RPRNY
Member
You may or may not have seen it. Entitled "Peril from Patriots", it is one of the most disturbing iterations of illiberalism I have seen in the War on Freedom. I believe it is critical that the editorial board be called out for their dangerous propagandism and that this issue be framed correctly as an assault on civil rights - only the latest of which is focused on the Second Amendment. http://articles.latimes.com/2013/mar/08/opinion/la-ed-patriot-groups-splc-report-20130308
I do not expect the LA Times to print my letter. Nor do I expect all those concerned about the assault on our Second Amendment rights to agree with my position or views on the issue. I hope my letter will provoke thoughts about the larger issue involved when a major media outlet calls anyone concerned about the loss of their constitutional rights "a greater danger to the lives of American civilians than international terrorists." or uses the term patriot as an insult. I strongly urge you all to register your concerns with the LA Times about this dangerous editorial. email to: [email protected]
My Letter to the LA Times:
I fear the Los Angeles Times editorial of March 8 2013 entitled Peril from ‘patriots’ sells a self-fulfilling prophecy of civil war. The media has a tawdry history of jingoism and helping Presidents sell their wars. With its despicable screed the LA Times editorial board has joined the War on Freedom against those whom they pejoratively call ‘patriots’ and whom the President has called “bitter men clinging to their guns and their religion”. While I would be proud to be called a “patriot”, I do not conform to these caricatures.
Dehumanization of one’s enemies is the job of propagandists. Just as the Nazis created the evil hawk nosed ‘banker’ to portray the Jews and the US government created the diminutive buck-tooth, eyeglass wearing Japanese soldier in WWII, so now the LA Times portrays the Administration’s opponents in the War on Freedom as the “angry white man” cast in the image of Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh. In a rather unfortunate mixing of metaphors, McVeigh is given a beard and turban, rendering ‘patriots’ domestic mujahedeen that “may represent a greater danger to the lives of American civilians than international terrorists”. So those who oppose the illegal restriction of constitutionally protected rights are objectified and rendered more easily subject to persecution.
The LA Times pretends this persecution is a figment of the conspiracy theorist’s imagination. Yet, over the past decade Republican and Democrat administrations have done more to erode our privacy and civil liberties than at any time since the Civil War. The Patriot Act was rightly decried by many Liberals when born under the Bush – Cheney regime as an unjustifiable invasion of privacy and an unconscionable limit on our 4th and 5th Amendment rights. Yet these same voices have been deeply muted during its expansion and abuse under the Obama – Biden regime. The LA Times editorial board spoke out against the Obama Administration’s horrible record on transparency and Freedom of Information Act disclosures (the worst record since adoption of the Act) on October 31, 2011, as an issue of great self-interest, but is now a willing weapon in the assault on our Second Amendment rights.
This Administration denies US citizens abroad their 4th, 5th and 6th Amendment rights. It has executed US citizens without due process or even judicial indictment (Anwar Awlaki and his teenage son). And the Attorney General only grudgingly admitted that the President does not have the right to summarily execute Americans on US soil whom hedeems “at war” with the United States. This Administration has directed a massive expansion of the paramilitary security forces established by Bush’s Homeland Security Department, and the President is on the record as saying he wants internal security forces similar in number to our armed forces. The LA Times asks “who needs an assault rifle?” May one ask why the Social Security Administration needs a 300 man paramilitary force? The LA Times deems those concerned about the ever growing power and coercive force of the Federal government guilty of paranoia and “a threat” to the lives of their fellow citizens. Most patriots see themselves as civil libertarians concerned with protecting the freedom of their fellow citizens.
For these dread ‘patriots’ guns are the symptom. Freedom is the issue. Over 75% of gun related crimes are committed with handguns. That number is over 95% for gun homicides. In fact, very few of the public place shootings that have rocked the nation in recent years have been committed with rifles, let alone semi-automatic rifles that the media likes to call “assault weapons”. Why then are so-called “assault rifles” the focus of new legislation? Governor Cuomo recently pushed through “the toughest gun laws in the nation” in New York by ‘message of necessity’, a tactic that avoids prolonged deliberation of a bill and a move heavily criticized by state law enforcement agencies. He claimed the threat posed by the semi-automatic rifles that this law virtually bans required such urgency. According to the FBI, of the 445 NY firearm deaths in 2011 (the latest full year statistics) only five involved a rifle of any kind, and only two a semi-automatic rifle. 26 people were killed by being beaten or pushed. But a ‘message of necessity’ was required to ban “assault rifles”? The fact is that these are weapons very rarely used in gun crime. Yet State and Federal governments see them in need of urgent banning?
The media is being duped again by an Administration bent on doing something it knows is entirely unjustified. And just as the media helped Bush sell the story of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to justify his Invasion of Iraq, so the LA Times editorial board is helping President Obama sell the story of “assault weapons” to justify his assault on our civil rights. I do not own a semi-automatic rifle or a handgun. I do not belong to the NRA. I am not much of a Christian. I do hold a Master’s Degree from Georgetown University and I live in greater metropolitan New York. And I am a Patriot, deeply committed to liberty and justice for all. As to the LA Times editorial board ? They appear yet again to be acting as war-mongers, this time of the civil war variety.
