There are four articles on the front page of my local newspaper this morning. One deals with the post-election violence in Iran. The other three articles deal with abuses by the U.S. and local governments:
(1) A city government contemplates stealing land from private owners in order to build a road for the benefit of political officials and their business allies;
(2) A county government prevents a couple from giving part of their own land to their grandchildren because it contradicts a previously imposed central plan for land use; and
(3) The Federal Trade Commission is now asserting an unqualified right to monitor and censor blogs.
Here’s my question: When will Congress pass a non-binding resolution expressing support for American “citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law.” You know, like they did for Iranian citizens.
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“When will Congress pass a resolution…”
They’ll get around to it around the time that opinion polls show that the voting populace does not believe that they actually believe whatever “freedom-loving” rhetoric they are spouting. They’ll be lying, of course, but that’s nothing surprising.
When they actually get around to shrinking government, and substantively, not just superficially, then we can celebrate (cautiously).
If anybody thinks that in European Union is better, read this:
Brussels is in no position to lecture Tehran about democracy
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/daniel_hannan/blog/2009/06/14/brussels_is_in_no_position_to_lecture_tehran_about_democracy
I hope you all remember who is Daniel Hannan. Hint
: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs
My Congressman, LaTourette of Ohio, voted for this resolution, but I did not hear anything from him supporting the protestors of the Democrat/Republican National Conventions. In fact, protestors of these conventions were beaten, corralled, tear gassed, and arrested under terrorism charges thanks to the Patriot Act for which he also voted, and Congressman LaTourette did nothing to ward off the infringements of the civil liberties of the People. I often wonder why others do not as easily see the blatant hypocrisy of the Congressman in my district.
Why my Congressman would support others politically in a far away land but not his own people is sheer madness. Kevin Tuma has relayed a quote from President George Washington that is very appropriate here – http://www.dailypaul.com/node/97098 –
“The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign relations, is..to have with them as little political connection as possible. It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” Obviously this quote has been lost in regards to my Congressman’s actions.
The hypocrisy has been shown in so many of my Congressman’s other votes, yet he gets elected over and over again. He had no problem arguing against the bailouts, stimulus plans, and other monetary policies proposed by both the Bush Administration and the Obama Administration, yet he has continued to toe the double standard line of Washington on many other occasions and his arguments against these stimulus/bailout plans was completely missed on other financial debacles that have helped bring us to where we stand today. While he said we were broke and could not afford misguided economic policies of these monetary and fiscal plans of corporate welfare, he saw no economic folly attributed to the military-industrial complex funding for wars of aggression in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, as well as the other 130+ countries we now occupy.
The people in my district are still asleep and trying to rouse them from it is futile at best. I have planted as many seeds of true Constitutionally limited government and perhaps one day those seeds of liberty will sprout. Until then, I can only stand back and watch in complete disbelief and sadness.
The first article really makes me mad.
It’s like allowing a rapist to compensate for the rapes he commits by just making him pay “fair market value.”
So much for our inalienable rights endowed to us by our creator…
“Here’s my question: When will Congress pass a non-binding resolution expressing support for American “citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law.” You know, like they did for Iranian citizens.”
The real answer is “when hell freezes over”.
Congress already has a non-binding resolution expressing support for American “citizens who embrace the values of freedom, human rights, civil liberties, and rule of law.” We call it the Declaration of Independence.
Heck, for that matter, Congress already has a binding resolution–we call it the Constitution, but the government just ignores it.
There is more hope for freedom in Iran than in America because Iranians are more willing to fight for freedom, however misguided the attempts. On the other hand, when we see how Iran turns out, we will understand why Americans do not fight for their freedom, too.
David Spellman
I think you got it backwards: the Declaration of Independence was binding; the Constitution was non-binding. At least, that’s what history shows.
Government’s power is limited solely by its ability to enforce its will upon the populace, not any constitution or bill of rights because the government is the interpreter of those “restrictions.” Iranians do seem more willing to resist than Americans, but let’s be clear, Iran is a lot more oppressive than America (at the moment). Iran is totalitarian, while America is simply trending very, very strongly in that direction. This is not so much a plus for America as it is a gloomy description of the state of freedom everywhere.
Why don’t we invite the Iranian’s to come and monitor ACORN and our elections? It seems hypocritical to criticize Iran for election fraud when our own system is rife with it. It is ironic that we have a president whose only private sector job was attorney for a group that specializes in election fraud!
Well said..
I truly believe that the reason Obama won’t come out with stronger language in support of the (very brave) Iranian protesters is that he doesn’t want to endure the youtube videos of his speeches when he cracks down on demonstrations against his regime (that is if americans ever grow a pair).
as a postscript to the above, I offer this excellent production from neal fox (for any who haven’t heard it):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6OzMn1aJPs&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eronpaulforums%2Ecom%2Fshowthread%2Ephp%3Ft%3D196683&feature=player_embedded
Iranians are not protesting for freedom, in fact far from it. They believe that Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs have moved away from the Islamic theocracy that was set up by the revolution. Mousavi is just as repressive if not more, the people are rioting because they didn’t get the candidate they wanted not because they aren’t free.
Further our government has been almost exclusively a fascist regime since FDR, it has been a long time since Americans have lived with even a shadow of the rights granted to us by the constitution and our natural rights. It feels like America is to far down the rabbits hole at this point.
Andy
Considering that “theocracy” means, in Islam, “rule by the Mullahs”, it seems contradictory that “the Mullahs have moved away from the Islamic theocracy”. A bit of clarification of your take on the protesters’ motivations would be appreciated.
Could you also clarify your claims about Mousavi? Though I’m sure he’s far from the libertarian ideal, that he called off a speech when he heard that the government had authorized police to shoot protesters does not indicate that he’d be as repressive as the Ahmadinejad. Is that conclusive? by no means.
More details would be helpful.
Well, OF COURSE it’s Iran’s fault! If they hadn’t got rid of that nice Shah, backed on his throne by American and British interests, Iran would be a beacon of love and liberty! And America wouldn’t need to be so strong, therefore governments wouldn’t need strong powers, and America would be a land of love, liberty AND sensible democracy!
Darn those Iranians and their Ayatollahs! They must all be devil-inspired communists!
Who cares what Congress does at this point? If you can’t risk stop paying the machine, at least stop recognizing any influence from the evil egomaniacs.
At least passing resolutions on Iran isn’t hurting any of our citizens! (beyond foreshadowing a ‘necessity’ of instigating a war)
Well you know that something fishy is going on when youtube creates a new “section” in their web page called “citizen tube” for these protests- where was “citizen tube” when there were protests in the US and Europe? every major media outlet is making a big deal of this issue and we wonder why iran blames the west for “meddling” in their affairs- we can’t blame them…
All these people want is the same thing that a chance for life, Liberty. Long live freedom!
Youtube sucks, they are a bunch of left-wing socialist, marxist liberals who love to censor opinions contrary to theirs.
I absolutely hate youtube policies. I’d like to see a real videos website that let people put what they want without censorship.
The main point should be that all those nasty things are not being done to us by a king or a dictator or the pope but OUR elected representatives are doing them to us in our name. We just had a revolution 7 months ago. Washington State has a state revolution in odd numbered years and a national revolution in even numbered years.
Every year we can toss one set of SOBs but nothing radical ever happens. Nothing will ever change because our owners got much smarter. They let us own guns, go to church, choose our jobs, residence, wives, hobbies . . . they don’t even draft us into the army. We have all the freedoms that are worth fighting for.
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