FERTILIZER CONTROL *NOW*!

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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>Do you mean to put blame for Patriot I on Republicans just
>because they have a majority in Congress?

Partly, yes - but primarily because it was championed by a Bush appointee.

>Where in my post did I say anything about voting Republican to
>prevent passage of Patriot II? I didn't mention it at all!

If you want Patriot II - vote back in the team that gave you Patriot I. Pretty straightforward.

Bill, did you answer my question?

Bill, why don't you stop pretending that you don't know it was ALL OF THEM -- DEMOCRAT AS WELL AS REPUBLICAN. HOW many votes against the USA Patriot Act were there? Wasn't it just like ONE or something?

So it's a load of shit to say that the blame lies with Republicans specifically or exclusively or whatever it is you're sellin', because it couldn't have happened if "principled Democrats" (shyeah, whatever) had stood up and said, "This is wrong, and an erosion of liberty." I've never been suckered into believing that Democrats were so against curtailing liberty in the first place, but... In fact, it would have been nice if any of your liberty-championing Democrats had even READ the thing before voting to enact it. The Republicans might not have read it either -- the thing is supposed to be all long and shit -- but what excuse can a politician offer for voting to enact a bad law when he never checked to see that bad stuff was contained in it? It's putting a gun to your own head and pulling the trigger on the say-so of someone else that there's no ammunition in it. It's deplorable that any legislator would vote for something without knowing what it contained -- and even more deplorable for them to bitch about it once it's passed!!

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[Gravitymaster 0]

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Bill, why don't you stop pretending that you don't know it was ALL OF THEM -- DEMOCRAT AS WELL AS REPUBLICAN. HOW many votes against the USA Patriot Act were there? Wasn't it just like ONE or something?

So it's a load of shit to say that the blame lies with Republicans specifically or exclusively or whatever it is you're sellin', because it couldn't have happened if "principled Democrats" (shyeah, whatever) had stood up and said, "This is wrong, and an erosion of liberty." I've never been suckered into believing that Democrats were so against curtailing liberty in the first place, but... In fact, it would have been nice if any of your liberty-championing Democrats had even READ the thing before voting to enact it. The Republicans might not have read it either -- the thing is supposed to be all long and shit -- but what excuse can a politician offer for voting to enact a bad law when he never checked to see that bad stuff was contained in it? It's putting a gun to your own head and pulling the trigger on the say-so of someone else that there's no ammunition in it. It's deplorable that any legislator would vote for something without knowing what it contained -- and even more deplorable for them to bitch about it once it's passed!!

-

Agreed. The next obvious question is, if we are to believe the Dems were hypnotized into voting for the Patriot Act, then why do we not hear more of them speaking out in opposition, now. Other than a few anti-P.A. rhetoric in Campaign stump speeches, the Dems are still pretty silent. Could it be they are still under GWBs spell?

[rickjump1 0]

To prevent large amounts of casualties, background checks for purchasing large amounts of fertilizer seems prudent to me. Mc Veigh? showed just how deadly it is in bulk, and he was no foreign terrorist. What about dynamite? Farmers use it and I bet they get background checked too.

Do your part for global warming: ban beans and hold all popcorn farts.

[Gravitymaster 0]

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To prevent large amounts of casualties, background checks for purchasing large amounts of fertilizer seems prudent to me. Mc Veigh? showed just how deadly it is in bulk, and he was no foreign terrorist. What about dynamite? Farmers use it and I bet they get background checked too.

I've been trying to find out where I can buy some dynamite. I've got a..... ah....ah..... tree stump I need to remove.

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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To prevent large amounts of casualties, background checks for purchasing large amounts of fertilizer seems prudent to me. Mc Veigh? showed just how deadly it is in bulk, and he was no foreign terrorist. What about dynamite? Farmers use it and I bet they get background checked too.

What do you propose we do about people who want to blow stuff up with ANFO who buy the fertilizer in small quantities without a background check? Your plan does not address the fact that 1000 pounds of ammonium nitrate is really just 100 ten pound bags. Duh! Is this the best liberals can do? I guess I should not be surprised that stupidity came from Schumer's mouth.

