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Calling all Right Wing ‘Patriots’ Please Identify All the Freedoms You’ve Lost
Here was a citizen contribution to a local newspaper column recently. It was from a fellow who was “getting a little sick” from comments praising President Barack Obama. Here are his direct quotes: “This man (Obama) seems bent on destroying what little is left of the moral and spiritual foundations upon which our laws have been based. He ends with “Christians, you better get active or kiss this nation as you know it goodbye.”
Sounds like arms and ammo to me.
If progressives have one thing in common, it’s a collective confusion about what the hell the right-wing “patriots” are talking about when they bemoan the loss of “moral and spiritual foundations” accompanied by repetitious ramblings of “restoring the constitution” (state nullification efforts apparently notwithstanding). They also decry the loss of all their freedoms and liberty. What exactly can’t these folks do that they so desperately want to do?
No, they can’t aim a flame-thrower at the neighbor’s house or go unpunished for rape (unless it’s a Todd Akin “legitimate rape” of course). I could be wrong since we’re 400,000 rape kits short in this country as a consequence of Republican-bullied funding cuts. Maybe a number of rapists can go unpunished.
You will have to pay some kind of taxes or all services and infrastructure collapse. But those are the only notable exceptions I can think of for the average American in what surely must be the country with more freedom and liberty than any of earth’s other 195 or so nations.
In America, as in Uganda, you’re even free to deny freedoms to others if they’re different from you in any way. The LGBT crowd comes to mind, none of who dare share in the “Freedom and Liberty” patriots hold so dear. One of those two countries are even voting as we speak to put gays to death under certain circumstances. I think it’s Uganda. And don’t even get me started on your black racists core of which I’ve written often. Fear not, patriots, you have the “Freedom and Liberty” to be as racists and homophobes as long as you desire.
As for religious freedom, you can even permanently depart from your mother church if it dares give any rights to gays. The South Carolina Episcopal Church has told its parent denomination to go eff itself (as Clint would say). Ordaining gay clergy; accepting same-sex marriage! How dare the church grant true freedom and liberty to homosexuals. I’m outta here!
Not to worry Palmetto Patriots, every evangelical church in the land will welcome you with open arms (no same-sex hugging, of course). The Right Reverend Mark Lawrence, Bishop of the SC Episcopal Diocese, is the hater behind the split. He is best known for opposing every liberal policy of the national church. This intolerant homophobic zealot is exactly where he belongs, South Carolina. So hate away. There are no religious restraints, if you’re a Christian that is, that come to mind. You can roll around on the floor to your hearts content at the First Church of DC Loathing or cozy up to deadly rattlesnakes on a Sunday Pentecostal service even if you get bit and die. West Virginia Pastor Wolford met that fate last May, just as his preacher father had years earlier.
Speaking of snakes, religion and politics, how ’bout that old rattler on the “Don’t Tread on Me” Gadsden flag. “Liberals, you best watch yer step; that ole boy is fixin’ to strike.” The flag initially gained popular acclaim in 1775 as the U.S. Navy was off to its first Revolutionary War mission. A Continental Colonel named Christopher Gadsden (a South Carolinian naturally) gifted the flagship’s Captain with the bright yellow flag with its not so subtle message to George lll.
Warning! History lesson on freedom to follow.
In an uncomfortable but true historical footnote, the U.S. Navy was unsuccessful in preventing a British coastal blockade. In fact, it wasn’t until the French came along that the U.S. was able to prevail over the enemy in the Revolutionary War. And remember how much the pseudo-patriot crowd hates the French. Please goobers, read ONE, just One objective history book! Francophobes may want to start with a true account of Yorktown. Does the name de Rochambeau ring a bell, patriots? Didn’t think so. Oh, one more thing. The city of Washington that you hate so much was named after a certain American General who fought side-by-side with the French at Yorktown and went on to become our first President.
So the French were key contributors to our freedoms and liberty. Thus citizens can organize truly goofy political parties named after a popular drink from the Camellia sinensis plant. Any citizen, including dopes with limited dopamine, can run for office, even the highest ones, (see Sarah Palin).
You can get married, though 50% of you eventually flee the first attempt. In addition to churches, states can keep gays from daring to approach the altar through legislation and constitutional amendments. Politicians are free to smother the rich with love and let them destroy unions and fair wages. Republicans, in particular, can keep the repressed, repressed and humbled by cutting programs for the poor and calling their leader the “Food Stamp” President. Is this a great country or what?
