A letter to John McCain
September 13th, 2008
|
| Share |
This has nothing to do with science or anything really, but I wrote the following letter to the John McCain campaign which I have emailed and will also be dropping off at the post office shortly. I know that the senator will not read it, but in general such letters do get read by campaign staff and their contents may have some influence.
Of course, I do not expect this letter in and of itself to have any effect, but if enough communications of a similar message are also received, it very well may make a difference. For this reason I encourage anyone else who has such concerns to also wire to candidates or politicians. No drop of rain believes it is responsible for the flood.
I somewhat doubt that anything is going to change, but who knows…
Dear Senator John McCain,
I am writing because I strongly support nearly all of your policies over those of Barak Obama, but because of one issue I am unable to vote for you in the presidential elections. It is because of this one issue, I find that I am unable to in any way support or condone your campaign or the legitimacy of your presidential bid. Furthermore, I believe that many others have similar feelings.
The issue is that of civil liberties, especially with regards to domestic intelligence, holding of individuals without trail, the Patriot Act, warrantless wiretaps and other similar activities which have been instituted as part of the overall “war on terror.” These activities are a very clear and direct violation of the US Constitution and of some of the most fundamental and vital concepts of individual liberty and limitations on government power. By supporting these actions, a candidate clearly is indicating that they do not intend to uphold the oath of office of the US president and that they are directly opposed to the basic principles on which all free societies are founded.
It is recognized that when fighting a non-conventional enemy, there will be times when certain actions must be taken by the government and when these actions must be kept secret for a period of time in order to not compromise investigations or sources. This, however, does not justify a wholesale dismissal of due process or civil liberties. In all cases, there must be extreme checks and balances as well as oversight. For example, it may be justified to take preemptive action, in an emergency, before a warrant can be issued, however it still must be reviewed for legality by a duely appointed judge as soon as is possible afterward, and if found to be inappropriate, those responsible should be held accountable. It may also be necessary to keep certain orders and operations secret, but the burden to prove this is necessary must be on the government and no open-ended orders of suppression should ever be granted.
In the end, the decisions and policies in a situation like the United States is currently in will not always be clear-cut or easy, and neither I nor anyone else has all the answers, but one thing is clear; all actions which may potentially infringe on liberties must have direct justification on an individual basis and must have extraordinary checks, balances and limitations. They must be subject to public and judicial review whenever it is possible and not a direct threat to security. Finally, what constitutes secrecy beyond normal legal proceedings must always be proven against a very strong burden of proof and with presumption in favor of liberties over government power.
Failure to observe stringent control of governmental and judicial powers and to honor civil rights, liberties and the Constitution over all other concerns is to oppose that which this country was founded on and values most. For a public officeholder to favor anything else borders on treason.
Thus, despite my general disagreement with Barak Obama and favoring of the McCain campaign in nearly all other matters, I simply cannot vote for John McCain because it would be unethical and dishonorable to do so. Nor will I in any way support the McCain campaign or any political groups or candidates aligned with it. I will be forced to vote for a third party candidate or to abstain from voting in this election entirely. To do otherwise would be, amongst other things, un-American.
A voting, tax-paying, constitution-supporting and loyal American citizen,
Stephen M. Packard Jr.
“Those who will trade liberty for security deserve and will receive neither.” -Benjamin Franklin
By the way, the phrase at the end attributed to Benjamin Franklin is one of my preferred variations on the saying. Apparently the original context of the quote was a phrase said by Franklin apparently on several occasions and which was noted most directly in 1775 as “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” The above version was later used for the motto of a book which Franklin claimed responsibility for penning (not the whole book, but the motto). The first reference to this phrase is “Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.” which was from an aside in Poor Richard’s almanac.
So, much as I know that someone will quibble about the wording, it seems that there are a number of variations which have been attributed to Franklyn through the years. The one certainty is that it was a general phrase which he had used and which was embraced by many early American leaders and institutions. It’s likely Franklyn refined the pithiness of the phrase, and this happens to be one version I like.
This entry was posted on Saturday, September 13th, 2008 at 3:57 pm and is filed under History, Misc, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
View blog reactions
September 13th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Well said!
I wish Obama had a more developed energy policy but I don’t think either candidate is really sure where to go from here on energy. At any rate, I will not vote for any more decay of Constitutional values. I am sick of what I have seen thus far. I have often used the quote you referenced from Franklin in debates with my friends and other people I have encountered who somehow feel safe while the government inspects their underpants.
