The piece is called "Timeline of Bill of Rights under Bush". For those wtih minimal reader comprehension skills, it doesn't say that Bush is personally responsible for all of it. The original title was "under the Bush Administration." That's actually the same thing, unless Bush is literarlly on top of you, in which case, you may think about it differently.

QuestionAuthority expects to be very busy no matter which party is in power. I wrote a long essay about what Bill Clinton did to civil liberties back in 1999.

I believe the author is going to drop by and defend his choices for the timeline so I'll leave it at that. btw, I thought the right to smoke weed was ascribed by jah... Haile Unlikely!

RU

"RU, we already have right now criminals in the White House who have staged a coup.

This is the time for resistance, not pretty slogan"

That sounds like a couple of slogans actually. This is the time for cohesion not more-radical-than-thou bluster...

RU

Great to see people responding and/or reacting. A few posts are worth commenting on.

>>
It seems like the Question Authority proposal is congruent with the ACLU's platform. But perhaps Sirius believes that a less formalized, monolithic organization will draw more people to the cause who prefer focusing their efforts on education over litigation
>>

ACLU is all about legal battles. QA proposes to engage in dynamic, grassroots educational/activism types of activities that are fairly well delineated in the proposal, but it sometimes helps to pull a few quotes out of a lengthy document...

>>>

"
1a) We will monitor, inform about, and coordinate public educational responses against any further assaults on the basic constitutional liberties of Americans, and will organize information and educational responses to civil liberties already lost to the "war on terror."

>>>

Try to find accessible, navigatable, written-in-plain-english materials on the ACLU website or anywhere where you can give yourself an education in what has happened around these issues over say the last 7 years. You can't. Everything there, of course, is miscellaneous! And that's problematic. I propose coherence and one-stop shopping for concise comprehensible information in this area. If we accomplish nothing else, we'll still be a massive Success...

"... 1b) Imagine every authoritarian absurdity and outrage carefully explored and catalogued on a single website. Imagine networked groups that can spring into action to alert and educate the public the next time authorities savage the Bill of Rights"

>>>>
Same point. THere's McCarthyism Watch on the Progressive Magazine website but it doesn't do much and it's obviously slanted in one direction
>>>

"... 2a) We will do everything in our power to bring non-authoritarian and anti-authoritarian thinkers and speakers before the public and particularly before youth.

2b) Imagine a QA publicity/speakers bureau that would get a wide variety of QA types onto college campuses, on the various media talk shows (let's change the dialogue from Right v. Left to Authoritarian v. Non-Authoritarian) and before various civic groups.

>>>
Again, nobody else is doing it.
>>>>

LATER ON somebody posted:

>>
I'm very much opposed to authoritarian governance. I'm not especially opposed to authoritarian culture. No one should be able to throw you in jail or brutalize you because of your different views, but they shouldn't have to accept you either.

I'll therefore support any movement that opposes using government to enforce conformity. I shall mock and oppose any movement that supports using government to enforce diversity.

>>>
Me too! Show me where I suggest using the government to enforce conformity or diversity. My inclusion of Authoritarian culture in the statement may well refer to people being slienced by Political Correctness. It certainly refers to people taking umbrage all the time at every movie, artwork, ad infinitum, whether it's some right wing christians or a racial identity group.
>>>

And then this:
"As for QuestionAthority:
I'm all for it but the devil is in the details. What I'd love to see him link up with David Brin and George Soros and hammer out a common position paper. If those three could hammer out a common understanding that they would sign their name to, and bring in people who agree with them I'd really get behind this.

As for the Open Source Party:
Get RMS, Linus, Bruce Perens, and Mark Shuttleworth to sign on and we have a movement."

>>>>
Yes! So help out. This should maybe be a Paul Revere moment for people who are concerned about some of these issues...
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And finally this:" Does R.U. Sirius realize that "corporate personhood" is the reason the FBI would need to get a warrant before raiding the offices of the ACLU? While its quite obvious that idiots that advocate the "end of corporate personhood" don't think that the government should be able to raid their favored non profit organizations without a warrant, thats what their legal campaign literally implies"

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I'm sure there are greater legal minds that I who can take this on, but the 4th amendment should be sufficient to protect organizations from ACLU to KBR as well as individuals from warrantless searches or somebody is not doing a very good job of interpreting the constitution etc. And if it's not, their ought to be a way to retool the essential impulse behind that platform point to make it work in the way it's intended. There are also 7 points on that document and I invite people who agree with 5 of them to get into the mix, so come on in if you care to...
>>>

and... "A bit closer to real modern issues is the comment about "the virtual death of habeas corpus," but I'm pretty sure the last time I checked the cops still have to haul me before a judge if I get arrested,"

but the attorney general can freeze your assets. Actually, literal interpretations of current laws could declare you a terrorist and strip you f most of your rights, or at least they could try to. The fact that these powers are rarely used doesnt diminish the fact that they exist as a form of intimidation...