Virginia Foxx Quotes
I believe we have more to fear from the potential of that bill passing than we do from any terrorist right now in any country.
This hyperbole was typical of the conservative wing of the Republican Party who in modern times had fought any Federal Involvement in the American Health Care system including even Medicare when it was introduced. This claim was “over the top” and even people in her own party distanced themselves from her accusation. Despite major opposition and mistruths about the legislation. It passed—the most important health reform since Medicare.
Virginia Foxx, U. S. Congresswoman (Republican, NC), Comment about the Obama Health Reform Act, Quoted in "GOP Rep: Health reform scarier than terrorism". Associated Press. November 2, 2009
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
In the aftermath of 9-11, there was a call for giving the law enforcement agencies more authority and the Patriot Act was passed in haste and fear. Some law enforcement personnel then went about picking up Arab Americans and in many cases holding them incommunicado without any charges. No terrorists were discovered by this process and yet good American citizens were abused, traumatized and insulted. In our zeal to protect American freedom, we actually began to resemble some of the capricious and abusive practices of our undemocratic enemies. There were other abuses allowed under the Patriot Act, but at the time of this writing the extent had not yet been revealed, but the refusal of the authorities to make public the national security benefits suggests that there was not much national security benefit and much abuse.
The remainder of the cabinet abandoned the plan in the face of the Bishops’ opposition. When the public found out, it became a cause celebre. Browne resigned, and the Protestants of Northern Ireland argued that this was an example of Catholic religious control of the Southern Irish government. See the quotation of President John Aloysius Costello.
There has in the United States, since the Constitution was ratified, a tension in every war or conflict, where some Americans wanted to reduce civil rights in order to better cope with the conflict and others observed that what we were fighting for is precisely those civil rights and liberties. John Adams and the Federalists, did not want anyone to be allowed to publicly criticize the Government while we were in conflict with Great Britain. They passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. Thomas Jefferson and the Republicans felt that that the freedom should not be given up in the name of national security—we could prevail without that incursion on rights. They repealed the Adams laws. In WWI, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson wanted to jail anyone who claimed that the military draft was improper, immoral or illegal, and he did. Republicans, when they assumed office, then released the prisoners and restored freedom of speech. In the war on terror, most Republicans like sessions, wanted to torture prisoners, allow the imprisonment of suspected terrorists indefinitely without any charges or trial, and bug American telephone calls without the usually required court warrants. Democrats disagreed. That stimulated Sessions statement.
He was the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The intelligence and law enforcement advocates of reducing privacy rights so that law enforcement can prevent acts of terrorism frame the question as a tradeoff between civil right and safety. However, as Leahy and many others point out, we would not be much safer if we gave up all our ivil rights. Further, hundreds of thousands of American have given their lives so that we would have those civil rights. Without them what are we protecting.
Senator Church was the chairman of the committee. It’s reports (14 in all) are the most extensive documentation of U. S. intelligence ever compiled.
Alinsky was one of the first of the modern politicians who realized the growing control over peoples’ lives that the health care was assuming. Getting decent health care at an affordable price was getting more and more difficult for the working class unless provided by an employer, and the poor were already at the mercy of whatever system there was in the area as they could go nowhere else.
The Republicans wanted to repeal Obamacare but could not agree among themselves on a replacement. Their hyperpolarized posture would not allow them to work with the Democrats so the leadership drafted legislation that purported to be a plan to provide for American Health Care. But they could not get their own entire caucus to support it, and so it failed.
Virginia Ann Foxx is the U.S. Representative for North Carolina's 5th congressional district, which encompasses much of the northwestern portion of the state and the Gastonia area. Foxx is a member of the Republican Party and served as Secretary of the House Republican Conference from January 2013 until January 2017. She is the ranking member of the House Committee on Education and Labor since 2019, and served as the committee's Chair from 2017 to 2019.