But, as free as we are, there remains enormous right-wing angst about the potential seizure of firearms. Patriotic Websites and blogs inevitably go back to the alleged gun-control eras of Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse-Tung and a handful of other genocidal monsters, killers of multiple millions right after taking their guns away. Academic and historical arguments aside, that means patriots lump President Obama in with history’s most repellent barbarians though there’s not even the tiniest hint of gun confiscation in the America.
Here’s this angst put into words at a patriotic blog. “Now, watch as our Constitution is assaulted and the Second Amendment is attacked from all sides. Most of the lib asshole mayors, governors and Senators are bouncing off the walls, right now, calling for more gun control, banning semi-auto rifles and banning guns in general.”
This is followed by a rather frightening follow-up entry. “Do it, go ahead, and you are going to have 100 million gun owners fight your asses. Be it police, FBI, ATF…I don’t give a shit…you try to disarm us and you WILL be fought and fought HARD! And blood WILL be spilled!” (Emphasis from the writer).
This is scary stuff that you’d better take seriously.
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64 Responses to Calling all Right Wing ‘Patriots’ Please Identify All the Freedoms You’ve Lost
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Reynardine
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 9:34 am
I can only suppose that the dextrosphere audience is being deliberately incited to some end, and I doubt it’s legitimate victory through the ballot box.
Frostiken
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 9:48 am
I live within 100 miles of the border. Technically I’ve lost all my rights, just that nobody has come by to take them yet.
And if that somebody is the LAPD, well I can look forward to being denied due process while they try to burn me alive in my home.
djchefron(Moderator)
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 9:59 am
Technically you sound like you need to relocate the glennbeckistan
Sally
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 10:17 am
I hear there’s a lovely new Idaho commune that will require you and your kids over 13 to carry aqssault weapons at all times. It will have its own schools teaching Tea Party history, its own 20 foot walls, and no taxes.Not clear yet how they plan to pay for water, sewer, electricity,or paved roads, but hey, you are the ‘survivors’ or the ‘patriots’ or something. Just send money and The Citadel will check you out and ask for more.
Dave
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 10:18 am
And … call the waaaahmbulance, because we’re going to hear a lot more vague nonsense like this “Oh, boo-hoo, my freedoms done been taked.”
Name. The. Freedoms. You’ve. “Technically.” Lost.
And, seriously: your vague catalog of rights rescinded begins by aligning yourself with a murderer? Dorner likely died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was a nut. Where’s your hero now, “patriot”?
Shiva(Moderator)
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 10:24 am
Do we remember when Bish took habeous corpus away and we complained. All these people said if you have nothing to worry about it doesnt effect you
Shiva(Moderator)
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 10:22 am
Notice, they never say which rights, just all my rights. Yet he is still free to move about and rant on a website. Freedom of speech? DAMM
Frostiken
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 11:39 am
The right to own several kinds of arms and armaments, to include an automatic weapon. In 1986, while most of congress was absent, a tiny amendment was wedged inside the laughably named ‘firearm owners protection act’ to close the automatic weapon registry. This is why no gun owner is willing to consent to any kind of gun registration, by the way, because the government abused the bottleneck to outlaw an entire type of weapon.
I lost the right to protect myself and my family in California thanks to draconian gun ownership rules and complete denial of CCW applications.
I partially lost the right to free speech thanks to the invention of ‘free speech zones’ which limit what you can say, where you can say it, and when you can say it, on both colleges and around the president.
I lost the right to travel freely without fear of being put on a blacklist, exiling me from my own country, a list I can’t even see or appeal, because I wrote something on Reddit once.
I lost the right of representation in congress thanks to political gerrymandering and corporate influence that renders the opinions of congressional constituents moot, to say nothing of the broken two-party system that means I’m either a tree-hugging gun-hating hypocrite or a bible-thumping gay-hating lunatic.
I lost the right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure as well as due process with the PATRIOT ACT, along with various state laws such as ‘stop and frisk’.
I lost the right to decide what’s best for my own body, with outlawing large sodas, outlawing assisted suicide, outlawing prostitution, and outlawing minor drugs like Marijuana.
And I lost the right to not be assassinated by my own government because someone may think I pose an “imminent” threat (defined as ‘a threat at some point’, though John Stewart said it best), with no prior attempt to apprehend me to face trial.
Frostiken
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 11:50 am
And one instant downvote for not subscribing to laundry list of approved ‘pro-liberal issues’.
