Incidentally

In regards to the first blog, I thought I'd try and address all of his claims about Why America Sucks. "But why go through this trouble?" I'm glad you asked! Because these are the types of claims I hear over and over again in forums all over the internet. People really think these things. There's a massive anti-America campaign raging across the internet that has already consumed my original political party, the one I picked when I was 18, and the donkey needs to get kickin'. Small numbers of abrasive loud mouths have spread disinformation and the Democratic Party has become the party for people who think America can do no right. Michelle Obama's first time being proud of America was when her husband was nominated? I've been proud for years!

Without further ado, let me debunk some more popular, untruthful claims about America:

Claim #1:
"We don't have the right to a trial anymore."
Status:
Debunked. See first blog. ("The Great Conspiracy")


Claim #2:
We've lost the right to protest.
Status:
Hyperbole. Not even going to bother to debunk this in detail. I can only assume he's referring to incidents like the guy who got tasered during the Kerry speech after he butted in line and went in a lengthy monologue rant well over his allotted time. He could have booked the hall and made his own speech on his own time. The right to protest does not include the right to infringe on everyone else's rights, and he was actually infringing on the free speech rights of Kerry and all the other people who wanted to ask a question.

If you would like to protest in some normal, non-asshole manner, you certainly can. Welcome to America.

Claim #3:
Civil disobedience can now be labeled as terrorism.
Status:
This is apparently a result of the "Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act". I looked up the bill and browsed it. It only applies if you are causing threats, damage, bodily harm or economic damage to animal-related ventures.

Economic damage is defined as:

`(A) means the replacement costs of lost or damaged property or records, the costs of repeating an interrupted or invalidated experiment, the loss of profits, or increased costs, including losses and increased costs resulting from threats, acts or vandalism, property damage, trespass, harassment, or intimidation taken against a person or entity on account of that person's or entity's connection to, relationship with, or transactions with the animal enterprise; but
`(B) does not include any lawful economic disruption (including a lawful boycott) that results from lawful public, governmental, or business reaction to the disclosure of information about an animal enterprise;

So if you go blow up a horse track, you can be called a terrorist.

This is not "civil disobedience" as I understand the term. The website I found to get me started on this research showed a bunch of people standing in protest with a big label of "TERRORISTS" over them.

That's misinformation. It's the propaganda machine steering you down a particular path again. Did you fall for it?

The only way those people could be "terrorists" is if the place they were standing in was causing direct harm.

In fact the bill explicitly says:

`(e) Rules of Construction- Nothing in this section shall be construed--

`(1) to prohibit any expressive conduct (including peaceful picketing or other peaceful demonstration) protected from legal prohibition by the First Amendment to the Constitution;

So you can picket all you like. Although I suppose if you were picketing ON THE HORSE TRACK DURING A RACE then it may apply as economic damage, not to mention trespassing.

Of course, nothing in this bill means you can be sent to Guantanamo. You're still just a regular criminal. It looks like the purpose of the bill was to describe extra punishment (mainly fines) for committing these particular types of pre-existing crimes. I challenge you to find something covered in the bill that was not already a crime.


Claim #4:
We don't even have the right to vote -- we haven't met UN fair election standards in years.
Status:
Unknown. I can't find out what "UN fair election standards" are. Obviously this is stemming from the 2000 election debacle in Florida, and the subsequent claims that electronic voting needs paper trails, but I can't find any actual UN "fair election standards" that suggest this sort of thing.

It looks like the claim mainly came from Jimmy Carter. I certainly agree that voting machines should have paper trails but the claim, as is, is a hyperbole at best, and complete fantasy at worst.


Four claims on why America sucks, and not a valid one among them.

This is the propaganda machine at work. Too many Americans are eating it up when there's no substance to it. If that doesn't worry you, it should.