Attempt To Frame Justin Amash's Protection Of Civil Liberties As 'Supporting Terrorists' Fails Miserably At The Polls
from the wake-up-authoritarians dept
Rep. Justin Amash has been one of the most involved and active voices in Congress on pushing back against the intelligence community's overreach and attack on our civil liberties. Many folks know him for the Amash Amendment, which would have defunded the NSA's bulk collection of phone records under Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act. While it was narrowly defeated, it certainly woke up many in Congress to the fact that the surveillance scandal was a real deal. Over the last year, though, we'd been hearing more and more stories about how the "mainstream Republicans" were looking to unseat Amash in the primaries. Amash is often identified as being in the "Tea Party" wing of the party, and sometimes described as more "libertarian."The very powerful US Chamber of Commerce targeted Amash as an "easy target" to oust, arguing that his views on civil liberties put him at odds with the (many) conservative voters in his district. The primary attack on him focused heavily on Amash's support for civil liberties, directly arguing that such protection of our civil liberties meant he was "supporting terrorists." Here, for example, is a campaign ad his primary opponent Brian Ellis used against him, quoting someone referring to Amash as "Al Qaeda's best friend in Congress" and claiming Amash wanted to "shut down American intelligence for monitoring terrorists." It quotes a veteran saying: "It makes no sense. We were out there fighting for the country and he's voting against anything that would help us."
His easy primary victory already matters because it shows that Republicans who want to rein in the NSA, repeal the Patriot Act, and close the prison at Guantanamo Bay can win a primary vote handily—even in a safe Republican district where a shameless opponent tries to portray them as siding with the enemy.Amash's victory in the primary gives a bit of hope for civil liberties. It suggests that voters aren't the stereotypical morons that the traditional narratives often make them out to be. They can understand how protecting civil liberties should be a truly American ideal and it doesn't mean you're supporting terrorists. Earlier this year, the Republican National Committee came out against bulk surveillance by the NSA. It's increasingly becoming clear that the narrative that "Republicans have to support surveillance" is not an accurate story at all.
Bonuse: Amash's victory speech does not pull any punches in calling out the campaign against him.
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Filed Under: 4th amendment, brian ellis, civil liberties, conservatives, justin amash, libertarians, republicans, tea party
Companies: us chamber of commerce
Reader Comments
The First Word
“Quite the contrary actually
Protecting civil liberties isn't "supporting terrorists,"Protecting civil liberties, and refusing to sacrifice the rights of the people in order to 'protect' them from terrorists isn't supporting terrorists, it's refusing to do their job for them.
When the government erodes, ignores, or destroys the rights of the people, in exchange for a temporary sense of 'safety'? That's a win for terrorists and terrorism.
When the government constantly goes on about how people need to be afraid, how it's only by giving up their rights that the government can 'protect' them? That's a win for terrorists and terrorism.
Standing up for and protecting civil liberties isn't 'supporting terrorists', but attacking and eroding civil liberties very much is.
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Quite the contrary actually
Protecting civil liberties, and refusing to sacrifice the rights of the people in order to 'protect' them from terrorists isn't supporting terrorists, it's refusing to do their job for them.
When the government erodes, ignores, or destroys the rights of the people, in exchange for a temporary sense of 'safety'? That's a win for terrorists and terrorism.
When the government constantly goes on about how people need to be afraid, how it's only by giving up their rights that the government can 'protect' them? That's a win for terrorists and terrorism.
Standing up for and protecting civil liberties isn't 'supporting terrorists', but attacking and eroding civil liberties very much is.
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Re: Quite the contrary actually
Consider why terrorists would want to attack America. If it's to damage the "American way of life" and muzzle "the home of the free", then the only way to stop them from achieving their aims is to protect civil liberties, the entire basis for the freedom that terrorists (presumably) want to destroy.
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Re: Quite the contrary actually
This is literally terrorism by the government. Instilling fear for political motives (regardless of the non-foreign nature of it). Throw in the self-invented plots and red flag ops. as physical violence, and it matches the Wikipedia definition of 'Terrorism'
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Re: Quite the contrary actually
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Re: Quite the contrary actually
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Re: Re: Quite the contrary actually
Basic strategy says one of, if not the best ways to take out a powerful opponent is to give them something else to fight, with the best case scenario that of internal strife, fighting amongst themselves. At that point you just stand back and watch them destroy themselves, with nothing more needed on your part.