I also lost the right to have intelligent discourse, apparently.
Shiva(Moderator)
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 12:06 pm
So you live overseas?
You lost the right to protect your family when others have done it with a ball and musket?
You do not have the right to own whatever you want. The Supreme Court says you dont
As for the rest you are probably right
HuffPuff
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 12:57 pm
While I don’t agree with the position this guy takes on all of his points on “rights taken or diminished,” he makes sense. And most importantly, he’s picking from both sides of the aisle.
In direct response, Frostiken, I’ll just say that you’ve at least regained the partial loss of free speech instituted under the Bush Regime. No one pushes free speech zones anymore, and I think, after seeing idiots openly carry guns at Obama events/rallies, the “can’t say stuff around the president” died with the carnage that was the Bush presidency.
And let’s be fair and honest. You haven’t lost the ability to protect your family. There are dozens of ways to protect your family. Get a dog. Install an alarm system. Put a baseball bat by your bed. Dig a moat and put some alligators in there…
Or you can just use a six shooter like most people. And please, don’t respond with the crazy “six ex-military, 300 lb guys hopped up on crack sporting an armory, crashing through your front door in a tank” scenario to justify why you need military grade weapons to “protect your family.”
Those extreme and lacks-reality scenarios make you sound like Mike Tyson, who, sitting on 100 million dollars, refuses a fight over a $2 million difference in pay between what he wants and what the promoter offers, goes on to say, “I’ve got to feed my family.”
But, I digress. While Frostiken pushes some of these things to their limits, his overall, general list is solid and valid.
Ron
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 1:12 pm
Totally agree with you! This author makes it seem like the only rights conservatives care about are gun rights. While I do care about gun rights its because I have already lost my right to due process, or even freedom from government assassination against my fellow American citizens. I have lost the right to be secure in my possessions from unwarranted searches and seizures at the airport, train station, and now on the freeways (TSA is now on Interstates). I have lost the right to non-violently protest anywhere the secrete service says I can’t. I have no freedom to stop funding secrete wars in foreign countries that have more to do with oil and the petrol dollar than with our country’s safety. So now that all those rights are gone, I think its really important that no one take my guns away because my guns are for fighting tyranny NOT hunting, or sport shooting, or even personal protection in day to day life.
Shiva(Moderator)
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 1:29 pm
And who took them? A republican.
gsb
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 10:38 pm
Frostiken: I live within less then 100 miles from the border and have no no rights. what border are you talking about?
Peter Barnett
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 10:32 am
1. Right to choose whether or not I want healthcare.
2. Freedom from excessive taxation–just like the founding fathers desired.
3. My posterity’s freedom from an enormous national debt.
4. Freedom to choose my school if I want to go in another district with a waiver.
5. Freedom of a religious based business to not violate its morals.
Could lose:
1. Freedom to protect my family with a weapon of my choice.
2. Freedom of speech if they pass the Fairness Doctrine.
3. Freedom of a dollar menu at McDonald’s if they pass his stupid minimum wage increase idea.
4. The most powerful army in the world if North Korea keeps building bombs, and we keep building windmills.
Need more?
djchefron(Moderator)
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 10:57 am
1.So if you get sick the rest of us have to pay
2.What people pay in taxes is at its lowest since the golden age of ray gun
www.nytimes.com/2012/11/3...
3.Stop obstructing and put people to work.More work More tax revenues
4.You can go to whatever school you want to but not pay for it with my tax dollars
5.You cant not discriminate because someone dont follow your dictates. Taliban?
Shiva(Moderator)
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 11:21 am
No matter how much they dont want anything form the government they take all they can get. They live their lives depending on others paying
Frostiken
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 11:48 am
I love how you guys deride anyone who disagrees as ‘Glen Beck’ and ‘Taliban’.
Pray tell how are you people any different from Fox News when your idea of ‘discussion’ is ‘subscribe to my list of values or be downvoted and banned’?
LAC
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 11:58 am
Well, the difference is that we have the freedom to refer to you as an idiot and you have the freedom to take your paranoid behind elsewhere. Freedom!! Wooo hooo!
!
Shiva(Moderator)
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 12:04 pm
So you have been banned right? Is that like you have lost all your rights?
djchefron(Moderator)
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 12:23 pm
“OH, FOR FUCKS SAKE!!!!!”