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[quade 3]

The OKC bomb would have used an estimated 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate.

http://history1900s.about.com/cs/crimedisaster/p/okcitybombing.htm

Also see;

http://www.txfb.org/TexasAgriculture/2001/040601facts.htm Page 2

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Gravitymaster 0]

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The OKC bomb would have used an estimated 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate.

http://history1900s.about.com/cs/crimedisaster/p/okcitybombing.htm

What would prevent 20 terrorists from each purchasing 250 lbs over a 6 month period?

Wha

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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The OKC bomb would have used an estimated 5,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate.

I guess then that all but the terrorists that are determined to destroy us will just give up then. Wahhh! It's just too troublesome to send a bunch of people to buy a large quantity of this stuff in relatively small amounts!

What are you saying? That this would be an impediment that determined terrorists would simply not want to deal with? After getting fake passports, and all kinds of other difficult shit, they'd just turn back and give up the plan just because they couldn't buy all 5,000lbs. in one shot??

You gotta realize how dumb this sounds!

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[quade 3]

PJ -- I was just giving an estimate to an event that pretty much we all know the results of. Just for scale so people could understand the distructive capabilities.

Honestly, sometimes you read -way- too much into the posts I make.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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PJ -- I was just giving an estimate to an event that pretty much we all know the results of. Just for scale so people could understand the distructive capabilities.

Honestly, sometimes you read -way- too much into the posts I make.

Well come on, quade, is it really so unreasonable for me to infer that when I said, "They could just go buy smaller unregistered quantities," and you said, "The bomb was like 5,000 pounds," that you might have meant, "5,000 pounds is an awful lot to have to acquire piecemeal," in an attempt to contradict my assertion that the law would be something terrorists could get around?

I think it was reasonable to surmise that is what you were implying. If I was wrong, and you say so, I stand corrected. But who agrees or disagrees?

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[quade 3]

Seriously, the only reason I posted that was for the purposes of scale.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[Gravitymaster 0]

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Seriously, the only reason I posted that was for the purposes of scale.

But you still haven't answered the question of how you intend to prevent them from buying smaller quantities over a period of time with multiple purchasers.

[quade 3]

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But you still haven't answered the question of how you intend to prevent them from buying smaller quantities over a period of time with multiple purchasers.

Like I think I said previously, I don't have a complete answer and it is a matter of degrees.

I -guess- that if 1 guy was really determined and only had access to one pound bags before needing to have his ID recorded, then he could make 5,000 trips to a bunch of different stores and over a long period of time have the equivilent of the amount required to produce an explosion the size of the OKC bomb. I guess there's really nothing you can do to prevent someone that is really determined.

That said, you don't have to make it so easy that he can pull up a truck and buy 5,000 pounds at a time with complete anonymity.

Somewhere between the two extremes is a reasonable amount and a reasonable solution.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[billvon 2,464]

>Bill, why don't you stop pretending that you don't know it was ALL OF
>THEM --

Bzzt! The two people who didn't vote for it were democrat. It was championed by Ashcroft; if you want another one like it, keep him in power.

>So it's a load of shit to say that the blame lies with Republicans
> specifically or exclusively or whatever it is you're sellin', because it
>couldn't have happened if "principled Democrats" (shyeah, whatever)
> had stood up and said, "This is wrong, and an erosion of liberty."

I agree. Both parties are vulnerable to manipulation through fear. Neither one has much of a backbone. But like I said, if you want another one, vote back into office the administration that championed the first one. Just don't bitch when the next one contains a minor provision (that no one read) to prevent unregistered guns from falling into the hands of an evil terrorist.

[diablopilot 2]

Because Quade, it's yet another personal freedom that people like yourself are "OK" with giving up.


A line has to be drawn somewhere, else we will be an Orwellian state one day.

----------------------------------------------
You're not as good as you think you are. Seriously.

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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Quote

But you still haven't answered the question of how you intend to prevent them from buying smaller quantities over a period of time with multiple purchasers.