Homeland security isn’t about what it’s name implies. It’s about increasing government power and decreasing individual privacy and liberty.
War against an ideal… indeed! Don’t insult our intelligence. The borders of this war may be somewhat hard to strictly define but I think we can all agree that The Constitution and all it stands for is not the enemy and should not be attacked.
Quote Comment
September 13th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
I don’t get what you are saying. First you say that privacy must be maintained and it should not be allowed for the government to keep investigations secret, but then you say that it is okay, if there is a security issue. How do you know if it is secret? I mean, you say you want review of what is secret and what is not. How can you review what is classified and not public to tell if it is? Who is to say this is an emergency or not?
Quote Comment
September 13th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
I can view this post properly in its entirety with firefox, but not with IE.
Quote Comment
September 13th, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Jess L said:
Like I said, I don’t have all the answers but liberty must always be held as the first priority. There needs to be judicial review. There are ways of doing this and they have precedent.
For example, lets say that the FBI wants to get a warrant to wiretap the home of a suspected terrorist. The FBI goes to a federal judge – and not a secretly appointed one either, but one who is known to the public, duly appointed by elected officials and such. The FBI would present evidence that the warrant is justified by showing probable cause or showing that there is a potential for an iminant threat of harm. If they satisfy this, the judge will issue the warrant.
If they do not satisfy this requirement, then the judge will turn it down and also the information will likely be released to the public that the FBI presented the case for a warrant and failed. The only thing that would be removed from any public records would be the individual details, such as names, locations or informants (for privacy) or information about other classified investigations, however the public would know the FBI tried to get a warrant and failed. They would also know the general details. (there may be a period of holding of the info for appeal, but only enough for an appeal to be filed).
If the judge agrees that the warrant is valid then (s)he will issue it. Next the FBI or whatever organization must prove it is necessary that the proceedings be kept secret. If they present evidence that it is necessary to national security or the investigation that it be kept secrete than the judge will authorize it be sealed for a period of time: maybe three months. After three months they have to come back to court and petition for an extension and present evidence that shows that the warrant still needs to be secret. Each time they must start from square one and make a case that it simply cannot be unsealed.
If the judge decides that they have a valid case that it still must be sealed then the extension is granted. If not, it is released OR, it may be released but have some details withheld, if parts of it are important (for example, the name of an informant who’s identity must remain anonymous even after the investigation for his or her safety). Once the security issue cannot be proven, it must be released (although perhaps held briefly for an appeal to be filed).
In this case the procedings would not be disclosed but the public would still know that the hearing took place. For example “September 17 2010 Judge Miller Issued a Warrant for the FBI to investigate a suspect – Details of the session are sealed” And thus the public still has basic oversite of the activities.
That kind of system would serve both issues.
Another one might be if an warant or phone tap is urgently needed and there’s no time for a court order. If there was an iminant threat of an attack that was found out at the last minute, then the officials could issue orders for something like a wiretap and file for a warrant to be retroactively applied at the next court session.
So if this happened on a Saturday night, they could do the wire tap but they would have to present proof that it was for a valid reason on Monday morning. They would also have to prove that it was reasonable to take action ahead of time because of the time urgency of the issue.
If the review finds that it was unreasonable to make the tap initially, then not only is any evidence gathered thrown out, but the officials who ordered it would be held personally responsible and be put on a public trial. Therefore you might get the statement:
“Special Agent Smith ordered the tapping of a cell phone and the emails of an individual as well as a covert search of the individuals apartment. Special Agent Smith did so claiming time sensitive information existed linking the individual to terrorist activities and that it necessitated immediate action. Judicial review found a lack of compelling evidence and an investigation was ordered into the circumstances. It was determined that Special Agent Smith believed that the individual was having an affair with his wife and made up the information to try to use the system for his own personal needs. Special Agent Smith pleaded no contest and is serving ten to twenty five years at Levenworth Federal Correctional Facility. The FBI has issued a formal apologize to the individual who’s privacy was invaded. The NSA and FBI have agreed to a settlement of $100,000. Most of the money for the settlement will come from the auction of Special Agent Smith’s property”
Quote Comment
September 13th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
The system you propose is a lot like it worked before the patriot act and how it is supposed to work – there is flexibility to seal things when necessary by review by a judge. The one weak thing is that the judge gets a lot of power and so if a federal court judge is corrupt or too easily swayed they could be a problem. I guess this problem existed anyway though.
