Speak "No Evil According to Bush"
Nothing illustrates better why we need a new president than the continual erosion of our Constitutional rights under the Bush administration. The infringement of our rights begins at the top and works its way down to his ardent supporters, who have adopted the Bush mantra "you're either with us or against us" as their own.
In Tuesday's Veteran's Day parade in Tallahassee, Florida, sponosored by the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3308, two groups of veterans (Members of Veterans For Peace and Vietnam Veterans Against the War) legally registered to participate in the parade. As the parade was set to begin, the parade chairman pulled them out of line and refused to allow them to participate. He said they were "offensive" and that "They can have their free speech, just not in the parade.They belong on the sidewalk." Apparently they did not consider the girls from Hooters at all offensive, because they were permitted to remain in the parade. It was not reported whether any of the Hooters girls were actually veterans.
A Veteran's Day parade should be for all Veterans who served, not just those who agree with President Bush's policies.
The right to protest our government is one of the underpinnings of our Constitution. It is this right that preserves our demoracy. But perhaps this is difficult for some Americans to recall, when the actions of our president continually serve to diminish those rights. The Bush administration has worked hard to insulate the president from protest, here and abroad. The Secret Service has ordered local police to herd anti-Bush protestors into designated "free speech zones," which are often several blocks off the route Bush and administration officials travel and away from the media activity centered around the president. Meanwhile, Bush supporters are allowed to remain right up front where they can be seen by Bush and the media. Protestors who refuse to be coralled in one of the chain link cages erected to contain them are arrested and charged.
In England, the Bush administration is reported to be putting pressure on Tony Blair to ensure that Bush is kept well-insulated by the massive protests that are planned for his upcoming visit. While Scotland Yard denies they have been put under pressure, they have also admitted they will be taking the unprecedented step of closing large portions of London during the president's visit, and establishing a "free speech zone."
And how can anyone forget Stephen Downs, who in March 2003, was arrested at a New York mall for refusing to remove a shirt that read "Give Peace a Chance?" Proving the power of protest, charges were dropped after 100 protestors wearing anti-war insignia threatened to protest every day until the mall backed down.
Freedom to dissent is not the only right this administration is trampling. According to the New York Times, the senate and house recently approved a measure that greatly increases the ability of the FBI to gain access to an individual's personal records without judicial oversight. This is something for which Bush and Ashcroft had been lobbying.
According to the Times, "The measure now awaiting final approval in Congress would significantly broaden the law to include securities dealers, currency exchanges, car dealers, travel agencies, post offices, casinos, pawnbrokers and any other institution doing cash transactions with a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax or regulatory matters."
The government has claimed this is needed to pursue people who may be involved in terrorism and espionage, but like the Patriot Act, nothing limits the new subpoena powers to those applications. The Justice Department has admitted that it has used the Patriot Act to target people suspected of crimes other than terrorism and espionage but has not been very forthcoming about the extent.
The greatest concern regarding this about-to-become-law provision is that it removes judicial oversight from the process, and therefore, no one independent of the FBI and Justice Department will be ensuring that innocent citizens are protected from undue invasion of privacy.
We need a leader who believes in our Constitution and will fight to protect the rights bestowed on us by the Constitution--and this cannot be a man who sat in congress and voted our rights away without hesitation. That is why I support Wesley Clark.
Some have expressed concern that General Clark recently expressed he would support a ban on flag burning, which many consider a legitimate form of dissent under the Constitution. Indeed, the courts have held it to be so.
But keep in mind, 48 states currently have laws against desecrating the American flag, including Vermont, whose law was enacted by Howard Dean. Of all the potentialy viable candidates, only John Kerry and Joe Lieberman have spoken against a flag desecration amendment. This amendment would apply to only 200 to 300 people per year, and the application of any consequences would have judicial oversight. While I personally do not agree with an amendment on flag desecration, it's not a make or break issue for me because I recognize that to many veterans, it is truly painful to behold.
Justice John Paul Stevens is a very liberal member of the Supreme Court, particularly on free speech rights; he is also a veteran of WWII. In a 5/4 Supreme Court decision upholding the right of Americans to desecrate the flag, Stevens issued a dissent, in which he said:
The ideas of liberty and equality have been an irresistible force in motivating leaders like Patrick Henry, Susan B. Anthony and Abraham Lincoln, schoolteachers like Nathan Hale and Booker T. Washington, the Philippine Scouts who fought at Bataan, and the soldiers who scaled the bluff at Omaha Beach. If those ideas are worth fighting for -- and our history demonstrates that they are -- it cannot be true that the flag that uniquely symbolizes their power is not itself worthy of protection from unnecessary desecration.
He also wrote:
In my considered judgment, sanctioning the public desecration of the flag will tarnish its value -- both for those who cherish the ideals for which it waves and for those who desire to don the robes of martyrdom by burning it. That tarnish is not justified by the trivial burden on free expression occasioned by requiring that an available, alternative mode of expression -- including uttering words critical of the flag... be employed.
We can conclude that reasonable people disagree on this issue, and it clearly doesn't qualify as a litmus test on party alliance. Diane Feinstein, a prominent democrat, has consistently sponsored an amendment prohibiting desecration of the flag; and while liberal justice Stevens supports bans on such activity, conservative justice Antonin Scalia does not.
A more pressing concern should be the legislation that has already passed or is poised to be enacted, which allows our personal freedoms to be abridged. We should also be concerned about the growing climate of intimidation in America among Bush supporters against those who would speak out against the government. These are things that Wes Clark, more than any other candidate, has promised to address and rectify as president.
4:36:55 PM 
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