Like I think I said previously, I don't have a complete answer and it is a matter of degrees.

That said, you don't have to make it so easy that he can pull up a truck and buy 5,000 pounds at a time with complete anonymity.

Somewhere between the two extremes is a reasonable amount and a reasonable solution.

"You don't have to make it so easy... and making it a little harder will not do anything, in the end, to stop the destructive device being made eventually, so at least we'll have looked like we did something about it." That's essentially what Schumer and his ilk are trying to do. Put up a show of making it harder, even if your restrictions still allow it to get made.

Will it really end up mattering if this type of law requires terrorists to devote a smidge more of their manpower to acquiring smaller bags of fertilizer? They were able to find 19 guys who were willing to DIE ABOARD AIRPLANES. It would be unthinkable that they could find 25 guys to each buy 200 lbs. of fertilizer over the course of a few months, inconspicuously? And what about the diesel fuel? A guy could go and fill a semi trailer with a few hundred gallons of that in one fell swoop, cash, check or charge thank-you-please.

Why has no one mentioned my point about how the FUEL OIL (diesel) -- half of the ANFO bomb -- is READILY DANGEROUS IN ITS NATIVE STATE? You can't light houses on fire with ammonium nitrate, can you? Can you throw a bottle full of ammonium nitrate with a lit rag in the neck and have it erupt in flame? So why all the focus on something that actually is normally used in rather large quantities, and in and of itself is not particularly dangerous?

Isn't that rather backward?

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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>Bill, why don't you stop pretending that you don't know it was ALL OF
>THEM --

Bzzt! The two people who didn't vote for it were democrat. It was championed by Ashcroft; if you want another one like it, keep him in power.

Oh my god, bill, are you really going to focus on that when dozens of others who were Democrats voted FOR it?! That is really out there, bill, and I thought I was used to your attempts at misdirection!

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I agree. Both parties are vulnerable to manipulation through fear. Neither one has much of a backbone. But like I said, if you want another one, vote back into office the administration that championed the first one. Just don't bitch when the next one contains a minor provision (that no one read) to prevent unregistered guns from falling into the hands of an evil terrorist.

The Democrats are already trying to play on fears of terrorists acquiring stockpiles of guns at the so-called "unregulated" gun shows, bill. The pretend that no one remembers that terrorists often have state sponsorship from governments abroad and NO PROBLEM getting guns from sources well better supplied that gun shows. I have never seen offered at a gun show live RPGs and Stinger missiles, but terrorists have fired them at aircraft flying around airports in other countries. Who's playing on fears? The Democrats themselves.

Besides, if the party that you say pushed the APA is returned to the presidency, knowing what they know now the Democrats could very easily -- and I would expect them to if they agree with you about the harm the APA has done -- reject it and fight its passage in Congress. Are you telling me that THAT is something they could not successfully filibuster, even without a majority in the house or senate?

By the way, how DID those darned Republicans come off the peace and prosperity of Bill Clinton and end up winning a majority of BOTH HOUSES of Congress, bill, if their party's ideas are so out of step with those of the American public? Were all the races decided by the obviously biased United States Supreme Court, bill?

Come on, bill, humor me and answer just two of my direct questions without obfuscation and I'll consider myself ahead of the game. So far your record for doing so is abysmal, and I'm very disappointed by your steadfast refusal.

-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[kallend 1,672]

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But if you look at each half of that bomb, it's the FUEL OIL (diesel) that is dangerous on its own -- yet that's the half that no one is demanding we produce I.D. in order to purchase!

It's asinine, ignorant hand-wringing -- the earmark of the Left.

-

NH4NO3 is plenty dangerous on its own too.

PS most of the silly regulations we have in place since 9/11 are the product of the asinine right.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[TomAiello 25]

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Because Quade, it's yet another personal freedom that people like yourself are "OK" with giving up.


A line has to be drawn somewhere, else we will be an Orwellian state one day.

What he said.

Sooner or later, all those "little" and "reasonable" things add up to some pretty big, unreasonable losses of freedom.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[billvon 2,464]

>are you really going to focus on that when dozens of others
>who were Democrats voted FOR it?!

