Letter: Truth, freedoms take a beating under GOP rule

Friday, Jan. 23, 2004 | 9:02 a.m.

To Libertarians, President Bush's State of the Union speech was more like a State of the Secession speech. The president declared that the United States government has seceded from any pretense that it is a limited government.

President Bush spent almost half his speech defending his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unlike last year, there is no mention that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, but only items "relating to a program" for those. Days after an Afghani village was bombed by our jets, killing 11 innocents including children, he said we have brought freedom to that ravaged country. Well, Osama bin Laden is still free.

President Bush continues to cheerlead for the U.S. Patriot Act, even while admitting that its draconian measures were used to investigate ordinary crimes. And he even declared that the world knows America's word is good!

Under President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress, the government has grown faster than it did under President Clinton. He is the first president since Millard Fillmore to never veto a single bill that Congress sent to him. He has involved the federal government even further in areas that it is not authorized by the Constitution to be involved in.

The Republican Party has completely abandoned individual freedom and liberty, not to mention states' rights, even while bandying those precious words about as justification for every new intervention, foreign and domestic.

BRENDAN TRAINOR Editor's note: Brendan Trainor, of Reno, chairs the Libertarian Party of Nevada.