It would help if you had reviews by more than one justice on occasion or if the extensions after a period of time were granted by a different judge on occasion. I guess it would be okay though because we trust judges anyway by necessity and also if they’re public figures and not annonymous judges and if they preside over public cases too, then at least they’re someone the public has vetted and has gotten there through legit channels.
So I guess I’d have to say that’s the best you could hope for. Not quite perfect, but I mean, it’s a lot better than what we have now. It’s okay, IMHO, to sometimes realize there are extraordinary circumstances IF they are always proven to a high burden. The patriot act is not like that and more like writing a blank check to civil rights.
Quote Comment
September 13th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
Yeah, one of the big issues that has been downplayed by many in the main stream media is that the FISA courts have existed since ‘78 or ‘79, I think. There already was a method of secretly obtaining wiretap warrants while still maintaining oversite but the Bush administration asked for wiretaps without seeking FISA approval… a clear violation of due process. It’s not like we haven’t thought of this problem before.
Quote Comment
September 13th, 2008 at 8:50 pm
I was not trying to stipulate the way it needs to be. I was just giving an example of how it could be done. I don’t know all the legal code for the ins and outs of how the system works and should work. I’m just proposing that the constitution be followed and that extraordinary actions by the government require extraordinary levels of oversite, review and checks and balances.
It doesn’t need to be exactly as I stated above, as long as there is a very very strong burden of proof on the government and there is NEVER unlimited actions without oversight or approval and proof presented.
Yes, I know it’s not quite perfect. It’s theoretically possible that a federal judge might be corrupt and manage to escape detection and only show corruption behind closed doors. That problem exists already. Nobody claims that there is a 100% perfect system.
There will always be times that the justice system does not work and someone ends up being investigated or disturbed when they shouldn’t have. You still need to do everything reasonably possible to try to stop that.
As things are, though, there are no checks or anything to stop the system from going out of control. The only thing that we have is to trust the judgement of the administration and of investigators. Sorry, but that’s not gona work.
Quote Comment
September 13th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
There is a third choice. His name is Bob Barr.
Quote Comment
September 13th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
So you’re voting for Ron Paul…right?
Quote Comment
September 13th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
…or Bob Barr. Missed the post above. Sorry.
Quote Comment
September 13th, 2008 at 10:19 pm
I do not know who I would vote for. I’m a registered Libertarian and I have been since I was old enough to vote, but Bob Barr… ug. I can’t vote for that guy, even if he is running for my preferred party.
He did have some resistance to the patriot act, but ended up compromising and voting for it with a time limitation clause. He’s always been very socially conservative. He’s been very opposed to any marajuana reform, even medical. He was big in the Clinton impeachment which was ridiculous and very partisan.
He has been big in the movement to restore liberties, or so he says, which if true, is good.
Ron Paul… I tend to agree with most of his policies and he’s definitely done a lot to help the cause of liberties and oppose government overreaching He’s also kinda associated with the nutty right-wing conspiracy theorists and that kind of thing.
He does have a socially conservative thing going though. He was big in opposing any attempts to repeal “morality laws” like those on sodomy, pornography and so on. That seems to go against the freedom of expression message. He’s very Christian and is involved with the whole right-wing conspiracy theory thing.
He’s also big on the whole “States rights” thing which I tend to disagree with. I’m not a fan of big government, but my experience has been state government messed up even worse than the federal government, so I’m not all about giving more power to the states as way of making the federal government smaller. That seems like replacing one evil with another to me.
I really do not know. As it stands now I may vote for Ron Paul, but I will not vote for Bob Barr. I will not vote for McCain unless he modifies his stand on the Patriot act and civil liberties. I always vote when there is any election, congress, senate or otherwise. On this occasion, I may very well have to go in and vote for the local ballot measures, the local and state elections and stuff and abstain from voting in the presidential election.
Quote Comment
September 13th, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Interesting, not quite the response I expected. Personally, I would rather see almost anyone in office other than the existing power base (both Democrat and Republican) but perhaps that’s too extreme for most.
