Quote Originally Posted by GHoSToKeR
When did governments stop being there to protect us, to serve us, to help us live free, happy, normal lives, and start taking away our rights, being greedy, ignoring us, controlling us, and only being out for themselves?

1798: The Alien and Sedition Acts.


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The last of the laws, the Sedition Act, passed on July 14 declared that any treasonable activity, including the publication of "any false, scandalous and malicious writing," was a high misdemeanor, punishable by fine and imprisonment. By virtue of this legislation twenty-five men, most of them editors of [Democratic] Republican* newspapers, were arrested and their newspapers forced to shut down.

One of the men arrested was Benjamin Franklin's grandson, Benjamin Franklin Bache, editor of the Philadelphia Democrat-Republican Aurora. Charged with libeling President Adams, Bache's arrest erupted in a public outcry against all of the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Many Americans questioned the constitutionality of these laws. Indeed, public opposition to the Alien and Sedition Acts was so great that they were in part responsible for the election of Thomas Jefferson, a Republican, to the presidency in 1800. Once in office, Jefferson pardoned all those convicted under the Sedition Act, while Congress restored all fines paid with interest.

http://earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica...ones/sedition/
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* The Democratic Republican Party is the forerunner of today's Democratic Party. The opposition to that party were the Federalists, who folded after 1800.



Don't kid yourself. Achieving and maintaining civil rights has always been a struggle. That it seems new today shows how much better our generation has had it than previous ones.

Just wait to see whom Bush appoints to the Supreme Court. Can you say, "Good bye, Roe v. Wade; hello, forced pregnancies!"? Sure ya can!

Frankly, I wonder how long places like this will remain open.
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