Lest we forget ....

Christmas at Arlington

In gratitude for our many blessings --
especially for the men and women
who stand watch as we celebrate this holiday season ....

Joyous Chanukah,

and
Happy New Year !

So where were the barking moonbats back in the mid- and late-90's when Clinton's administration "installed" the hush-hush (domestic and international) telecommunications spy programs called Eschelon and Carnivore? 

Ever seen the list of keywords that those programs monitored in cyberspace and in domestic communications?

Did it bother you THEN to have email, website visitations, chatroom content and telephone calls monitored?

Don't fall for the hype projected by the MSM and politicrats.  Don't let national security be politicized by barking moonbats who've been bashing Bush since he whipped their butts a couple of elections ago.

Just because THIS President has taken national security to heart is NOT a bad thing. 

Oh? 

You think it's bad? 

Why? 

Ahhhh .... you don't want big brother watching you? 

OK -- try to think of it as watching OUT for you. 

Still don't like it? 

Tough.  (I can't wait to hear you bitch because state governments install similar "monitoring" programs to tax you for items purchased on the net.)

The majority of us DO like it. 

Wanna know something else?

For starters, ask surviving friends and families of the 9/11 attack what they would have preferred.

Survey families and communities whose lives/resources were spared because national security provisions (monitored under President Bush's watch) worked.

Find out what Bill Clinton's National Security Advisor Sandy Burger stole from the National Archives .... 

Go ahead. 

Dare you.

Better still --- break away from that bleating moonbat herd and educate yourself.  Read the Patriot Act.  Learn what Clinton's administration failed to do following the first terrorist attack on the Twin Towers.  Research the Eschelon and Carnivore projects. 

If you're still in doubt about what and why GWB has authorized, back up your position with facts -- and not the same old over-generalized bash-Bush bullshit hype.

Go ahead.  Sock it to me.

I'd much rather read your words than headlines about another terrorist attack.

Wouldn't it be nice if we put aside our differences for one day to celebrate a common birthday?

It was on this day in 1791 that the Bill of Rights was adopted by the United States. It was the lack of a bill of rights that made the Constitution so controversial a few years before. Many people feared that the adoption of a strong central government could lead to tyranny unless certain rights were guaranteed to the people in writing. Patrick Henry refused to endorse the Constitution for that reason. Thomas Jefferson supported the new constitution, but when he read the first draft in France, he wrote a letter to James Madison saying, "Let me add that a bill of rights is what the people are entitled to against every government on Earth, general or particular, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inferences."

It was James Madison who finally realized that bill of rights was essential to passage of the Constitution, and he promised all the states that a Bill of Rights would be immediately adopted upon the Constitution's ratification. Madison introduced the bill of rights into the first session of congress in 1789, and he used George Mason's Virginia Bill of Rights as the model for the new federal Bill of Rights. Madison originally supported the adoption of seventeen amendments, which was eventually trimmed to twelve, of which ten were adopted.

The rights that were included in the Bill of Rights were directly related to the recent experiences of the colonists. Many colonists had come to this country to get away from religions oppression, so the Bill of Rights protected the free exercise of religion. During the Revolutionary War, colonists had seen printers and journalists jailed and executed when they had opposed the British king, so the Bill of Rights protected the freedom of speech and the press.

The colonists had seen what ordinary citizens with guns could do when they had to fight a revolution against an oppressive government, and so the Bill of Rights protected the right to bear arms and raise militias. Many colonists had been forced to take British soldiers in their houses during the Revolutionary War, and they had also been subject to random searches and seizures by British police. So the Bill of Rights protected citizens against unreasonable searches and seizures, and against the quartering of soldiers. Colonists had seen people thrown into dungeons for no reason, had seen people tortured into giving confessions, had seen inquisitions go on for months, during which the accused were worn down by lengthy interrogations. And so the Bill of Rights gave citizens the right to due process of law, a speedy trial, the right to call witnesses, and the right to use a lawyer in one's own defense.

Happy Birthday ....

source:  Garrison Keillor Newsletter