There is another way to look at this, however. Clearly, neither Barr nor Paul (or any one other than Obama or McCain for that matter) have a chance in hell winning the election (excepting a substantial miracle.) But the number of votes they get in this election could greatly influence future political thinking of the two dominant parties and the infusion of libertarian ideals into the political mainstream. If Paul gets only 0.2% of the vote, it’s not likely to have any effect. But if he can manage 10%, or perhaps even 5% of the vote, then due to the leverage gained by the so-call “swing vote” phenomena, the two parties might have to adopt or at the very least strongly consider libertarian ideals in their positions to win these votes. And in the 49% vs. 51% voter “mandates” we’ve been seeing in recent times, this could make all the difference between victory and defeat.
So regardless of who is running on the Libertarian ticket or simply on libertarian ideals, it is to every libertarian-leaning voter to vote accordingly, if not for the sake of this election, then for the next.
My $0.02.
Quote Comment
September 14th, 2008 at 12:47 am
Yeah. Well there is something to consider: A lot of people will say that the American political system only gives you two choices. That’s really not the case, because even though you have two major party candidates, the parties are weak and it’s really the voting public who determines who those two are to begin with in the primaries and in terms of who even gets the support to be able to run in the primaries as a serious candidate.
Ron Paul was a choice who got enough support to at least get a few delegate votes (and a blimp) but not good enough to make it past round 1 – the primaries. People had the choice to support a relatively wide spectrum of political views from communist idiots (Kusinich) to Bible thumpers (huckabee) to moderate yet traditional types (Romney) to rule-of-law types (Juliani) to women with testicles (Hillary Clinton) to libertarian-esq types (Ron Paul).
The thing is that those who align themselves with the democratic party (or just decided to vote on that side in states with an open primarny) chose Obama and the same is true for McCain.
Quote Comment
September 14th, 2008 at 1:57 am
Well, the Republicans chose McCain as their party’s nominee, and the Democrats chose Obama as theirs. That’s great for the Republicans and the Democrats. But I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican, so I do not expect the Democratic or Republican party to nominate anyone that represents my political views. They are obviously going to nominate someone who reflects their (aggregate) political views. It makes no sense to suggest that I, as a voter, have a range of viable candidates from which to choose just because the Democrats and the Republicans had a range of candidates from which to choose. Who they choose is their business. But once they choose, then I really only have two choices – neither of which would be my choice at all. This is because we are primarily a two party system.
When enough of the voting public feels that the two dominant parties no longer reflect their political beliefs, then a third (or more) *viable* political party should form (I’ll spare you the tedious lectures on how election laws work to prevent this from happening.) In the mean time, I believe there is great value in voting for one of the minor parties – whichever one represents your political beliefs – even if there is no chance that any of these parties can prevail. The value exists in the expression of the weight of these views from the populace. If this weight becomes great enough, the one or both of the dominant parties will have to accommodate these views in their political positions, lest they risk losing enough votes to the minor parties and consequently lose the election. Its a way of leveraging the value of a small group of votes when the overall vote is very close (e.g. swing votes.) to move the position of the existing parties in certain political directions that more closely reflect your own.
That is why I believe you should vote for Barr or Paul, even if you don’t like either one as individual candidates.
There is much more than can be said as to why this country remains – and probably will remain for some time – a two party system, but that would likely belabor the point.
politics…ug….I think I prefer your science/technology discussions more.
Quote Comment
September 14th, 2008 at 2:50 am
Libber Tea said:
You make it sound as if the democratic and republican tickets are chosen by the ‘party’ meaning the leadership or insiders or something. That’s not how it is in the United States. If you were crazy about Clinton you could have registered as a democrat and voted for her or if you were crazy about Ron Paul you could have registered as a republican and voted for him.
The party system is not as controlled and tight as in other countries. The party doesn’t even really get to choose who it puts up or what its platform is. Those who register to vote for a party’s candidates do. Each party is a kind of microcosm of the electorate, even if one is more left leaning and the other more right. Like look at the republicans and you can see there is plenty of divide and forces in it because some are the Barry Goldwater type and some the Pat Robertson type and some are the Ron Paul type.
The reason we have only two parties is that the parties themselves are actually changeable from the inside. The parties do not represent the same kind of solid one stand that parties in a parliamentary system do. The US system means that you can get Jack Kennedy and Jimmy Carter out of the same party depending on what the people demand and want.
It’s still good to vote for a third party though, because I guess that is another way of expressing your opinion to the parties, but I don’t think most people really understand how weak the parties are in the US and how strange it is in the world really. Joe Lieberman spoke at the republican convention because that is how uncontrolled the parties are over their politicians.
Quote Comment
September 14th, 2008 at 5:02 am
Yes, I live in the US. All my life. I know how it works.
