Republican Lindsey Graham said today that he’d be willing to censor our mail if he thought it would help catch terrorists.
O goody: Republican Lindsey Graham said today that he’d be willing to censor our mail if he thought it would help catch terrorists.
“In World War II, the mentality of the public was that our whole way of life was at risk, we’re all in. We censored the mail. When you wrote a letter overseas, it got censored. When a letter was written back from the battlefield to home, they looked at what was in the letter to make sure they were not tipping off the enemy,” Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters on Capitol Hill. “If I thought censoring the mail was necessary, I would suggest it, but I don’t think it is.”
This guy hasn’t a clue. The example he gives does not apply, as a military officer is under a different set of rules than ordinary citizens. If we do as he suggests, we will lower ourselves to the level of the thugs and dictators and bullies we supposedly oppose.
Then again, I’m not sure we haven’t done this already.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
O goody: Republican Lindsey Graham said today that he’d be willing to censor our mail if he thought it would help catch terrorists.
“In World War II, the mentality of the public was that our whole way of life was at risk, we’re all in. We censored the mail. When you wrote a letter overseas, it got censored. When a letter was written back from the battlefield to home, they looked at what was in the letter to make sure they were not tipping off the enemy,” Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters on Capitol Hill. “If I thought censoring the mail was necessary, I would suggest it, but I don’t think it is.”
This guy hasn’t a clue. The example he gives does not apply, as a military officer is under a different set of rules than ordinary citizens. If we do as he suggests, we will lower ourselves to the level of the thugs and dictators and bullies we supposedly oppose.
Then again, I’m not sure we haven’t done this already.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
He’s another one along with McCain that has to go.
Censor the mail to protect our freedoms? Violate the First Amendment in order to protect it? That sounds like raping for virginity, fighting for peace, or abandoning free market principles in order to save the free market system (I’m still waiting for the free market to return, by the way).
Come to think of it, WWII was unlikely to last forever. Even the War to End All Wars lasted only four years. The terrorism that Graham wants to prevent has been around a long time, more than a century. As I understand it, in the 19th century they were called “mad bombers.” It will continue to be around for a much longer time; we are hardly any closer now to eliminating terrorism than we were a decade ago. How many decades does Graham suggest that we “give up certain civil liberties to prevent future terrorist attacks”? How many attacks does Graham say we will prevent by losing our liberties?
According to Graham, it seems, if we did it before then it must be right. From that kind of logic, we should do other things that were done during WWII, such as intern those whom we believe are more likely to commit terrorism. And why stop there? Let’s go farther back in history and undo women’s suffrage; I don’t have a good reason for doing so, maybe I am just going power mad. Back farther still, we can reinstate slavery as necessary for national security; I can’t make a connection there, either, but if a politician says so then let’s just go along. Not everything that the country has done has been right.
Indeed, the Patriot Act, just as the censorship of WWII, was only supposed to spy on communications going overseas. We have now discovered that the NSA may choose to retroactively eavesdrop on our in-country communications, not just future foreign communications. Mission creep has literally crept into our homes.
Senator Graham, along with all the others who have been in the Senate, with no term limits, need to go. I’m also sick of seeing Karl Rove on Fox News support the stupid assertion that we should just trust the secret FISA court process with respect to Prism. Yes, there’s a whole bunch of Republicans that need to get the boot, along with all the idiot Senators like Boxer and Feinstein.
Over the last couple weeks, I am totally disgusted with ALL federally elected officials.
Got the feeling Hilliary will be just as bad as the lot of them too.
Those ‘career’ folk we are sick of.