Random Searches, Random Thoughts

Yes, These Are The "Dog Days. . ."

These random searches of subway riders in New York City are really beginning to pay off. Yesterday, police arrested a 92 year old grandmother of four from Hoboken. Seems she had a pair of crochet needles in her bag. The charge: Conspiracy to knit an Afghan!
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George Carlin on the new Iraqi Constitution:

“I think we should just give the Iraqis our Constitution. It worked well for 200 years, and we’re not using it anymore anyway!”
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Give Me Liberty . . .

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
-Benjamin Franklin

"No private rights are so unimportant that they can be surrendered with impunity to the caprices of government ... the principle of public utility is called in, the doctrine of political necessity is conjured up, and men accustom themselves to sacrifice private interest without scruple, and to trample upon the rights of individuals in order more speedily to accomplish any public purpose."
-Alexis de Tocqueville

“Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”
-William Pitt

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent . . . the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding."
-Justice Louis Brandeis

“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”
-Thomas Jefferson

“Truth : the most deadly weapon ever discovered by humanity. Capable of destroying entire perceptual sets, cultures, and realities. Outlawed by all governments everywhere. Possession is normally punishable by death.”
-Richard Childers

“The antidote for misuse of freedom of speech is more freedom of speech.”
-Molly Ivans

“They came for the communists, and I did not speak up because I wasn't a communist; They came for the socialists, and I did not speak up because I was not a socialist; They came for the union leaders, and I did not speak up because I wasn't a union leader; They came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak up for me.”
-Martin Niemoller

“As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air however slight lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”
-Justice William O. Douglas

"Times of tragedy and war naturally bring out strong emotions in all of us. Yet we must be careful to preserve personal liberty and privacy rights in the months ahead. Sometimes the people are only too anxious to sacrifice their constitutional liberties during a crisis, hoping to gain some measure of security. Yet nothing would please the terrorists more than if we willingly gave up some of our cherished liberties because of their actions."
-Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX)

"The whole notion of loyalty inquisitions is a national characteristic of the police state, not of democracy. The history of Soviet Russia is a modern example of this ancient practice. I must, in good conscience, protest against any unnecessary suppression of our rights as free men. We must not burn down the house to kill the rats."
-Adlai Stevenson

“Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.”
-Dwight D. Eisenhower (also attributed to Yogi Berra)

COMING UP: Random searches of your houses; random wiretaps; random sorting through your mail; random checks to see which books you've taken out of the library (wait, they can already do that)!

DEFEND YOUR LIBERTIES AND OUR FREEDOMS. GIVE UP NOTHING TO EITHER TYRANT OR TERRORIST!