Quote Comment
September 14th, 2008 at 8:42 am
This is not a political blog, at least not primarily. Generally I only go into political things that have some kind of direct relation to science or health or something. I just kinda felt like sharing this because it was important to me and I had sent it, but oh well.
Quote Comment
September 14th, 2008 at 9:52 am
Steve:
One quibble on your letter to McCain:
“I know that the senator will not read it, but in general such letters do get read by campaign staff “
If it works like most political offices I’ve been in, some hired office worker will open it–look for a check–not seeing one, will toss in into the trashbag. (If they find a check, of course, they will take it out before they throw it into the trash)
Quote Comment
September 14th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
drbuzz0 said:
Understood. But it would appear politics and science are more directly related every year. We might soon have a VP who believes dinosaurs existed 4,000 years ago and wants creationism taught in schools.
I am deeply cynical of our political system – more so than it would appears most of your readers – and think its needs to be examined as closely and thoroughly as bad science. Perhaps this blog is not the right place. But would be nice to extend the same level and type of critical thinking into the political arena.
Quote Comment
September 14th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Sarah Palin doesn’t support teaching of creationism.
She just doesn’t want there to be a ban of discussion of it in the classroom.
She said creationism should not be part of the curriculum and school board members should not be chosen for their stance on creationism/evolution.
Quote Comment
September 14th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Lorraine said:
Yes, she does, she explicitly said she supports teaching both evolution and creationism, which is completely unacceptable.
Quote Comment
September 16th, 2008 at 10:38 am
Libertarians.. wake up..
It will be a great day when liberal democrats face libertarians on elections – two groups of smart people who value science. But alas, republican party has become a dungeon of science-hating, religious fundamentalist, trigger happy morons who select a 70 year old fossil and a religious nutcase with 2 years of experience as their team. Compared to this selection, Obama-Biden is brilliant on the part of democrats (they could have done much worse).
It would have been a great day if Ron Paul was on the republican ticket. But this will never happen as long as the corrupt establishment at the republican party have their way. Restriction on civil liberties is just the tip of the iceberg.
This is the time to rebel against the GOP. The levels of corruption that are seething into the very backbone of this party, make it totally unsuitable to lead USA.
If you don’t actively question now, the GOP will fall forever to the nutcases.
Quote Comment
September 16th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
vakibs said:
Liberal Democrats love science? With respect to the real world effect of their policies Liberal Democrats are perhaps worse than the Republicans! You might dislike the Republicans because of their more overtly religious tone, but you need to try to divorce your religious views from your politics.
If you just look at their real world effects on science and industry then the democrats have done a lot more to stand in the way of applied science than the Republicans. They shut down nuclear power in our country (killing thousands as a result due to coal), they cut off GM food research with real world effects in developing countries (see below article), they force inefficient and wasteful environmental protections on people, they ban chemicals like mad, they force mandates on people to make them use “feel good” technologies and the list goes on.
Republicans have accomplished some worrying things like influencing what children are educated (at lower school levels), and restricting stem-cell research. There are some negative effects there, but stem cell research is also restricted in many other much more secular countries (e.g. German Green party is against it) so I don’t think that’s so clearly a religious issue.
Ron Paul, he sounds nice at a distance, but after looking at his positions I really can’t say I agree. I’m not going into what specifically, the list would be long!
The DLC types are generally more science friendly, but that’s a narrow part of the Democratic party (sadly).
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/18/business/worldbusiness/18focus.html?ex=1369195200&en=44ea2e01cc9664f5&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
Quote Comment
September 16th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Also, on the stem cell thing, Republicans didn’t try to ban it, just restrict government funding for it. :-/
Quote Comment
September 16th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Also, McCain is in favor of Gov. sponsored stem cell research, and against teaching evolution in schools (though he would allow it to be taught if decided at the local level, which I don’t like but I think states should have the right to decide this stuff).
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/09/as-president-jo.html
I do like universal health care though, so I’m still leaning Obama.
Quote Comment
September 16th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
What the VP things may or may not be important. It depends on what kind of VP Pallin expects to be. If it’s the Dan Quale type, who doesn’t actually do much of anything other than go to state funerals then it doesn’t matter. If it’s more active in policy than Cheney then it does. Of course, it would matter in the event that the president were to die in office. McCain is in decent health, but he’s not by any means a young man, so the possibility is there, even if it’s not all that likely.
Quote Comment