Taking Leave, Taking Liberties

Taking Leave, Taking Liberties PDF Author: Aaron Hiltner
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022668718X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

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Book Description
American soldiers overseas during World War II were famously said to be “overpaid, oversexed, and over here.” But the assaults, rapes, and other brutal acts didn’t only happen elsewhere, far away from a home front depicted as safe and unscathed by the “good war.” To the contrary, millions of American and Allied troops regularly poured into ports like New York and Los Angeles while on leave. Euphemistically called “friendly invasions,” these crowds of men then forced civilians to contend with the same kinds of crime and sexual assault unfolding in places like Britain, France, and Australia. With unsettling clarity, Aaron Hiltner reveals what American troops really did on the home front. While GIs are imagined to have spent much of the war in Europe or the Pacific, before the run-up to D-Day in the spring of 1944 as many as 75% of soldiers were stationed in US port cities, including more than three million who moved through New York City. In these cities, largely uncontrolled soldiers sought and found alcohol and sex, and the civilians living there—women in particular—were not safe from the violence fomented by these de facto occupying armies. Troops brought their pocketbooks and demand for “dangerous fun” to both red-light districts and city centers, creating a new geography of vice that challenged local police, politicians, and civilians. Military authorities, focused above all else on the war effort, invoked written and unwritten legal codes to grant troops near immunity to civil policing and prosecution. The dangerous reality of life on the home front was well known at the time—even if it has subsequently been buried beneath nostalgia for the “greatest generation.” Drawing on previously unseen military archival records, Hiltner recovers a mostly forgotten chapter of World War II history, demonstrating that the war’s ill effects were felt all over—including by those supposedly safe back home.

Taking Leave, Taking Liberties

Taking Leave, Taking Liberties PDF Author: Aaron Hiltner
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022668718X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 294

Get Book

Book Description
American soldiers overseas during World War II were famously said to be “overpaid, oversexed, and over here.” But the assaults, rapes, and other brutal acts didn’t only happen elsewhere, far away from a home front depicted as safe and unscathed by the “good war.” To the contrary, millions of American and Allied troops regularly poured into ports like New York and Los Angeles while on leave. Euphemistically called “friendly invasions,” these crowds of men then forced civilians to contend with the same kinds of crime and sexual assault unfolding in places like Britain, France, and Australia. With unsettling clarity, Aaron Hiltner reveals what American troops really did on the home front. While GIs are imagined to have spent much of the war in Europe or the Pacific, before the run-up to D-Day in the spring of 1944 as many as 75% of soldiers were stationed in US port cities, including more than three million who moved through New York City. In these cities, largely uncontrolled soldiers sought and found alcohol and sex, and the civilians living there—women in particular—were not safe from the violence fomented by these de facto occupying armies. Troops brought their pocketbooks and demand for “dangerous fun” to both red-light districts and city centers, creating a new geography of vice that challenged local police, politicians, and civilians. Military authorities, focused above all else on the war effort, invoked written and unwritten legal codes to grant troops near immunity to civil policing and prosecution. The dangerous reality of life on the home front was well known at the time—even if it has subsequently been buried beneath nostalgia for the “greatest generation.” Drawing on previously unseen military archival records, Hiltner recovers a mostly forgotten chapter of World War II history, demonstrating that the war’s ill effects were felt all over—including by those supposedly safe back home.

Taking Liberties

Taking Liberties PDF Author: Susan N. Herman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019978275X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
In this eye-opening work, the president of the ACLU takes a hard look at the human and social costs of the War on Terror. Over a decade after 9/11, it is far from clear that the government's hastily adopted antiterrorist tactics--such as the Patriot Act--are keeping us safe, but it is increasingly clear that these emergency measures in fact have the potential to ravage our lives--and have already done just that to countless Americans. From the Oregon lawyer falsely suspected of involvement with terrorism in Spain to the former University of Idaho football player arrested on the pretext that he was needed as a "material witness" (though he was never called to testify), this book is filled with unsettling stories of ordinary people caught in the government's dragnet. These are not just isolated mistakes in an otherwise sound program, but demonstrations of what can happen when our constitutional protections against government abuse are abandoned. Whether it's running a chat room, contributing to a charity, or even urging a terrorist group to forego its violent tactics, activities that should be protected by the First Amendment can now lead to prosecution. Blacklists and watchlists keep people grounded at airports and strand American citizens abroad, although these lists are rife with errors--errors that cannot be challenged. National Security Letters allow the FBI to demand records about innocent people from libraries, financial institutions, and internet service providers without ever going to court. Government databanks now brim with information about every aspect of our private lives, while efforts to mount legal challenges to these measures have been stymied. Barack Obama, like George W. Bush, relies on secrecy and exaggerated claims of presidential prerogative to keep the courts and Congress from fully examining whether these laws and policies are constitutional, effective, or even counterproductive. Democracy itself is undermined. This book is a wake-up call for all Americans, who remain largely unaware of the post-9/11 surveillance regime's insidious and continuing growth.

Taking Liberties

Taking Liberties PDF Author: Robert Boston
Publisher:
ISBN: 1616149116
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
"A concise and lucid explanation of what religious freedom is and isn'tncreasingly, conservative religious groups are using religious liberty as a sword to lash out at others. In this forcefully argued defense of the separation of church and state, Robert Boston makes it clear that the religious freedom guaranteed in the First Amendment is an individual right, the right of personal conscience, not a license allowing religious organizations to discriminate against and control others. The book examines the controversy over birth control, same-sex marriage, religion in public schools, the intersection of faith and politics, and the "war on Christmas," among other topics. Boston concludes with a series of recommendations for resolving clashes between religious liberty claims and individual rights."

