Following is a letter I sent in 2007. I received no replies.
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November
15th, 2007
To:
The Institute for Justice, The Nebraska ACLU, US Senator Hagel and US
Senator Ben Nelson
Glenn Beck, on CNN Headline News November 12th,
says "While our foreign enemies are the obvious ones, the physical
threat may be developing domestically" and says Ron Paul's 'Revolution' and his record
setting $4.3 million 'money bomb' from November 5th, Guy Fawkes Day
--referring to the movie, "V is for Vendetta", when the people
took back control of their government -- is tied in "with
a historical terrorist attack". "if
fringe elements take that disenfranchisement and turn it into violence, we
endanger the freedoms we`re supposedly all fighting for."
David
Horowitz said, "There`s a strain of isolationism and anarchy in the
American tradition which Ron Paul is tapping into. I think it`s very
significant that he chose Guy Fawkes as an image."
"There are plenty of, unfortunately, libertarian Web sites which are indistinguishable from the anti-American left these days. LewRockwell.com and others like that. Totally in bed with the Islamofascists and have turned against this country."
"There are plenty of, unfortunately, libertarian Web sites which are indistinguishable from the anti-American left these days. LewRockwell.com and others like that. Totally in bed with the Islamofascists and have turned against this country."
Lew
Rockwell's site, LewRockwell.com, was thus identified by name and
slandered.
Beck
finishes this segment with, "The Ron Paul revolution, I think it`s
meant to be a catchy slogan, but I fear some of his fringe supporters are
taking the word "revolution" too literally."
Ron
Paul's 'Revolution' is a non-violent attempt to change foreign policy, fix
the monetary system and return control of our government to the people,
the majority of whom are opposed to our war in Iraq and very skeptical of our
interventionist foreign policy.
Rockwell
and Paul are public figures, possibly immune from slander, but their
supporters are not.
When
Lew Rockwell's site's non-profit status was challenged early in the 2008
campaign as clearly supporting Ron Paul's candidacy,
Rockwell gave up his non-profit status and requested private
donations although no longer eligible as tax deductions.
Hitting the alternative minimum anyway in 2007, I sent him $200 and on November
5th, I sent my second $100 to Ron Paul's campaign. The results of Paul's
November 5th fund raising forced the main stream media to cover the
Ron Paul campaign -- necessary for success.
But
did I put myself, my liberty and my personal assets at risk? If, as
Beck and Horowitz implied, LewRockwell.com and November 5th donors support
an implied threat of domestic terrorism, am I not then guilty of supporting
a suspected terrorist organization? Can my computer files be searched
without warrant? Is the same true for all the tens of thousands of
small Ron Paul 'money bomb' donors on November 5th? Will all their
names end up on the no-fly list?
Is
there an action that can be taken against CNN Headline News, naming Beck
and Horowitz, for allowing slander on a national television
broadcast and putting private citizens, such as myself, civil rights at
risk -- based only on my political associations?
Nydra
(address removed)
Please
contact me and let me know my options for preserving my good name as a
patriot. My Swiss ancestry makes me think that Switzerland 's non-interventionist
policies work much better than ours.
paper
copy to Senator Ben Nelson
Here
is my background.
My
opposition to our covert foreign policy goes back to 1975. An
Afghan woman, married to an assistant attorney general of Afghanistan and
related to the king (still in power), lived with our family for a
year while attending UNO. She was a delightful woman often making Kabul
chicken, teaching us to eat with our fingers as we sat on the floor, and
making elephant ear pastries for my little girls. The cultural exchange
of information was rewarding for all involved.
My husband's
contract at Offutt often took him to the home office in McLean , Virginia . While
there, agents of our government took him to visit with the Afghan
ambassador and the agents discussed the US
sending trucks with large electronic equipment on top into northern Afghanistan to
provide state of the art medical attention by broadcasting operations.
My husband, now deceased unfortunately, is not here to clarify what happened
that day. I do recall we laughed about the trucks and
their equipment as more likely to be used in some covert activities
on the southern border of the USSR .
Little did we realize roads built in that area would allow access for
tanks to eventually roll into Kabul .
Things
have gotten much worse for the Afghan people since 1975 with the invasion
by the USSR and the
infestation of radicalism that followed, brought by not only the ISI in Pakistan but
the Wahhabis from Saudi.
Eventually,
I became a libertarian.
Harry
Browne once said, paraphrasing, if a close friend smokes,
you tell him 'quit smoking or you'll get cancer'. Browne was
convinced terrorism would surely come to the USA
based on 'poking that stick into the hornet's nest'- as he called the
Middle East . Based on what I was hearing
and seeing, I agreed. And many of us were very vocal in our
concerns. Our policies were making us unsafe - not only here at home from
terrorism but when we traveled overseas.
And
when your friend comes to you with the news 'I have lung cancer', you do
not gloat and say 'I told you so'. In fact, you are devastated by the
news and tell them 'we can beat this cancer. We will do everything and
anything we can to help'. Watching the towers fall on 9/11, I was
devastated, inconsolably so, as were many Americans. I assumed a strike
force would be sent immediately to the Afghan and Pakistani camps to capture
and kill all involved in that deadly event.
The
invasion of Afghanistan and
the invasion of Iraq coupled
with the billions in aid being poured into Pakistan 's dictatorship are not
making us safer. Threatening Iran is not making us safer.
Passage of legislation like the Patriot Act and the continuing trend of
nationalization of local law enforcement by funding measures
and Homeland Security (a third defense department after the
Pentagon and the covert CIA) doesn't bode well for our personal liberty.
Citizens were supposed to police the federal government. The Government
wasn't supposed to police us.
When
Ron Paul stood up to run for President, I knew I had to do everything I could
to get him elected. My grandkids are facing the falling dollar, saddled
with the billions and trillions in debt and an aging boomer generation who will
bankrupt Social Security and Medicare as we know them today. They are
being subjected to 'fear' every day even as schools have adopted 'lock down', a
term I learned when I taught classes at the Correctional Center .
My
support of Ron Paul is to prevent a violent revolution, not create one.
Lew Rockwell and all the libertarians I have ever known do not believe in the
initiation of force against anyone -friend or foe. They know that only
government agents and criminals initiate the use of force and thus they
endeavor to limit the control of government over the individual by legal
means.
Hi
ReplyDeleteI am the person you knew on twitter as dfwlibrarian.
I supported Rand Paul's filibuster of John Brennan because like Paul I feel President Obama could make a simple and clear statement that he will not kill a human being within the border of the United States and its territories and possessions without recourse to due process and the protections afforded by the fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and fourteenth amendments to the United States Constitution.
I also agree with Senator Paul that a termination date needs to be added to the force authorization resolution that served as a de facto declaration of war for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and the current droning of alleged "terrorists" and the killing of civilians of whatever nationality.
On these issues Senator Paul makes sense on economic and domestic policy issues not so much so while I appreciate him taking up his Dad's curmudgeon, gadfly role as a big government scold, I still think a big country needs a big government. But on that I know well that we disagree. ;=))
Glenn Beck, in my opinion, is an opportunistic, unprincipled dick.
I still think you are being unduly paranoid. I am totally confident that you will go to your grave without an armed agent of the United States government kicking down your door and putting a gun to your head to deprive you of your liberties. But as I continue to read Brian Doherty's _Radicals for Capitalism: a freewheeling history of the modern American libertarian movement http://goo.gl/uT1Mm I realize that paranoia is pretty much standard libertarian equipment. C'est la vie
Cheers Sweetie -- dfwlibrarian