Just because you come off as a complete paranoid person doesn’t mean we have to coddle your itty bitty feelings to soothe you.What have you exactly done to be banned from freely traveling?You register your car why not guns.You would agree that if we are war and someone takes up arms against the US he has forfeit his constitutional rights?
Reynardine
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 1:04 pm
Really, you are Exhibit A, Frostiken: you come here, sneer, abuse, and deride, and if anyone disapproves, well, damme, we’re suppressing your exercise of your First Amendment rights. Just don’t come around and try to exercise your Second Amendment ones.
Shiva(Moderator)
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 1:11 pm
Actually he had to leave through the back door
Peter Barnett
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 12:55 pm
1. I haven’t been to a doctor in literally ten years, and I have been to the dentist only twice in twelve years. I don’t want anybody having to pay for something I’m not going to use.
2. Love how you quote the New York Times. Actually, you’re right. It was. Until he came in and lowered them. Hell taxes on the rich were ABOVE 50%! Insanity or what? Why the hell would anyone try to get rich if you have to pay that high?
3. Obama had four years to put people back to work, including two years in which he had both parts of Congress. And what did he do in the four years where he said he was going to cut in in half? He doubled it. You have no argument.
4. Actually, I can’t go to any school I want. If I want to go out of district because I have a bad school in my district, too bad for me.
5. I want the freedom to build a business based on my religion. If people don’t like following my religious beliefs, don’t work for me.
You have no arguments. Now if you would be so kind as to click the little red button with a thumbs down, I believe everything would be in order on this page.
Reynardine
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 1:16 pm
Mr. Barnett, I couldn’t resist telling a formerly Catholic friend of mine, who worked many years in the mental health field, about your unprompted peroration on women priests, and it is her view that you grew up bullied by your mother and/or older sisters.
djchefron(Moderator)
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 1:31 pm
1.Good for you and I ‘m glad you have such excellent health.Others are not so lucky
2.Show me where federal income taxes has been over 50% in the last 30 years and I will admit that I am wrong
3.He put the plan out there,it was to weak IMO and even though he had a filibuster proof Senate for about 5 months it was not you think.2 Senators were sick Byrd and Kennedy and unlike republicans democrats dont always vote lockstep.So he to fight Nelson from Neb. Bachcus from Montana? Conrad from SD who protecting their lobbyist friends and bribers wouldn’t budge
Not excuses just reality
4.Fully fund education then you would NOT have sub par schools.In Illinois for example New Trier school district spends up to 20 k per pupil Chicago spends about 5k
5So if your religion says black people are the devil you have the right to discriminate regardless for fire police etc protection that we all pay for?
6.I really don’t give thumbs down unless you are a complete idiot.
BTW
People who say they don’t care what people think are usually desperate to have people think they don’t care what people think. -George Carlin
Peter Barnett
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 1:49 pm
Reynardine, you can tell your Catholic friend that she apparently knows nothing about the Catholic faith. It is Catholic dogma that women can’t be priests, so good luck trying to change that. ;)
Djchefron,
1. Now all of a sudden you are reversing your ideas. First you said you don’t want to pay for people who get sick, but now you are saying that we should have to pay for insurance because some other people have genetic disorders? Wow. Strange logic there buddy.
2. I’m sorry. I don’t recall saying it was ever 50%. I said it was the highest. I said it was the highest under Reagan, ergo above 50%, before he brought it down. Don’t know where you got the notion I was saying it was above 50% in the last 30 years after Reagan. Strange reading of my info there buddy.
3. Saying you aren’t making excuses usually means you are. Nice try.
4. Funds spent per pupil has very little impact if you knew anything about education. It’s about the teachers, and what goes on at home. Yes, higher salaries draw better teachers, but to say the amount spent directly on a pupil is the answer is the wrong idea. Although I’m not sure if that’s what you’re getting at since you poorly formatted your wording.
5. Ummm….yes? Regardless of what a person says, this is the land of the free and the land of free beliefs. Fire and police protection are government organized. We support this freedom by helping to protect beliefs, regardless of how contrary they are to our own.
6. Then you should start thumbing yourself down. :)
djchefron(Moderator)
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 2:05 pm
I HAVE never said that.Never!! I have the best health care in America VA..In other forums in the past I Have always argued that everyone should have the same health care that I do.
2.I may have been mistaken .Will look back for it.
