Liberals accusing Republicans of "fear-mongering" is getting annoying.

Interesting rant... mind if I try? What really pisses me off about these so-called "supporters of the Constitution" is 1) the blatant disregard for the document's flaws - both past and present - and 2) the ultimate hypocrisy and opposition of ideals. Since its inception, the Constitution has been amended a total of 27 times. Why? If it is such a sacred text, shouldn't there be little to no room for mistakes and corrections? Wrong. The fact of the matter is, the Constitution was not written by God himself, or even four blessed evangelists. Instead, it was written by mere mortals with their own (sometimes opposing) beliefs and ideas, as well as their own personal agenda that coinsided with the particular going-ons of the time. Perhaps if Thomas Jefferson had a hand in writing this text two hundred years later, his position on certain issues would most likely have been very different! My point: Since 1787, the Constitution has been ratified to include limitations on congressional pay wages and presidential terms, impose the prohibition of alcohol (only to repeal it 14 years later), grant voting rights to women, and abolish the ridiculous 3/5 comprimise which reduced African Americans to the equivocal of 3/5 a person in terms of calculating population for voting purposes. It is not a holy document. It is not a sacred text. It is not the be-all and end-all of literary salvation. It is a set of guidelines that our Founding Fathers (white property owners in the 1700s) deemed necessary, and is therefore open to be subjected to scrutiny and change as society propels us to evolve and seek truth and justice over time. Additionally, for those so interested in small government, i.e. keeping the government out of personal (Hello! ECONOMIC) affairs, it baffles me how they reinforce the government's role in stifling women's rights... for instance, making prositition illegal in 1910 (I won't get into abortion or gay marriage in this debate, since my opponent ever so thoughtfully only mentioned these issues in casual passing), or by infringing upon the right of law abiding citizens to smoke a marijuana cigarette in the privacy of their own homes. The Founding Fathers that you supposedly support would be appalled by these restrictions! They were essentially Christian Libertarians, though not all; some of them even had particularly radical views in terms of religion. However, the difference between the authors of the Constitution and Republicans today is that - face it - Republicans wish to legislate morality based on RELIGION. Ironically, the first amendment to the Constitution addresses this very concern; Thomas Jefferson also insisted upon "building a wall between Church and State" as detailed in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptist Association... but I digress, as I have probably spent too much time addressing the first few paragraphs of my opponent's debate, and have therefore neglected the main issue: Fear-Mongering. In your piece, you have claimed, "liberals blatantly attribute any warning of danger to 'fear tactics.'" I disagree, stating instead that liberals (I assume you are pidgeon-holing anyone who critisizes or questions the Bush Administration as a being a liberal) only label fear-mongering by the government to include blatant, unmitigated, sensationalized attempts at twisting the facts, exaggerating the truth, lying through omission, and promoting false accusations to frighten citizens into supporting their political agenda. Now, in your argument, you have included some nice tidbits about current media events and even dared to "whisper" Barack Obama's middle name. Good for you. You're so brave. However your "argument" contained extremely little detail to support your position, which unfortunately for you is what debating is all about. So you can throw those 8th grade vocabulary words and not-so-witty sarcasm at me all you want -- that doesn't mean you are going to win this debate. Let's take a look at your presentation of facts: Oh wait - you don't have any. You did mention your obvious support of immunity for telecom corporations that have violated federal privacy laws... sounds pretty UN-Constitutional to me... but other than that, your argument was lacking. You admitted the discovery of ricin found in a Las Vegas motel room was not being acknowledged by the FBI, the CIA, or any other government agency as being linked to terrorist activity. This is because it probably isn't; I doubt these crazed fundamentalist Muslims would implore an operation to hospitalize one 57 year old at random for staying in a Vegas motel, but nice try. The fact that some even THINK about linking this minor occurence to the War on Terrorism is EXACTLY the result of - you guessed it - FEAR MONGERING!!! I would like to take this opportunity to correct your misrepresentation of facts (how Republican of you): "Seven people, including the man who found the ricin, the manager, two other motel employees and three police officers, were decontaminated at the scene and taken to hospitals for examination, but NONE have shown any signs of being affected by ricin . . . 'There is no information to lead us to believe that this is the result of any terrorist activity or related to any possible terrorist activity,' Suey said. 'We don't have any reason to believe any of it left the property.'" - MSNBC Additionally, "Anthrax often lives in persons who are not made sick by the germ. These are the people in the news who have 'tested positive' for Anthrax but are not ill. This disease cannot be transmitted between people. Antibiotics are used to prevent any types of Anthrax infection after exposure. While NOT YET LINKED TO TERRORISM, there are two types of infection caused by Anthrax that are currently being investigated: pulmonary and cutaneous (skin)." (Source: http://www.lanecounty.org...) So again, I dare to pose the question: Why would these so-called incredibly dangerous terrorists... who pose SUCH a threat that we had to go to war with three countries (against the United Nations), kill thousands of innocent people (including our own soldiers), allienate our allies (adding to the notion that we are an Evil Empire), and accumulate an insurmountable amount of debt (putting us in an incredibly vulnerable position in terms of world politics, not to mention burdening American families with the reality of an impending recession) choose a "war tactic" such as... Anthrax?! It's BARELY FATAL! Alas, this is the success of - ahh, here are those words again - FEAR MONGERING. The fact that you, an arguably intelligent human being, have been reduced to actually mentioning a tiny amount of ricin found on a Vegas motel as possibly being linked to terrorist activity in this debate proves that it WORKS. Thus, I will conclude this portion of the debate. I chose to argue this round with 2 goals: 1) To vent unnecessarilly the way you did, just for my own personal satisfaction :P 2) To demonstrate how fear mongering does exist and lead to complete irrationality, though your argument didn't need any help from me to prove that point In the next and final round, I will address many of my main points, including but not limited to: the emergence of a culture based on fear, political incentives to implement fear tactics, economic incentives (for a select few, obviously) for fear mongering, the exaggeration of an obvious threat to gain political support, the racism and harassment that fear mongering promotes, social discrimination of Arabs that infringes upon civil rights thanks to fear tactics, and more. I will also adress your comment, "The threat is not George W. Bush. The threat is your own compromising weakness" which I found to be comically false. I don't care of this (unusual... for me, anyway) debate approach results in a loss for me; I took on this debate to shed some light, not to up my win percentage.