I do not expect the LA Times to print my letter. Nor do I expect all those concerned about the assault on our Second Amendment rights to agree with my position or views on the issue. I hope my letter will provoke thoughts about the larger issue involved when a major media outlet calls anyone concerned about the loss of their constitutional rights "a greater danger to the lives of American civilians than international terrorists." or uses the term patriot as an insult. I strongly urge you all to register your concerns with the LA Times about this dangerous editorial. email to: [email protected]
My Letter to the LA Times:
I fear the Los Angeles Times editorial of March 8 2013 entitled Peril from ‘patriots’ sells a self-fulfilling prophecy of civil war. The media has a tawdry history of jingoism and helping Presidents sell their wars. With its despicable screed the LA Times editorial board has joined the War on Freedom against those whom they pejoratively call ‘patriots’ and whom the President has called “bitter men clinging to their guns and their religion”. While I would be proud to be called a “patriot”, I do not conform to these caricatures.
Dehumanization of one’s enemies is the job of propagandists. Just as the Nazis created the evil hawk nosed ‘banker’ to portray the Jews and the US government created the diminutive buck-tooth, eyeglass wearing Japanese soldier in WWII, so now the LA Times portrays the Administration’s opponents in the War on Freedom as the “angry white man” cast in the image of Oklahoma bomber Timothy McVeigh. In a rather unfortunate mixing of metaphors, McVeigh is given a beard and turban, rendering ‘patriots’ domestic mujahedeen that “may represent a greater danger to the lives of American civilians than international terrorists”. So those who oppose the illegal restriction of constitutionally protected rights are objectified and rendered more easily subject to persecution.
The LA Times pretends this persecution is a figment of the conspiracy theorist’s imagination. Yet, over the past decade Republican and Democrat administrations have done more to erode our privacy and civil liberties than at any time since the Civil War. The Patriot Act was rightly decried by many Liberals when born under the Bush – Cheney regime as an unjustifiable invasion of privacy and an unconscionable limit on our 4th and 5th Amendment rights. Yet these same voices have been deeply muted during its expansion and abuse under the Obama – Biden regime. The LA Times editorial board spoke out against the Obama Administration’s horrible record on transparency and Freedom of Information Act disclosures (the worst record since adoption of the Act) on October 31, 2011, as an issue of great self-interest, but is now a willing weapon in the assault on our Second Amendment rights.
This Administration denies US citizens abroad their 4th, 5th and 6th Amendment rights. It has executed US citizens without due process or even judicial indictment (Anwar Awlaki and his teenage son). And the Attorney General only grudgingly admitted that the President does not have the right to summarily execute Americans on US soil whom hedeems “at war” with the United States. This Administration has directed a massive expansion of the paramilitary security forces established by Bush’s Homeland Security Department, and the President is on the record as saying he wants internal security forces similar in number to our armed forces. The LA Times asks “who needs an assault rifle?” May one ask why the Social Security Administration needs a 300 man paramilitary force? The LA Times deems those concerned about the ever growing power and coercive force of the Federal government guilty of paranoia and “a threat” to the lives of their fellow citizens. Most patriots see themselves as civil libertarians concerned with protecting the freedom of their fellow citizens.
For these dread ‘patriots’ guns are the symptom. Freedom is the issue. Over 75% of gun related crimes are committed with handguns. That number is over 95% for gun homicides. In fact, very few of the public place shootings that have rocked the nation in recent years have been committed with rifles, let alone semi-automatic rifles that the media likes to call “assault weapons”. Why then are so-called “assault rifles” the focus of new legislation? Governor Cuomo recently pushed through “the toughest gun laws in the nation” in New York by ‘message of necessity’, a tactic that avoids prolonged deliberation of a bill and a move heavily criticized by state law enforcement agencies. He claimed the threat posed by the semi-automatic rifles that this law virtually bans required such urgency. According to the FBI, of the 445 NY firearm deaths in 2011 (the latest full year statistics) only five involved a rifle of any kind, and only two a semi-automatic rifle. 26 people were killed by being beaten or pushed. But a ‘message of necessity’ was required to ban “assault rifles”? The fact is that these are weapons very rarely used in gun crime. Yet State and Federal governments see them in need of urgent banning?
The media is being duped again by an Administration bent on doing something it knows is entirely unjustified. And just as the media helped Bush sell the story of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to justify his Invasion of Iraq, so the LA Times editorial board is helping President Obama sell the story of “assault weapons” to justify his assault on our civil rights. I do not own a semi-automatic rifle or a handgun. I do not belong to the NRA. I am not much of a Christian. I do hold a Master’s Degree from Georgetown University and I live in greater metropolitan New York. And I am a Patriot, deeply committed to liberty and justice for all. As to the LA Times editorial board ? They appear yet again to be acting as war-mongers, this time of the civil war variety.
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