Thread: Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death: 2012 NDAA

Give Me Liberty Or Give Me Death: 2012 NDAA

Posted on January 4, 2012
by Carl Herman

The following “artistic liberty” is from Patrick Henry’s 1775 speech after ten years of his government’s violations of constitutional rights. The speech followed the first government attempts to use a standing army to disarm Americans. A standing army was in explicit violation of the English Bill of Rights.

NDAA 2012 (National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2012) explicitly states dictatorial authority of the US executive branch to order US military to seize any person, including US citizens, for unlimited detention and without rights. This repeats explicit language in the 2006 Military Commissions Act. The previous two links document the specific and explicit Constitutional violations.

Because US government’s 1% “leadership” has tortured, refused to stop or prosecute torture under “new” “leadership” of Obama, now assassinates American citizens upon the dictation of the president, and now legislatives in NDAA 2012 to “disappear” Americans, our choice in 2012 seems clear: either arrest the criminal 1% “leadership” for obvious crimes, or suffer the seizure, disappearance, and torture of your neighbors, friends, family, and yourself in 2012.

The 30-second video shows what NDAA 2012 authorizes. You all learned in high school history that educated Germans allowed the same fascist devolution of their government.

Open proposal for US Revolution: end unlawful wars, parasitic economics is my strongest work to explain and document the 1%’s CRIMES centering in war and money.

Occupy This: US History exposes the 1%’s crimes then and now is my strongest work to explain and document that criminal Wars of Aggression and looting have been central in US policies for over 150 years.

History’s purpose is to recognize and act upon patterns of behavior in the present. Patrick Henry strongly agrees:

This is no time for ceremony.

The question before Americans is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly presidents and would-be kings.

It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope.

We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren while it transforms us into animals. Is this the part of wise men and women, engaged in a struggle for liberty? Are we to be of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not? For my part, whatever it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience.

I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of Presidents and Congress for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which Americans have been pleased to solace themselves.

Is it that insidious smile with which Obama states “reservations” while signing NDAA into law? Trust it not; it will prove a snare to your feet! Do be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how a signing statement compares with those warlike preparations that darken our land.

Are armies necessary to a work of love?

Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled with our own Constitution that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves! These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which a tyrants resort!

And what have we to oppose them? Shall we try argument? We have been trying that for the last ten years!

Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing! We have held the subject up in every possible light; but it has been all in vain.

What arguments shall we find which have not been already exhausted when we “hoped” for “change”?

Let us not, I beseech you, deceive ourselves. We have done everything that could be done! We have petitioned; we have begged; we have prostrated ourselves before President Obama and Congress to arrest the tyrannical hands of President Bush, his War Criminals, and his Wall Street looting “1%.”

Our petitions to uphold the rule of law have been rejected while the petitioners have been arrested.

Our requests for justice have only produced additional violence and insult with expanded wars, more lies for war on Iran, torture, and continued bankster looting. We have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the 1%!
In vain we indulged the hope of peace and reconciliation with the 1% to uphold justice and our own Constitution. There is no longer any room for hope! If we wish to be free– if we mean to preserve our Constitutional rights for which we have been so long contending –we must Occupy!

I repeat it: we must Occupy!

Civil resistance, appeal to law enforcement to arrest the criminal 1% and not those who protest against the crimes, and appeal to the God of 100% is all that is left us!

They tell us that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when our military shall be stationed in every house? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until the criminal 1% have bound us hand and foot and placed us in FEMA camps?

We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature has placed in our power!

The hundreds of millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which the 1% can send against us.

Besides, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight with us. The battle is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.

Besides, Americans, we have no election with corporate media propaganda and unaccountable electronic voting machines. Even if we were weak enough to desire it, it is now too late to quit from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard at Occupy camps across the country!

Occupy is inevitable–and let it come! I repeat it: let Occupy come!

It is impossible to overstate the matter.

Americans may cry, “Hope, Change,” but there is no peace from unlawful wars! There is no Constitutional law! The next act of tyranny that sweeps from the 1% with NDAA will bring the clash of resounding arms! Occupy brethren and sisters are already in the fields and parks!

Why stand we here idle? What is it that Americans wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Perhaps more accurately: either We the People demand and defend our liberty, or NDAA will give us death. That is, if US military chooses to reject the Constitution, love, and justice to disappear Americans rather than arrest obvious War Criminals and looters of trillions of Americans’ dollars every year.

Btw: my personal observation and recommendation for Occupy groups is to develop strategies that avoid arrests. Gandhi and Dr. King strategically targeted specific laws to break that made visible their government’s hypocrisy. When creative and lawful means of 1^st Amendment rights are available, perhaps creative thinking can create expressions within the law that are more effective public communications than having to confront legal arguments regarding “Time, Place, and Manner.” If there are unconstitutional/unlawful violations by the 1% that Occupy groups choose to make visible and challenge, then polarizing that specific violation by refusing unjust laws might be effective.

With strategy, we can place the 1% on our own horns of a dilemma whereby their crimes are more effectively exposed to the 99%.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/...2012-ndaa.html

“For Civil Libertarians, The NDAA Is Our Mayan Moment: 2012 Is When The Nation Embraced Authoritarian Powers With Little More Than A Pause Between Rounds Of Drinks”

Posted on January 2, 2012
by WashingtonsBlog

Constitutional expert Jon Turley writes:

You do not “support our troops” by denying the principles for which they are fighting. They are not fighting to consolidate authoritarian powers in the president. The “American way of life” is defined by our constitution and specifically the bill of rights. Moreover, the insistence that you do not intend to use authoritarian powers does not alter the fact that you just signed an authoritarian measure. It is not the use but the right to use such powers that defines authoritarian systems.

***
The almost complete failure of the mainstream media to cover this issue is shocking.

On the NDAA, reporters continue to mouth the claim that this law only codifies what is already the law. That is not true. The administration has fought any challenges to indefinite detention to prevent a true court review. Moreover, most experts agree that such indefinite detention of citizens violates the constitution.

There are also those who continue the longstanding effort to excuse Obama’s horrific record on civil liberties by blaming either others or the times. One successful myth is that there is an exception for citizens. The White House is saying that changes to the law made it unnecessary to veto the legislation. That spin is ridiculous. The changes were the inclusion of some meaningless rhetoric after key amendments protecting citizens were defeated. The provision merely states that nothing in the provisions could be construed to alter Americans’ legal rights. Since the Senate clearly views citizens as not just subject to indefinite detention but even to execution without a trial, the change offers nothing but rhetoric to hide the harsh reality.

Obama could have refused to sign the bill and the Congress would have rushed to fund the troops. Instead, as confirmed by Senator Levin, the White House conducted a misinformation campaign to secure this power while portraying the president as some type of reluctant absolute ruler, or, as Obama maintains, a reluctant president with dictatorial powers.

Most Democratic members joined their Republican colleagues in voting for this un-American measure.

***

For civil libertarians, the NDAA is our Mayan moment: 2012 is when the nation embraced authoritarian powers with little more than a pause between rounds of drinks.

See this for background.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/...of-drinks.html