3.Its not making excuses It was reality
4.If you say so.So the New trier district is morally superior to Chicago and money doesn’t make a difference. OK
5.THANK YOU lawd gawd for separation of church and state
6.Believe it or not I have in the past when I was out of line.
mjh
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 3:22 pm
“Actually, I can’t go to any school I want. If I want to go out of district because I have a bad school in my district, too bad for me.”
——–
Not really — just MOVE to that district.
.
TStMauro
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 4:03 pm
I’ll confine myself to a few of your enumerations. No 1…not all medical conditions have pain. You could be seriously ill and not know it. No dentist in how many years? First, yuck. Dental problems are not relegated to cavities. You could have a disease of some form in your mouth that effects the rest of your body. Next…Obama and Clinton are the only presidents of recent memory who have reduced the debt. The so called fiscally responsible republicans have increased it. He doubled it? Not true. The issue of having both houses in his first term…not all Dems, unlike repubs, march in lockstep. And do you recall the filibusters? They’re still using that game.
Reynardine
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 5:02 pm
Mr. Barnett, how interesting. Note that neither I nor my friend ever addressed whether there ought to be women priests. We addressed your stereotyped (and off-topic) response that there would never be any because dogma forbade it and dogma is immutable. This seems to indicate an obsession, even a phobia, on the subject, and that points to your having been cat-thrashed.
TS
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 6:15 pm
1. And tomorrow you could wake up with cancer. If that happens and you don’t have insurance, you are completely screwed. Your choice will be to die quietly, pay $100k+ in medical bills out of pocket, or let the bills pile up, declare bankruptcy and shift the burden onto guess who – the rest of us! That’s why healthy people are forced to have insurance. Really, this was a *conservative* idea designed to make sure that everyone has some skin in the game. How have you guys forgotten this so soon?
2. No, taxes on the rich were not 50%. Maybe the top *marginal* tax rate was that high, but that doesn’t mean you pay that rate on all of your income. And, seriously, if you have to pay too much tax, then you’d just rather not be rich? C’mon. I’d be thrilled to pay $1,000,000 in taxes – just pay me the salary that would give me that tax liability.
3. Well, the obvious argument is that democrats actually controlled both chambers with a filibuster-proof majority for something like a couple months – not two years. That nonsense has been thoroughly debunked thousands of times and you can go research it yourself. Republican obstructionism has made it virtually impossible to do anything, and yet employment keeps growing anyway.
4. Actually, you can go to any school you want. You *will* have to pay tuition, but you’re free to do it. Or, you could go to a private or parochial school. Or, you could move.
5. What does religion have to do with business? Seriously, you can’t do this for what should be obvious reasons.
aspromised
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 11:04 am
You probably meant for #5 to read: freedom from being bound by whatever wacky religious beliefs your employer tries to make YOU adhere to
aspromised
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 11:13 am
Could you define “weapon of choice”? I dont think that’s actually a freedom. You have hundreds to choose from, we all do.
Do you realize you include the word *IF* in all but one of yoour list? Where is the list of rights and freedoms the States have already imperiled or taken?
Frostiken
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 11:58 am
“I dont think that’s actually a freedom.”
True freedom would be having the choice of any / all kinds of small arms.
Anything less is limitations of that freedom.
Compared to what gun ownership allowed forty years ago, especially if you live in California, yes, you’ve lost a considerable portion of that freedom.
Describing that as ‘not actually a freedom’ was a nice weaselly little way of escaping from the fact that he still has a valid point.
Shiva(Moderator)
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 12:12 pm
DO you have true freedom? Has anyone in the US ever had true freeedom?
No.
The Surpeme COurt says the gov can limit your weapons. You do not have the freedom to own whatever you want. Thank god
mjh
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 3:18 pm
“True freedom would be having the choice of any / all kinds of small arms.
Anything less is limitations of that freedom.”
—–
Yes, Frosty Ken — everyone should have access to their own nuclear/chemical/biological weapons.
Seriously — GTFO . . .
.
Peter Barnett
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 12:58 pm
Can you not count? I only used *if* three times out of nine. Wow.
Especially considering two of them were in the “if they pass this law” section, where an *if* is necessary to make sense.
Wow.
Christopher
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 2:19 pm
And where, pray tell are those “freedoms” guaranteed in the Constitution?
The_Rev
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 2:31 pm
1. Right to choose whether or not I want healthcare
– You still have the right to choose whether or not you want healthcare, only now if you choose not to, you will receive a fine, this is no different than if you are pulled over without car insurance if you drive.
