Black is white. War is peace. Up is down.
If you followed through and read that entire piece by Glenn Greenwald I linked to earlier, you might have followed a link to this absolute gem which demonstrates how, only a few years ago, the vast majority of the Freeper community was horrified, aghast, appalled, at the loss of civil liberties introduced by Bill Clinton in the form of (here it comes, here it comes, wait for it ...) an expanded, secret "FISA" court.
That's right -- the same FISA court that, these days, is just too impotent and slow-moving to respond effectively to global terrorism and, therefore, has to be circumvented was, only a few years back, a dangerous encroachment and infringement on personal freedom and privacy because, well, because of Bill Clinton's executive order that greatly expanded its powers.
Well, sure, it's only today that FISA is an ineffective joke that forces George W. to break the law by ignoring it, but just look at how dangerous it was a few years ago based on tasty selections from the comments section of that article:
- This is beyond frightening. Thank you for this find.
- This does not bode well for continued freedom.
- Franz Kafka would have judged this to wild to fictionalize. But for us - it's real.
- Any chance of Bush rolling some of this back? ...
- Thanks for the post. Ominous possibilities. Kafka's Trial right on. This, as all law when it breaks down from crashing into individual rights, will default to the 2nd amendment.
- This should be required reading by every FReeper.
It's almost impossible to poke fun at the residents of Freeperville when they do such a stunningly effective job of it themselves.
3 comments:
This is staggering. Thanks for pointing this out! Yet one more version of IOKIYAR (It's OK, If You Are Republican).
One of the really interesting things about those reactions is that the article is from Covert Action Quarterly, a magazine typically identified with the Left. I guess us lefties don't get it wrong ALL the time, huh? There really were a lot of reasons to attack Clinton from the left perspective, and I think this article shows one of them. Still, it's funny to see the Freepers hopping on with us when it's an attack against someone who poses as one of our own.
Freeper rebuttal:
9/11/01 changed the world/America when we thought this we were in the pre 9/11/01 mindset, now we are in the post 9/11/01 mindset and only those wimpy lefties that want the terrorists to win have any problems with the government listening in on those terrorists any way they have to.
I mean really, this hypocrisy by the American political Right is rampant everywhere, and thanks to that frame about 9/11/01 changing everything they have a patent one size fits all excuse for why they have flip flopped so extensively on their opposition to expanded government powers, especially in surveilling American citizens. The fact that it is Bush and the GOP dominated Congress doing it and not any Dems is just a happy "coincidence".
Of course in the real world I like you see this as simply hypocrisy driven by which side is enacting the changes and with no real concerns whatsoever for the very real dangers having a President that believes himself to be above the law represents for all Americans regardless of political affiliation. I mean really, do they honestly expect all these changes and increased powers to vanish when a Dem is President?!? Got to love that short term thinking being demonstrated.
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