On Fri, 22 Nov 2002, Mike Feher wrote: Who saves the government from its own stupidity? More over, who saves the people from government stupidity? Not the law, because that has now been turned against us. You're short-sighted and missing the point, Mike. I don't take my freedoms for granted, I relish them. So when they are taken away, as is slowly happening, I get upset. You seem to be of the mentality that thinks addressing the symptom will cure the problem. This obviously hasn't worked before. Why should the recent legislation be any different? I'll tell you right now, the terrorists won. Enjoy the downward spiral ;) Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

Mike Feher <n4fs(a)monmouth.com> wrote: You make a valid point that we still have better civil liberties in the US than most other countries. However, that does NOT mean that we should be complacent about it and happily allow Congress and the administration to eliminate or circumvent some of those rights whenever they happen to find it expedient. For instance, it would be hard to claim that the PATRIOT Act last year or the recent Homeland Security Act don't reduce our civil liberties. The questions to ask are whether the reductions are justified, whether they are constitutional, and whether they will actually solve the problems they are supposed to. Any time you give the government more power in order to make part of its job easier, that power also gets used in other ways, some of which may be undesirable. I get the impression that you're somehow mistakenly interpreting complaints about the recent decline in civil liberties with an assertion (which I don't think anyone has made in this discussion) that other countries are better. Looking at legislative trends with a critical eye and pushing for better protection of civil liberties is a GOOD thing. If we don't keep an eye on what Congress is doing, and use the courts to ensure that they keep our civil liberties intact, we will eventually find that we no longer have them. Anyhow, since this is so far off-topic, I won't post any further messages on this thread. Eric

Or not familiar enough with the meaning of it. Thank you. We've got enough similiar types in Alberta. They really want to be Texans. Unless you're poor, black, hispanic, and now a new category, Muslim. And not acording to the UN ranking of quality of life. Sweden is #1 and IIRC the US is #13. Canada is ranked #3 but we're trying. But of course the UN is all made up of "commie" (not the C64 kind) bastxxxs anyways. This might have started with people like Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, and Tom Payne. And then slackers like Abe Lincoln, FDR, and Thurgood Marshal. Despite the best efforts of those great Americans like Henry Ford (who admired Hitler) , Senator Joseph McCarthy and Jim Bakker who supported the true way. Mind you many immigrants such as Albert Einstein also undermined those virtues you hold dear. But perhaps I'm mistaken you might be as moronic (Can. slang) as Dubya. Lawrence lgwalker(a)mts.net bigwalk_ca(a)yahoo.com