2. Freedom from excessive taxation–just like the founding fathers desired.
– This is simple answer, remove tax loop holes and corporate subsidies, as well tax offshore accounts. Cut all government salaries by 2/3 impose age restrictions and term limits. Raise the minimum wage to increase tax revenue. Your taxes go down.
3. My posterity’s freedom from an enormous national debt.
– You need to talk to the GOP about that, since they are the party which have increased the national debt exponentially over the last 30 years,
the majority of which is to the military in which the US out spends every other country in the world.
4. Freedom to choose my school if I want to go in another district with a waiver.
– I agree with this but I also feel you should pay the extra tax and tuition related to that school district and not have your fellow tax payer flip the bill.
5. Freedom of a religious based business to not violate its morals.
– Here is where you lack vision, what if the business owner was not “Christian” would you still allow for its morals? Bottom line if a business is FOR-profit it cannot impose religious doctrine under law, you know the Constitution and Bill of Rights. This imposes upon Freedom of Religion. Now if a business is NON-profit they can impose their ideals and enforce them as they seem fit.
This is the same if schools were to teach religion, they would need to teach all religious views.
1. Freedom to protect my family with a weapon of my choice.
– You will still have any choice you wish??
2. Freedom of speech if they pass the Fairness Doctrine.
– Do you even know what it is? It was already passed, and voted out under Republican rule in 1987. It was an FCC rule which was in place so that news agencies had to provide contrasting view points on a subject. No limit to Freedom of Speech.
3. Freedom of a dollar menu at McDonald’s if they pass his stupid minimum wage increase idea.
– You complain about high taxes, yet higher minimum wage lessens tax burden by working poor getting off any government aid and provides more tax dollars, yet you worry because a double cheese burger will cost $1.25 now?
4. The most powerful army in the world if North Korea keeps building bombs, and we keep building windmills.
– We are 20 years ahead of any military in the world, as stated above we spend more than all the world nations combined on our military. We are dependent on other countries for our power transportation and it affects our economy, maybe we should become independent again like our forefathers had intended.
Irene
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 3:50 pm
You do have the freedom to live in a school district of your choice.
The irony of your claimed freedom to protect or defend your family with any weapon yet opposition to health care and asserted right for no medical treatment is giving me a good laugh.
Imagine a child dying at home from a severe respitory infection, perhaps a ruptured appendix or meningitas their last words “daddy protected me with his rifles, machine guns, 100 round assault weapons.
The great news for you is due to electronic records you may be able to get a waiver based on your doctrines to not have any access to healthcare not even if you shoot yourself in the foot.
Sally
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 10:33 am
I have siblings who spout this same right-wing blather..all generalities, no specifics. And they HATE ACA, because they will be sick if they want to, and no fake President is going to make them pay a darn fine if they don’t want insurance. I truly worry for their sanity. Maybe we ought to build some mental hospitals: I think we’re going to need them.
GeneralLerong
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 12:08 pm
Wingers are just so, so afraid. Drenched in fear. About all the wrong things.
We have some real shit to be worried about, but what are they obsessed with? An emotional fear that they, personally, are powerless. Powerless to throw their weight around, because they imagine that’s the only way to feel manly. Bellow and fight.
WEAK!
Reynardine
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 12:43 pm
Of course, the starboardrailers have lost freedoms. Like:
The freedom to beat their wives, daughters, and girlfriends.
The freedom to dictate whether the foregoing must be pregnant or mustn’t be pregnant.
The freedom to prevent any couples they regard as mismatched from marrying.
The freedom to force or prevent church attendance by others.
The freedom to rape any woman they think should be sexually available.
The freedom to reserve all the good jobs and good political positions to only those who are like themselves.
The freedom to take from the have-nots to enrich the have-mores.
The freedom to shut up anyone who doesn’t agree with them.
The freedom to strafe down anyone who doesn’t shut up, including their little kids.
And to protect these freedoms, they gotta have the Second Amendment, or it’s tyranny, I tell ya!
Lori
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 1:15 pm
Courtesy of Peter Barnett:
3. Freedom of a dollar menu at McDonald’s if they pass his stupid minimum wage increase idea.
I think this loss of the dollar menu trumps any & all other freedom losses. Whatever will we do (other than use our “second-amendment remedies”)?
Reynardine
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 5:10 pm
DILLINGER:
Stick ‘em up. Hand over all your Big Macs in a brown paper bag, unmarked, no dye, or we waste you.
