Dear Stoned:
You know those 'free speech' zones where political dissidents are cowed into an area where they are politically irrelevant and can be intimidated by heavily armed gunmen in military fatigues?
Well, I recall a time when the United States was a free speech zone.
Of course, that didn't begin with the Obama Presidency. But neither did he roll back this incursion. Indeed, he extended the use of this policy.
Then there is that little matter of domestic surveillance. Supposedly, we are protected from unwarranted search. Yet come to find out, our great, lordly kakistocracy [look it up] spies on about everyone on the planet, including the German Chancellor, ostensibly an ally.
Eventually, people are going to outgrow this partisan blame-shifting, scapegoating and bickering. Eventually, people are going to turn to class analysis to explain what is happening in society. When they do, the ruling powers will tremble. Of course, they will also turn guns on their own people. You may have noticed the increasing militarization of our society. But of course, no liberties are being lost. And this is for your own good. We're 'protecting' you. Remember that? The 'protection' racket?
Even though I've posted on this thread, I'm really not interested in pursuing this line of inquiry. I'm much more interested in declaring rights. Moreover, I don't call upon the state to recognize these rights, because rights which the state supposedly bestows, it can also remove. So this is more a matter of one person, dictating to the state.
We have the right to be a people.
We have the right to have institutions and processes of state that are truly our own.
We have the right to have leaders who speak through our own lips.
We have the right to create new institutions and processes of state.
We have the right to call upon the military to protect a committee as it does the work of drafting a Second Constitution for a Second Republic.
We have the right to task that committee with a mandate to enshrine the separation of the powers of corporation and state.
We have the right to convene a national convention to suspend the existing constitution, ratify the new constitution, to dissolve the government, call elections to create a new government.
Etc., etc., etc.
We don't NEED permission to do these things. The right is ours.
IMT
PS: Howdy to any Homeland Insecurityniks out there!