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Too Much Credit
The "extremests" on the left think the government is out to get us and destroy are civil liberties. To them, defunding the NSA makes perfect sense.
The only ones left are a small group in the "center" that think the NSA is perfectly OK. All this does is show that this group of "centerists" isn't enough to win an election in lots of places.
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Re: Too Much Credit
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Re: Too Much Credit
However, I see most issues related to surveillance, copyright and internet freedoms as either too insignificant in the grand scheme of discussions or related to non-partisan deliberations.
Surveillance is one of these things where the two-party system do not cover anywhere close to the spread in opinions. Far left might argue that the state is meant to protect the population or assume they are the target of surveillance and fight it tooth and nail. Far right might argue the national interests are being protected by surveillance or assume they are the target of surveillance and fight it tooth and nail. So ultimately surveillance is not a question of ideology, but more about perceptions.
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Re: Re: Too Much Credit
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Re: Re: Re: Too Much Credit
he caucuses with the dem'rats, and rarely strays far from the status quo, he voted along with the rest of the frightened kongresskritters to pat israel on the back for its current illegal, immoral campaign of extinction...
in other words, he supports Empire, no matter what...
Empire must fall
the sooner the fall,
the gentler for all...
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defunding
Any politician using the backdoor method of "defunding" a program while not addressing the program in law is a perfect example of why Washington is broken. If you don't like the problem, ADDRESS IT DIRECTLY. Attempting to defund something is another stupid political stunt that just doesn't work, because it doesn't address the core issue.
It doesn't surprise me to find out this guy is a Republican. You would think he would have learned the lesson about defunding already, but it seems the Republicans are slow learners.
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Re: defunding
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Re: Re: defunding
Nobody, nobody, nobody in Washington wants to appear even slightly weak on national defense or working to stop "terrorists". They don't want to be the ones who changed the law and then have something bad happen - it would literally be a career end play.
Republicans don't have the votes to get anything done directly, so they try to tack on amendments to defund things. They got their asses handed to them over Obamacare, shutting down the government because they wanted to defund it. The Republican party appears to have thrown away any lead they might have had over the democrats as a result. Obama may suck, but the Republicans seem intent on shooting themselves in the foot at every turn.
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Re: defunding
I'll be pestering my reps to cosponsor the Surveillance State Repeal Act.
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Re: defunding
Seriously, what are 17 ? Back 13 years ago we'd make republicans go apeshit and call us unamerican for immediately declaring this made-for-tv movie of 911 (to cover what really happened, and to play on your oh-so easy to play with emotions from all those vic-sims. And that's still debating true things,get to my old troll level (I do not troll anymore, it was a fun ride though, mmmm text newsgroups).
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Re: defunding
Learn yourself some stuff and try to understand why this tactic is valid.
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Re: Re: defunding
The point is more this: If they have the votes needed to stop the surveillance, then they should use the political capital to change the law. Defunding at best means that funds will come from some other semi-slushy funding process, or the program re-classed to another area. If they have the votes, then they should amend the law to stop the "abuse" altogether, and not just take away a few dollars and hope they stop.
Defunding is a weak, cowardly way to try to effect change, and usually fails. Even the Reagan era Republicans dodged around it.
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Re: Re: Re: defunding
It's also not like other options are necessarily more effective. I think too many of these government agencies are overkill anyways and some of them (like the TSA) should be abolished while others should be largely defunded (and not just narrowly so). I think defunding is only part of the solution. The solution should also include strict laws against these types of programs and strict personal punishments against those responsible for breaking the law. Unfortunately you need a prosecutor to try and convict those responsible and the various components of the government are reluctant to do anything.
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They keep screaming terrorists over and over, and yet the truly bad actors are the ones screaming terrorist and trying to distract people from what they are doing.
I hope the pendulum is working its way back to the side where we actually have rights that have to be respected.
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If not, then there needs to be one. Perhaps the Political Fallacy.
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Re:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dichotomy
Certainly is a false dichotomy if X and Y are clear opposites.
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Good for him.
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Mind you, this was only the primary, and Nov is months away...
http://blog.angryasianman.com/2014/08/elaine-chao-cant-be-from-kentucky-she.html
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