Shiva(Moderator)
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 6:25 pm
Yer a troubled person Rey lol
Erin
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 12:57 pm
Jonathan Turley, professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and former Obama voter, wrote very elegantly on this very topic last year. He’s not a right wing person but he’s concerned about loss of liberty just the same. Here are the high points he made about loss of liberties in America:
1. Assassination of U.S. citizens
President Obama has claimed, as President George W. Bush did before him, the right to order the killing of any citizen considered a terrorist or an abettor of terrorism.
2. Indefinite detention
Terrorism suspects are to be held by the military; the president also has the authority to indefinitely detain citizens accused of terrorism.
3. Arbitrary Justice
The president now decides whether a person will receive a trial in the federal courts or in a military tribunal, a system that has been ridiculed around the world for lacking basic due process protections.
4. Warrantless Searches
The president may now order warrantless surveillance, including a new capability to force companies and organizations to turn over information on citizens’ finances, communications and associations. Bush acquired this sweeping power under the Patriot Act in 2001, and in 2011, Obama extended the power, including searches of everything from business documents to library records.
5. Secret Evidence
The government now routinely uses secret evidence to detain individuals and employs secret evidence in federal and military courts. It also forces the dismissal of cases against the United States by simply filing declarations that the cases would make the government reveal classified information that would harm national security — a claim made in a variety of privacy lawsuits and largely accepted by federal judges without question.
Mr. Turley goes on to make several other excellent points. I would encourage people to read his article in its entirety. It was published in the Washington Post, January 13, 2012 under the title, “10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free.”
djchefron(Moderator)
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 1:16 pm
Don’t blame the President.Blame congress for giving up their constitutional duties when they passes the Patriot act.And if the President did arbitrarily renounced the Patriot act 1.He could be in violation of the Constitution you know that little clause known as separations of powers 2.If something did happen you be the first one crying the President didn’t protect us.
Jonathon Turley while he may be right is not a politician so he can teach but wouldn’t face any consequences for his actions
Peter Barnett
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 1:52 pm
Of Course! Never blame the President for anything! Unless if it is a Republican in office. Then blame them. Because all Republicans are from the Taliban and want to make Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh the kings of our lives and take away all freedoms!
Seriously, it gets old. If I was just as reactionary I would be saying:
Blame the Democrats! They’re all like Stalin and communists and Obama is a dictator! He wants to throw all of us in concentration camps and make us all socialists!
See. It’s old. Both sides are false. I hope we can all learn to discuss without name-calling, vilifying, or bashing. It really is a shame.
fedded-up
Feb. 17th, 2013 at 8:56 am
This is better known as “FALSE EQUIVALENCY.” aka, BULLSHITE.
fedded-up
Feb. 17th, 2013 at 12:41 am
FINALLY – an elucidation of real honest-to-gawd rights that have definitely been taken away. Yes, they have, and I am mightily perturbed about it. Most of the crap Bush Inc crammed into his “Patriot Act” is anything but patriotic and grossly unconstitutional, undemocratic, not to mention horrifically WRONG. And this prez needs to seriously re-evaluate this. As a constitutional law professor, he HAS TO know this stuff smacks of Stalinesque despotism. No, there is no KGB, etc – but, as has been proven to us all in brazen technicolor, if the power is available, it can and will be abused with the right kind of amoral asshats in office.
Traci
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 1:39 pm
The fact is that after 9/11, when the Patriot Act was rammed into being, it was the beginning of the end. Citizens of this country are now being spied on and forced into smaller and smaller boxes as time passes. While I am most definitely NOT pro-gun, I am pro-freedom. To me that means, people should be able to own guns…within reason. What possible use could an individual have for a semi-automatic assault weapon? There isn’t one. They should be outlawed, destroyed and never manufactured again. No one needs a weapon like that and we have them because some yahoo decided we had to have the ability to kill more people at one time that one bullet can do. Being pro-freedom means being able to marry whomever we want, being able to provide for our families, being able to practice whatever religion we identify with, have healthcare if it’s required, food when we’re hungry, the ability to just BE without anyone (be it government or religious zealots) telling us what we should be doing at any given moment in time. When people’s basic needs are met, crime falls, people are happier and not spending every waking moment stressed about where the rent or food or medical care will come from. Imagine what a country of well cared for individuals could accomplish. For the love of all that is holy people, STOP arguing. It’s all histrionics from my viewpoint. Caring about and for one another is the ONLY WAY to fix what’s wrong with this place. Life is not an individual sport. We are all in this together. I could care less if someone is rich. That said, there is a limit to how much of anything (money included) anyone needs. Why is it impossible to help others once you have enough? Geezus Christ! Open your eyes to what you are doing? It’s pointless and unproductive. Our government representatives are so worried about hearing themselves speak, they’ve forgotten what they’re working for. The Republican guys are so busy trying to keep the Democrat guys from getting anything that’s important to them and vice versa. Who suffers? We do. Get a grip. All of you. You are completely missing the point.
