A Tale of Two Joes

Liberals like myself love to remind the Conservatives that Bush was not a legitmate president. That Al Gore should have been President of the United States as independant organizations proved that he did indeed have more votes than Bush in the state of Florida. The interesting thing about this is the Joe Lieberman issue. Senator Joe Lieberman at the time was a Democrat. A moderate Dem, but one nonetheless who supported environmental issues and foreign policy. He supported Universal Healthcare, too. In fact, as recently as the last election, he ran on a platform of expanded medicare. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34420961/

So what radicalized Joe Lieberman from the near top of the Democratic ticket in 2000 to the supporter of beheadings and citizen revoking that we see now? There have been several speculations from 911, to his loss in the Democratic primary to campaign contributions from Health Insurance Companies and pressure from Lobbyists.

Joe is an anomalie. He supports rights for Women and Gay Rights as well. But at the same time, he believes in restricting the first ammendment. The most chilling of Lieberman's recent ideologies follows the recent foiled terror plot at Times Square in New York. Lieberman suggested two things that should shake a freedom- loving American to their core.

Joe Lieberman suggested that terrorists should be beheaded. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-green/lieberman-suggests-behead_b_566013.html
Beheaded? Are you serious, Joe? Are we in times of war, to lower ourselves to the conduct of our enemy? Are we not supposed to look better than them? To do so would ruin the American's image to the rest of the country and make us look just as savage as the militant terrorist groups we fight against.

More horrifying yet, Lieberman went further than some Conservatives that suggested that American citizens accused of terrorism don't deserve Miranda rights. He suggested that anyone with "associations" with groups considered terrorist organizations should be stripped of their citizenship. And there it goes. There is the start of the end of our freedom and back to the days of another Sentor named Joe.

Senator Joseph McCarthy was a Republican. He served Wisconsin as a Senator from 1947-1957 when he died from Hepatitis which was supposedly linked to his heavy alcoholism. He was known in the Senate as being tough opponent against Communism (our big scare from back in the day). The threat of Communism caused many unconstitutional knee-jerk reactions to differentiate ourselves from the Communists. What it really did was restrict freedoms for Americans in the guise of keeping America safe.

Senator Joe McCarthy wasn't the only one responsible for the facist activities that ensued in the late 40's early 50's, but he definately made his mark. McCarthyism, is the attitude of the Conservative members of congress during this era who made efforts to restrict the freedoms of citizens and scare them with stories of Communism and how Anti-American it was.

Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and many other prominant Republicans took part in the scare tactics. Reagan, actually switched from being a Democrat to a Repbulican at this time because he agreed with HUAC and McCarthyism. What I don't get is how people could define "What is American?" It's the same thing going on here. Someone suspected of terrorism or associated with terrorists could be deemed un-American.

I'm all for deporting people who are here illegally. But shirking citizenship of anyone suspected of terrorism is a slap in the face to what IS AMERICAN! That is the fact that we have rights in this country as citizens that can't be taken away. We have a right to a fair trial, and to be innocent until proven guilty.

But, people like Joe Lieberman, we learned all too well are willing to give up our freedoms for their conveniences. All I can say is what's next?