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since Wed, 26 Dec 2007 20:04:17.
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- I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue! -- Acceptance Speech as the 1964 Republican Presidential candidate. Variants and derivatives of this that are often quoted include:
- Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Tolerance in the face of tyranny is no virtue.
- Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.
- Moderation in the protection of liberty is no virtue; extremism in the defense of freedom is no vice.
- I think every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass -- said in July 1981 in response to Moral Majority founder Jerry Falwell's opposition to the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court, of which Falwell had said, "Every good Christian should be concerned." as quoted in Ed Magnuson, "The Brethren's First Sister," Time Magazine, (20 July, 1981)
- On religious issues there can be little or no compromise. There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent. If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both.
I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in "A," "B," "C" and "D." Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me?
And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of "conservatism." -- Speech in the US Senate (16 September 1981)
Understanding and defeating the war on radicalization
The new approach to suppressing rights to free speech, and political expression is to call any speech or attitude that conveys disgust or moral outrage over the very obvious US and our ally’s violations of international law that have come to characterize the so called war on terrorism, radicalization.
If, when you hear that a drone has killed ten or twenty innocent people or more at a wedding or funeral in Pakistan in a military attempt to supposedly kill just one supposed terrorist, and you criticize that disproportionate and immoral use of force, you might be called radical, and extreme. It’s not because your gut instincts are naturally repulsed by what happened, that’s fine. You simply are not supposed to criticize or suggest that what happened was wrong, a violation of international law, or that it creates a desire and an excuse that justifies a similar use of violence by our supposed adversaries, in ways that might also be illegal and immoral.
If, when you hear that more than 1 million innocent people have been killed in a war where we were not fighting an army, or an enemy, but an insurgency that had a right to fight against a foreign invading and occupying military force, and that we not only killed those people, but also tortured them, raped them and destroyed their homes and then sent missionaries to provide them with Bibles in exchange for food and comfort. If you hear that, and you feel morally outraged that a certain faction in our country has used our troops and our money in this way, and you say or write anything critical about it, you might be considered by the powers that be, Democrats and Republicans and some so called independents, a person that has become radicalized.
Becoming radicalized can be compared to getting infected with rabies. If you hang out with, read, or agree with people who have already been infected with radicalism, and who write, speak, and do radical things like write letters critical of the war to newspaper editors, or submit op-eds to newspapers suggesting that the US is committing war crimes in these wars, etc., you can, and might also become radicalized. Like rabies, radicalization makes you appear angry. It can cause you to froth at the mouth as you debate simple concepts like human decency, law and justice and fair play with people who have been inoculated against radicalization. Such people are immune to radicalization due to injections of cash, jobs, appearances on cable TV, a mention in mainstream media as good people, and other perks, and pay offs.
The inoculated are absolutely incapable of understanding things like, you can’t lie your way into an illegal military invasion of a sovereign country, kill off its people, send in para-military groups to carry out slaughters, and then claim to be justified by the deaths of 3000 people, many of whom were foreign nationals and not even Americans, who were killed by other people, and not the people whose country you invaded and subsequently destroyed. Not only will the ambivalence and distorted sense of justice of the inoculated cause people who have been radicalized to froth at the mouth, it has been known to occasionally boil the blood to the point that a radicalized person will simply shut down, refuse to ever speak again and go into seclusion.
Radicalization, if it leads to frustration, can kill the spirit of even the strongest among us, when it reaches the point that logic shuts down, causing a person to believe the entire world has gone mad, and that it’s useless to say anything more, or to expect that anyone gives a damn, or that things will ever change. In such cases, the radicalized person might resort to bingo, and refuse to read newspapers or even to watch TV anymore.
Now, those who are involved in detecting radicalization and wiping it out or curing it, are not concerned that radicals might actually do anything violent, since it almost never happens. Yet, they must, and do suggest that radicalization leads to violence because it is the only way that they can get money to fight radicalization, or rather to fight free speech and expression and also the US Constitution that guarantees such rights as free speech and political expression. You see, no one can get government money to overtly undermine the US Constitution, or to violate our Constitutional rights. They can get millions, even billions to protect our country from the threat of terrorism.
This is why radicalization experts claim that the inevitable consequence of the dreaded disease, radicalization is politically motivated violence, or terrorism. Like rabies, it supposedly gives the appearance of mental illness, but can only be diagnosed as such if it is found in Zionists. Their violence and extremism is always the result of mental illnesses, or its self defense, while the common person’s moral outrage must be the result of radicalization. It is similar to a neurological disorder that prevents a person from being able to see evil as goodness, and goodness as weakness.
