Peg. Very good. You held your temper.
I happen to believe that the Government has no right to keep someone from being an idiot. I agree that there are plenty of people who should not be allowed to touch guns. Ever. There are [eople who should not be allowed to walk to the corner store without a nanny. But our Constitution does grant that right and it is not right to take away ANY from everyone because of the abuses of a few.
Should Freedom of the Press be abolished because certain newspapres or broadcasters play fast and loose with the truth?
I didn't include the Slavs and the Roma either. I suppose I chose anti-Semetic because of my own family. I could just as easily have said Russian or Hungarian.
Regarding the numbers of civilians killed during the Gulf War, I feel that you should be more specific when you speak about things that can be and have been counted. You seem to me to have demanded that sort of specificity from others in this thread -for example "again, this vast oversimplification and overgeneralization...who precisely is the "American public?" "Those jack-booted thugs stand for everything
BUT security in my book."
Do not demand from others that which you are not willing to do.
The people who have put together the "Patriot Acts" are not trying to overthrow the Constitution. They are simply frightened little men of limited competence who are trying desparately to protect the country from terrorist attack. They are not doing a very good job but this is all they could think to do; turtle up, clamp down and hope it doesn't happen again. Believe me, these guys are not the Gestapo. They wouldn't know where to begin.
If you think the Third Reich comparrison was apt, read up on the restrictions in place in both the Us and Britain during WWII. And if you really want to see a repressive document, rear the UN Declaration of Human rights sometime; you know, the part that says that you can do anything you want UNLESS it interferes in some way with a UN program or goal. And there are people who think that THIS it the greatest document on human rights ever written.
I wouldn't worry too much about the Homeland Security Act and it's children. It must first get past the Supreme Court and I don't think it can do that.

troll