Taking Liberties

Taking Liberties PDF Author: Diana Norman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1440624968
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 466

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Book Description
From the author also known as Ariana Franklin-the thrilling sequel to A Catch of Consequence that "moves at a cracking pace."( London Times) Makepeace Hedley is frantic when she learns that her young daughter, sailing home to England from the rebelling American colonies, has been taken prisoner by the British. With her usual determination, Makepeace sets out for Plymouth to rescue her child. And when Countess Diana Stacpoole is asked by an American friend to help his son, also a British prisoner, Diana responds quickly and leaves her genteel past behind. In the chaos of wartime Plymouth the two women face social outrage, public scandal, and even arrest. Amidst docks and prisons, government bureaucracy and brothels, they forge an unlikely and unshakable friendship. And in freeing others, they discover their own splendid liberty.

Taking Liberties

Taking Liberties PDF Author: Aryeh Neier
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 9781586482916
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
Since joining the staff of the American Civil Liberties Union in 1963 and becoming its youngest executive director, Aryeh Neier has been at the forefront of efforts to fight for civil liberties, human rights, and social justice. Whether he was confronting police abuse, defending draft opponents or defending free speech, as he did at the ACLU; out-maneuvering the Reagan administration over military abuses in El Salvador, promoting accountability for political crimes in Argentina and Chile or supporting dissidents in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, as he did at Human Rights Watch; or trying to eradicate landmines, promote stability in the Balkans or establish an International Criminal Court, as he has at the Open Society Institute; Aryeh Neier has been methodical, relentless, and unusually successful. In this look back at an amazing career, Neier both reflects on the unintended consequences of some of his victories and why, if he had anticipated them, he might have done things differently; and reveals that some of the various movements of which he was a part had their greatest triumphs under the most adverse circumstances.

Taking Liberties

Taking Liberties PDF Author: Michael Bronski
Publisher: Richard Kasak Books
ISBN: 9781563334566
Category : Gay culture
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Bringing together some of the most divergent views published in recent years on the state of contemporary gay male culture, Taking Liberties includes essays by some of the community's foremost writers on such slippery topics as outing, masculine identity, pornography, the pedophile controversy, community definition, and political strategy.

Taking Liberties

Taking Liberties PDF Author: Chris Atkins
Publisher: Revolver
ISBN: 9781905978038
Category : Civil rights
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"Taking liberties launches an unflinching inquiry into how New Labour has systematically eroded our basic liberties, and the freedoms of the British people, amidst a climate of fear created by the media and the government." [box cover note].

Taking a Stand

Taking a Stand PDF Author: Robert Higgs
Publisher: Independent Institute
ISBN: 1598132059
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
In his academic work, Robert Higgs has dissected the government's shrewd secret excesses that lead to the Welfare State, the Warfare State, and the Administrative State. For several decades he has unstintingly chronicled the federal, state, and local governments' malfeasance in these many areas of life that all levels of government have intruded upon without Constitutional mandate. In this book, however, are essays that show a whimsical, introspective, and personal side of this world renowned scholar. From the myth that the government has derived its powers from the consent of the governed to the role of independent experts in formulating monetary and fiscal policy; from the government's duplicity in announcing the unemployment rate in a given month to how the state entraps us, if you want to see a true polymath at work, these lofty, serious, sad, and illuminating essays will educate you beyond what you had thought possible about life, liberty, and the economy.

All the Laws but One

All the Laws but One PDF Author: William H. Rehnquist
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307424693
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
In All the Laws but One, William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States, provides an insightful and fascinating account of the history of civil liberties during wartime and illuminates the cases where presidents have suspended the law in the name of national security. Abraham Lincoln, champion of freedom and the rights of man, suspended the writ of habeas corpus early in the Civil War--later in the war he also imposed limits upon freedom of speech and the press and demanded that political criminals be tried in military courts. During World War II, the government forced 100,000 U.S. residents of Japanese descent, including many citizens, into detainment camps. Through these and other incidents Chief Justice Rehnquist brilliantly probes the issues at stake in the balance between the national interest and personal freedoms. With All the Laws but One he significantly enlarges our understanding of how the Supreme Court has interpreted the Constitution during past periods of national crisis--and draws guidelines for how it should do so in the future.

Don't Hurt People and Don't Take Their Stuff

Don't Hurt People and Don't Take Their Stuff PDF Author: Matt Kibbe
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062308289
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
Do you believe in the freedom of individuals to determine their own future and solve problems cooperatively? Don't hurt people, and don't take their stuff. Simple and straightforward, that's liberty in a nutshell—no assembly required. And yet it seems like, more and more, the decisions Washington makes about what to do for us, or to us, or even against us, are having an increasingly adverse impact on our lives. Young people can't find jobs, millions of Americans are losing the health care plans they were promised they could keep, and every one of us is somehow being targeted, monitored, snooped on, conscripted, induced, taxed, subsidized, regulated, or otherwise manipulated by someone else's agenda, based on someone else's decisions made in some secret meeting or closed-door legislative deal. What gives? Our government is out of control. But setting things right again requires that you step up and take your freedom back. From Matt Kibbe, the influential leader of FreedomWorks, Don't Hurt People and Don't Take Their Stuff is the first true manifesto of a new libertarian grassroots movement. As political powermongers and crony corporatists in Washington continue to consolidate their control and infringe on our most fundamental liberties, Kibbe makes the libertarian case for freer people, more voluntary cooperation, and solving problems from the bottom up. He calls out the tyranny of faceless bureaucrats with too much power and discretion, laying out a clear road map for restoring liberty. A witty yet piercing critique of government's expanding control over you and your future, Don't Hurt People and Don't Take Their Stuff is a vital read for all those who cherish personal liberty and the unalienable right to choose your own path in life.