Radicakization is a type of moral dissonance that will not allow an infected person to believe that we are actually seeing our government and military act as an immoral and barbaric conquering force, completely ignoring the laws that we helped to impress upon the world as right and good and essential to peaceful co-existence. Laws like the Geneva Conventions. Yet, since moral dissonance has not been recognized by the AMA as a real mental illness, radicalization remains like rabies, a contagious neurological like disease that supposedly can only lead to violence, and so according to the experts, including the established religious experts who condone and support the war on radicalization, it must be eradicated.
Since aside from the Wall Street robber barons, our government is the only institution that can never run out of money, so long as it has a press that can print money, those who are part of the anti-terrorism industry must always have an angle whereby they can parlay their deep insights into the hearts and souls of the American sheeple, into cold hard government cash, formerly known as taxpayer money. Without much research or study, they know intuitively that enough outrageous behavior by our government and military will lead to the moral outrage of many American people. Eureka! What better way to make a buck than to bank on the fact that a free people will use their rights to free speech and political expression to criticize a government that claims to be representative, yet has clearly adopted a set of values and created for itself a law that is completely opposite of the values and laws of the people it claims to represent.
There is a cure for radicalization, but it doesn’t get much attention. You will almost never hear the word cure even mentioned by radicalization experts. Just like conspiracy theories surrounding cancer research and cures for other deadly diseases, the idea is that if radicalization is cured, the anti-radicalization industry will go out of business, and even worse, all of their lies will be exposed and they will lose credibility, maybe even be put in jail for lying to Congress and other crimes.
The obvious cure for radicalization is truth and accountability. To cure its radicalized citizenry, our government needs only reform, and to respond to the urgings of its people, and also the international community. End these wars; stop supporting dictators and violent despots who oppress their people in exchange for hand outs. Get rid of the double standards, the lying and the greed for power and replace it with common sense and a desire to co-exist peacefully in the world with others of varied cultures, skin colors, languages, religions, etc. Stop coveting the natural resources of others to the extent that rather than to depend upon free market economics, you will stoop to any level in smash and grab operations for oil and other resources that always fail miserably, leaving only hatred, death and destruction behind them.
Unfortunately, there is little hope that our government will opt for the cure anytime soon. So, we the people are left with two options. 1). Shut up and refuse to criticize the government, hide our moral outrage, and just go along hoping that the wars will eventually end and gas prices will one day be 1.50 a gallon or cheaper forever, or 2). Refuse to shut up, and demonstrate our moral outrage in every legal way possible, keeping in mind that the anti-radicalization forces in our Congress are at work trying to find ways to criminalize dissent, which is what radicalization was called previous to the wars. Since word dissent implies some type of patriotism and noble intent, it has been exchanged for the dreaded word, radicalization.
Keep in mind that if you adopt #2, that it is a war after all. If we adopt the mentality of our government and the insane faction of warmongers and imperialists now controlling our government, we will realize that there are no rules. They will either shut us all up, or we will shut their insane arses down. Power to the people.
If, when you hear that a drone has killed ten or twenty innocent people or more at a wedding or funeral in Pakistan in a military attempt to supposedly kill just one supposed terrorist, and you criticize that disproportionate and immoral use of force, you might be called radical, and extreme. It’s not because your gut instincts are naturally repulsed by what happened, that’s fine. You simply are not supposed to criticize or suggest that what happened was wrong, a violation of international law, or that it creates a desire and an excuse that justifies a similar use of violence by our supposed adversaries, in ways that might also be illegal and immoral.
If, when you hear that more than 1 million innocent people have been killed in a war where we were not fighting an army, or an enemy, but an insurgency that had a right to fight against a foreign invading and occupying military force, and that we not only killed those people, but also tortured them, raped them and destroyed their homes and then sent missionaries to provide them with Bibles in exchange for food and comfort. If you hear that, and you feel morally outraged that a certain faction in our country has used our troops and our money in this way, and you say or write anything critical about it, you might be considered by the powers that be, Democrats and Republicans and some so called independents, a person that has become radicalized.
Becoming radicalized can be compared to getting infected with rabies. If you hang out with, read, or agree with people who have already been infected with radicalism, and who write, speak, and do radical things like write letters critical of the war to newspaper editors, or submit op-eds to newspapers suggesting that the US is committing war crimes in these wars, etc., you can, and might also become radicalized. Like rabies, radicalization makes you appear angry. It can cause you to froth at the mouth as you debate simple concepts like human decency, law and justice and fair play with people who have been inoculated against radicalization. Such people are immune to radicalization due to injections of cash, jobs, appearances on cable TV, a mention in mainstream media as good people, and other perks, and pay offs.
