[TheForge] jobs OT

[Andrew Vida]

Peter Fels & Phoebe Palmer wrote:
> Hi Grant;
> The civil war and WW2 were major threats to this to the existence of our 
> nation, formally declared wars and  temporarily may have justified 
> extraordinary measures.

	Rounding up those Americans who happened to be of Japanese descent was 
not justifiable in any conceivable way.  That was not an "extraordinary 
measure", but rather a criminal act against legitimate citizens of this 
nation.  Why didn't we round up all the Germans and Italians.  By the 
logic applied to the Jap. Americans, they should have been.  How did 
that make us different from uncle Adolph in that respect?  Another 
flying leap away from civilized living.

> The "war on terror" is not in that category.
> Neither is it of comparable gravity to the " commie threat" then.

	The cold war was a sham.  "We" knew the soviets were a bunch of yahoos, 
but played along because of the long lever it provided where the 
cultivation of power was concerned.  There was basically ZERO threat 
there.  Contrary to US propaganda, the Soviets were not so eager to 
throw the world away in pursuit of its dominion.  I seriously doubt they 
ever considered a first strike.  They knew it would have been the end of 
them and that was not the goal.

> I did not say Bush was toxic.
> I meant that under Bush , we have lost more of our CIVIL LIBERTIES to 
> what was then, a relatively minor threat.....than we lost during the 
> whole commie threat, cold war and all!

	That is perhaps true, but there have been a few notable instances where 
good bites were taken from our rights.  NFA34, GCA68 were two pretty 
significant ones.  Significant in that they revealed an agenda that was 
afoot.  Still is.

> Our civil liberties are an important part of what makes this a great 
> nation.

	And their serious erosion began in 1865 with the capitulation of the South.