More specifically, The American Freedom Agenda Act would

• bar the use of evidence obtained through torture
• require that federal intelligence gathering is conducted in accordance with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)
• create a mechanism for challenging presidential signing statements
• repeal the Military Commissions Act, which, among other things, denies habeas corpus to certain detainees
• prohibit kidnapping, detentions, and torture abroad
• protect journalists who publish information received from the executive branch
• ensure that secret evidence is not used to designate individuals or organizations with a presence in the U.S. as foreign terrorists.

None of these were constitutional in the first place, and all are morally repugnant to the ideals of a free society. There is evidence of strong support for ending each of these individually, but no one in government seems to have the courage to do anything about it.

Ron Paul, on the other hand, had the courage to introduce legislation to end all of it. No one on either side of the aisle has done anything close.

I was browsing around the net looking for people who were writing about this big news, and came across an article on DailyKos.com (the hotbed of Democratic bloggers online) – which simply gave the text of the legislation and asked people to support it:

Please contact your Rep and ask for them to support this Resolution that has been introduced in the House today. The details of the Act are under the fold.

This didn’t get much traction on Kos – which I thought was odd, because it was a call to repeal so much of what the Bush administration had instituted over the last 6 years.

In fact, reading the comments was even worse – of the few posted, there were two that were downright hostile to the bill – not because it was a bad bill – but because it was introduced by Ron Paul, a Republican.

Here’s a comment by “Marcus Tullius”

Instead of supporting Ron Paul’s bill, I’d like to see the Dems propose their own.

And another:

I do not plan to help Ron Paul make political points. Imo, the Majority needs to put forward a bill proposing essentially the same thing. Couple of reasons why.

First, it denies R’s the ability to say that they are the party advocating a restoration of the rule of law. I aim to kill their party, and helping R sponsored bills pass is not on my list of shit to do right now.

Second, it requires any R that would support to vote against his/her party, and his/her president. That’s helpful because it further splinters their party, and it weakens the president.

So, to my mind, the only solution is a Dem sponsored bill. And they need to propose one, imo.

Although no one in his party has introduced legislation that’s even remotely similar – and although he supports the repeal of these awful laws, he won’t support it unless it’s been done by a Democrat.

It’s just this kind of attitude that, in my opinion, has gotten us to where we are now, and people like Marcus make me sick.

Marcus has no problem with torture, kidnapping, ending habeas corpus, and the like – and refuses to support the end of such activities, unless ended by a democrat.

I wonder how pervasive this kind of attitude is.

Party vs Freedom?

People like Marcus are happy to throw away your liberty, as long as it serves his party.

Now that’s a traitor if I ever saw one.

Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday introduced a bill that would rescind billions of dollars worth of tax incentives extended to U.S. energy companies and put the money into a fund earmarked for renewable energy.

Sponsors of the Creating Long-term Energy Alternatives for the Nation Act, or CLEAN, said it will save U.S. taxpayers about $13 billion over an unspecified number of years, but industry groups said it could hinder U.S. oil companies’ ability to find and develop new energy sources.

Going after “Big Oil” is a top priority of the House of Representatives’ Democratic leadership, which says oil companies have earned record profits at the expense of U.S. motorists paying high gasoline prices.

Although the politicians on both sides of the aisle would like us to think that it’s in their Constitutional authority to engage in subsidies, energy research and the like, we challenge everyone to find one word in the Constitution that authorizes such activity.

The title here is interesting, and may even mislead. While it’s quite good for politicians to “go after” subsidies (and hopefully end them) – it doesn’t do any good at all if they just take that subsidy and give it to someone else.

That’s just what’s happening here. The politicians, acting like a mafia cartel once again, are taking money from one group, and giving it to another. All the while, they continue extracting your tax money for these and other unconstitutional ventures.

They claim this program will “save $13 billion” But remember, virtually every time the government starts a new program, it ends up costing much much more than they advertised in the beginning.

If they told us the truth about these things, the war in Iraq would be paid for by Iraqi oil, the income tax never would’ve gone above 6%, Social Security tax would only be 2%, and on and on, and on.

What really needs to happen is for “we the people” to “go after” big government.