The inoculated are absolutely incapable of understanding things like, you can’t lie your way into an illegal military invasion of a sovereign country, kill off its people, send in para-military groups to carry out slaughters, and then claim to be justified by the deaths of 3000 people, many of whom were foreign nationals and not even Americans, who were killed by other people, and not the people whose country you invaded and subsequently destroyed. Not only will the ambivalence and distorted sense of justice of the inoculated cause people who have been radicalized to froth at the mouth, it has been known to occasionally boil the blood to the point that a radicalized person will simply shut down, refuse to ever speak again and go into seclusion.
Radicalization, if it leads to frustration, can kill the spirit of even the strongest among us, when it reaches the point that logic shuts down, causing a person to believe the entire world has gone mad, and that it’s useless to say anything more, or to expect that anyone gives a damn, or that things will ever change. In such cases, the radicalized person might resort to bingo, and refuse to read newspapers or even to watch TV anymore.
Now, those who are involved in detecting radicalization and wiping it out or curing it, are not concerned that radicals might actually do anything violent, since it almost never happens. Yet, they must, and do suggest that radicalization leads to violence because it is the only way that they can get money to fight radicalization, or rather to fight free speech and expression and also the US Constitution that guarantees such rights as free speech and political expression. You see, no one can get government money to overtly undermine the US Constitution, or to violate our Constitutional rights. They can get millions, even billions to protect our country from the threat of terrorism.
This is why radicalization experts claim that the inevitable consequence of the dreaded disease, radicalization is politically motivated violence, or terrorism. Like rabies, it supposedly gives the appearance of mental illness, but can only be diagnosed as such if it is found in Zionists. Their violence and extremism is always the result of mental illnesses, or its self defense, while the common person’s moral outrage must be the result of radicalization. It is similar to a neurological disorder that prevents a person from being able to see evil as goodness, and goodness as weakness.
Radicakization is a type of moral dissonance that will not allow an infected person to believe that we are actually seeing our government and military act as an immoral and barbaric conquering force, completely ignoring the laws that we helped to impress upon the world as right and good and essential to peaceful co-existence. Laws like the Geneva Conventions. Yet, since moral dissonance has not been recognized by the AMA as a real mental illness, radicalization remains like rabies, a contagious neurological like disease that supposedly can only lead to violence, and so according to the experts, including the established religious experts who condone and support the war on radicalization, it must be eradicated.
Since aside from the Wall Street robber barons, our government is the only institution that can never run out of money, so long as it has a press that can print money, those who are part of the anti-terrorism industry must always have an angle whereby they can parlay their deep insights into the hearts and souls of the American sheeple, into cold hard government cash, formerly known as taxpayer money. Without much research or study, they know intuitively that enough outrageous behavior by our government and military will lead to the moral outrage of many American people. Eureka! What better way to make a buck than to bank on the fact that a free people will use their rights to free speech and political expression to criticize a government that claims to be representative, yet has clearly adopted a set of values and created for itself a law that is completely opposite of the values and laws of the people it claims to represent.
There is a cure for radicalization, but it doesn’t get much attention. You will almost never hear the word cure even mentioned by radicalization experts. Just like conspiracy theories surrounding cancer research and cures for other deadly diseases, the idea is that if radicalization is cured, the anti-radicalization industry will go out of business, and even worse, all of their lies will be exposed and they will lose credibility, maybe even be put in jail for lying to Congress and other crimes.
The obvious cure for radicalization is truth and accountability. To cure its radicalized citizenry, our government needs only reform, and to respond to the urgings of its people, and also the international community. End these wars; stop supporting dictators and violent despots who oppress their people in exchange for hand outs. Get rid of the double standards, the lying and the greed for power and replace it with common sense and a desire to co-exist peacefully in the world with others of varied cultures, skin colors, languages, religions, etc. Stop coveting the natural resources of others to the extent that rather than to depend upon free market economics, you will stoop to any level in smash and grab operations for oil and other resources that always fail miserably, leaving only hatred, death and destruction behind them.
Unfortunately, there is little hope that our government will opt for the cure anytime soon. So, we the people are left with two options. 1). Shut up and refuse to criticize the government, hide our moral outrage, and just go along hoping that the wars will eventually end and gas prices will one day be 1.50 a gallon or cheaper forever, or 2). Refuse to shut up, and demonstrate our moral outrage in every legal way possible, keeping in mind that the anti-radicalization forces in our Congress are at work trying to find ways to criminalize dissent, which is what radicalization was called previous to the wars. Since word dissent implies some type of patriotism and noble intent, it has been exchanged for the dreaded word, radicalization.
Keep in mind that if you adopt #2, that it is a war after all. If we adopt the mentality of our government and the insane faction of warmongers and imperialists now controlling our government, we will realize that there are no rules. They will either shut us all up, or we will shut their insane arses down. Power to the people.
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