Not at all; you were just wrong when you said "all of them." I will readily agree that most democrats and all republicans voted for this bill. Like I said, fear is a powerful motivator.

>By the way, how DID those darned Republicans come off the peace and
> prosperity of Bill Clinton and end up winning a majority of BOTH HOUSES
> of Congress, bill, if their party's ideas are so out of step with those of the
> American public?

Somehow I have a feeling that if a democrat wins any election, you will explain it away by saying that the people were deceived by their lies, whereas with a republican you will explain it as the people wanted a change and were intelligent enough to vote for it.

It's really pretty simple. You have stated you are a one-issue voter. The Patriot Act II will do far more to keep you from owning the guns you want than anything else that's being talked about now. If you want Patriot II, vote for the administration that gave you Patriot I.

[TomAiello 25]

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If you want Patriot II, vote for the administration that gave you Patriot I.

I know you know this, but the administration doesn't make laws.

It's something of an oversimplification to say "if you want such-and-such a law, vote for so-and-so for president."

What if I vote for (for example) a Republican president, but a card carrying ACLU member for congress? Have I, in your view, voted in a way that will "give" me Patriot II (isn't that a missile system?)?

Complex issues don't necessarily simplify very well.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[rickjump1 0]

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Quote

To prevent large amounts of casualties, background checks for purchasing large amounts of fertilizer seems prudent to me. Mc Veigh? showed just how deadly it is in bulk, and he was no foreign terrorist. What about dynamite? Farmers use it and I bet they get background checked too.

What do you propose we do about people who want to blow stuff up with ANFO who buy the fertilizer in small quantities without a background check? Your plan does not address the fact that 1000 pounds of ammonium nitrate is really just 100 ten pound bags. Duh! Is this the best liberals can do? I guess I should not be surprised that stupidity came from Schumer's mouth.

-

I see your point. Some Maritime Laws, like FAA regulations are the result of somebody dying. The knee jerk reaction to ammonium nitrate is similar.

Do your part for global warming: ban beans and hold all popcorn farts.

[billvon 2,464]

>I know you know this, but the administration doesn't make laws.

Of course; but in this case Ashcroft (an administration official) championed its passage. One of the reasons we have an executive branch to begin with is so that one man (or a small group) can take rapid action to deal with things like 9/11. One of their responses to 9/11 was to push the Patriot Act, an act that had been waiting in the wings for just such an occasion. It is reasonable to assume that they will do in the future what they have done in the past.

[billvon 2,464]

>In fact, it would have been nice if any of your liberty-championing
>Democrats had even READ the thing before voting to enact it.

"My" democrats? I'm not a democrat.

>The Republicans might not have read it either -- the thing is supposed to
> be all long and shit -- but what excuse can a politician offer for voting to
>enact a bad law when he never checked to see that bad stuff was
>contained in it?

None; that was one of the major points in F9/11. It's absurd that most of the legislature didn't read it.

After 9/11 congress (both parties of congress) would have voted for anything that got put in front of them, with a few notable exceptions (good for Feinstein for not following the pack!) They were, for the most part, terrified, and terror makes for easy passage of any law that may "save" them. A good leader is therefore going to be very careful as to what he proposes, because they will look to him for leadership and wish to support him. A lesser leader might take the opportunity to slip some laws through that erode the bill of rights and make it easier to control the populace.

If you want that to happen again, vote Bush - and right after the next terrorist attack you will have Patriot II.

[TomAiello 25]

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If you want that to happen again, vote Bush - and right after the next terrorist attack you will have Patriot II.

A hypothetical:

Let's say we have Bush as president, but an overwhelming majority of democrats in both the House and Senate, at the time of the next major terrorist attack on US soil.

Do you think that combination would enact a "Patriot II"? What about Kerry as President and an overwhelmingly Republican congress?

Personally, I'd guess you'll see a relatively silly, over-reactive move by the government against individual rights _no matter which party controls the presidency/house/senate_, even if it's different parties.

-- Tom Aiello

[email protected]
SnakeRiverBASE.com