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How has Bush protected your liberty? Do you feel "free"?

Since Bush has been in office, the government has been granted (or taken) the following powers: Listen to your phone calls without warrant. Read your emails without warrant. Monitor your internet activity without warrant. Monitor the books you borrow from the library, without warrant. Monitor the groups you associate with. Search your house without warrant. Search your car without warrant. Collect "evidence" from those places, without warrant. On a whim, an American citizen can be declared an "enemy combatant", and: Detained without charge, in secret. Denied legal representation. Denied the right to question his detention. Shipped to a foreign country for interrogation, in secret. Tortured, in secret. Be tried by a military tribunal, in secret. NOT be granted access to the secret evidence against him. Convicted based on that secret evidence. What is the limit of personal freedom that you are willing to hand over to the government? Joseph C: I didn't ask about your physical well-being. I asked about your rights and freedoms as an American citizen. Sorry you didn't understand the question. smokehillfarm: Thanks for your answer, but you blew it when you said, "I feel a lot freer, and a whole lot SAFER, under conservative leadership than liberal, since liberals basically want to pull decisions once made at the local or State level, or by the individual, back to be decided by a pack of thieving bureaucrats in Washington DC." That is exactly what the Patriot Act does...and you can thank Bush and the Republican Congress for that. jere: Yes, I understand there are historical precedents, but none of those you mention have been codified into law like the Patriot Act. And I don't know if we're at WAR, or if it's just "combat"...because Bush refuses to call those people captured, "prisoners of war". If we are at war, then they should be treated according to the Geneva Conventions, right?

Public Comments

1. Yes. I'm feeling my head and it's still attached to my body and I'm looking at my skin and it's not burned to a crisp. With Emperor Barack Hussein Obama, you'd better stop taking your freedom and your rights for granted and you'd better brace yourself for a major terror attack. Already, Obama has said practically nothing about the horror in India, even though he could have conveyed much from his powerful Office of the President Elect.
2. Yes, to the best of his abilities.
3. Well what can I say? Time to run to Mexico, I hope they don't deport me =/
4. none of these things have happened to me, my neighbors, family members, friends etc.. when it does I will get concerened. I have the power to take the governement back from tyrants if need be....do you?
5. Were you drafted? Was your personal life SO F'ing inportant? NOOOOOOO! I loathe Americans who hate Americans! How do you feel about the Americans who were BEHEADED ON VIDEOTAPE FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE, GENIUS? DEATH TO TRAITORS!
6. ya know wat? bush is full of it. im happy barack obama is president umm and the guy before me, are u a terrorist?
7. Well nobody in the US has been blown up by terrorists in the past seven years. Not saying that justifies everything else, but it is a pretty important fact.
8. Well, considering that virtually every observer and every columnist, after 9-11, was predicting the inevitability of the next attack, and probably before long ... I'd say that SOMETHING has been operating to make all those "experts" look pretty silly. Seven years plus, and counting -- and the Feds have broken up dozens of plots, some early and primitive, some pretty advanced. And that's just the ones we know about. Having lived under every President since Truman, I feel a lot freer, and a whole lot SAFER, under conservative leadership than liberal, since liberals basically want to pull decisions once made at the local or State level, or by the individual, back to be decided by a pack of thieving bureaucrats in Washington DC. Seeing how central management has almost destroyed our public school system and turned education into just an expensive joke, I'm not confident Washington can run anything more complicated than a Frisbee. A few years back the IRS seized the Mustang Ranch, one of the oldest and most successful brothels in Nevada, after its owner made some really dumb mistakes. Under Federal ownership and oversight for several years, the Mustang Ranch lost even more money, and eventually got sold for ten cents on the dollar. If the Federal gestapo can't even make money running a whorehouse and selling liquor, I'm not willing to let them run anything, period. I'm liable to lose a lot more real freedom under an ignorant, inexperienced clown like Obama than under any conservative leadership, and it'll cost me a lot, lot more, too. My rules if I have to downsize next year? Check the bumper stickers in my parking lot, and the Obamamamas get their job sent overseas first.
9. I feel that terrorism is a greater threat than ever before. I also feel like we about to enter the second Great and maybe greater depression.
10. To the best of my knowledge (and as a former NSA employee - I'm pretty knowledgeable there) none of the "offenses" you've listed have affected me in the slightest. I'm actually freer now than I was when Bush was elected, because I'm DEBT-FREE, too! How up-to-date are you on your history? Do you know that Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Roosevelt also put severe restrictions on the "rights" of Americans during time of war? Or are you still trifling over whether or not this actually IS a time of war? Did you miss my mention of "Illegal Combatants" in your other question?
11. USA is in a war which he opted and designed , And be sure USA will not finish this war , War will expand , rather we are seeing WW3 in its making , And Nukes will not be decisive this time to end the war ,
12. I think Bush did the best he knew how, which sadly does not say a lot for his intellectual capacity. Do I feel " Free "? , more so I am sure than people in most of the rest of the world, but restricted by so many petty laws and regulations until I cannot breath (and feel sorry for my grandchildren who will never know the freedoms I enjoyed) and have acquired a philosophy of " I Love My Country but Fear my Government ", otherwise sure I feel free.