-2014, 07:29 PM
  3. The Unbearable Whiteness of Duke Basketball
    By stu2002 in forum Open Discussion
    Replies: 5
    Last Post: 04-05-2010, 12:40 PM
  4. These nerves are unbearable...
    By bp2519 in forum Iowa
    Replies: 9
    Last Post: 01-03-2008, 07:03 PM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •