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Edited on Thu Jul-08-04 12:42 PM by GiovanniC
One hundred forty years ago, our great nation was torn in two in a war that threatened the very foundation of the United States of America. Nearly a million people were killed, their blood soaking the soil and sand of Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, Maryland. With ongoing battles and bloodshed on American soil, the presidential elections of 1864 seemed particularly at risk. But this is America, a Democracy. It is a government that, as Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence, derives its "just powers from the consent of the governed." And it is through elections that we give our consent to that government. During a bloody war on American soil, elections proceeded.
On Thursday, July 8, Tom Ridge of the Department of Homeland Security indicated that he was looking into the legalities and the constitutionality of suspending or postponing the presidential elections in the event of a terrorist attack. Not even two weeks earlier, the Detroit Free Press reported that the Bush-appointed head of the federal voting commission said that the "government needs to establish guidelines for canceling or rescheduling elections if terrorists strike the United States again."
Government actions have restricted our right to free speech and assembly with ironically named "Free Speech Zones" that separates Bush protestors from Bush supporters and quarantines them well away from Bush and the media. The Patriot Act infringes upon our freedom of privacy, the fourth amendment right to be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. The government has been fighting our Freedom of Information by being excessively secretive in their actions and working to prevent the people from performing an overview of their government. Until only recently, the government has fought the fifth amendment rights of US citizens being held prisoner in military brigs and prisons -- the right to speedy trials, the right to a jury, the right to an attorney, the right to hear the charges against them, the right to call witnesses.
Now the government is setting into motion a plan that seeks to rob us of the most basic freedom a Democracy provides -- the right to elect your government and representation.
We are repeatedly warned that the terrorists "hate us for our freedoms". Does this government believe that if the strip away all our freedoms, that the terrorists will love us?
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