Jennifer Keller
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 1:46 pm
I love all of the responses although Frostiken did get pilled on a bit. I know that progressives are sick of being held back by the rwnj of the GOP but I would also make note that Erin is right we have lost freedoms we are just not ready to talk about it. They can even read our email without a warrant so it is something to talk about and vote about but we must first wrench the concern about the loss of freedom from the right wing nut jobs and own our concern as progressives.
Cheryl
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 2:37 pm
All I have to say is if they feel they have no freedoms here then maybe they need to move to Yemen or Iran. We have freedom, but you still have to have laws or else we’d have the wild west all over again.
Voltaire
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 3:10 pm
I refuse to even talk to, or consider these “people” anymore. They’re all alarmists trying to scare people into believing the same lies they bought into but beyond all that they’re just so damn certain their irrational fears and claims are true that they have lost all possibility of rational thought. It’s pointless with these people.
mjh
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 4:39 pm
“I partially lost the right to free speech thanks to the invention of ‘free speech zones’ which limit what you can say, where you can say it, and when you can say it, on both colleges and around the president.
I lost the right to travel freely without fear of being put on a blacklist, exiling me from my own country, a list I can’t even see or appeal, because I wrote something on Reddit once.
I lost the right of representation in congress thanks to political gerrymandering and corporate influence that renders the opinions of congressional constituents moot, to say nothing of the broken two-party system that means I’m either a tree-hugging gun-hating hypocrite or a bible-thumping gay-hating lunatic.
I lost the right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure as well as due process with the PATRIOT ACT, along with various state laws such as ‘stop and frisk’.
I lost the right to decide what’s best for my own body, with outlawing large sodas, outlawing assisted suicide, outlawing prostitution, and outlawing minor drugs like Marijuana.”
– Frosty Ken
———-
And I’m sure you complained just as loudly during the Dumbya misAdministration, since it was during that time that most of the above was implemented.
Hm, probably not — it seems so much more effective to yell and scream when the black Kenyan Muslim Socialist gets in office . . .
~~~~~~~~
“I also lost the right to have intelligent discourse, apparently.” — Frosty Ken
Hell — you lost that right the moment you said:
“Technically I’ve lost all my rights, just that nobody has come by to take them yet.”
.
Shiva(Moderator)
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 5:02 pm
I took one of them. The right to whine like a republican
Reynardine
Feb. 16th, 2013 at 5:15 pm
¡Hurrah!
SinghX
Feb. 17th, 2013 at 7:14 am
The GOP says they’re out looking for “young voters” on their new agenda…
What they really mean is new young christian voters, not young gay voters.
Shoo, GOProud, you’re scarin’ away the children from our big tent!
Sherlock
Feb. 17th, 2013 at 8:24 am
The heathen left really want my flame thrower and tank— they cover this up with
lots of big words and confusing facts.
I just don’t understand.
Beaglemom
Feb. 17th, 2013 at 9:00 am
Most people who are suddenly so alarmed at losing their “freedoms” wouldn’t be complaining about anything were the President of the United States of racially-mixed parentage.
In our neighborhood are a couple who own a beautiful house on the waterfront (pricey property). In their front yard they have a plastic Adirondack lawn chair complete with plastic-covered photo of Josef Stalin. The chair has been planted there since the GOP Convention. I have wondered what their response would be if anyone knocked on their front door and simply asked, “Just exactly how is your life like being in Stalinist Russia? Have any “black Marias” pulled up in your driveway and taken away family members?” I doubt they would have any idea what the person was talking about.
Donovan
Feb. 17th, 2013 at 2:11 pm
the right to a fair trial, the right to be secure in my person and papers against unlawful search and seizure, the write to travel freely in and outside of my country, the right to keep the product of my labor, the right of personal property without the threat of eminent domain. i could go on, but that should be enough.
djchefron(Moderator)
Feb. 17th, 2013 at 2:17 pm
And all that started with President Obama?