And Now For Something Political...
I just read an AP report and apparently President Bush is praising the Patriot Act and calling for portions of it to be made into permanent law. HUH? Excuse me? I didn't realize we really did like the idea of violating people's civil liberties on a hunch.President Bush goes on to justify the Patriot Act, claiming that it did a lot of good by allowing the FBI and CIA to gather information. Marshall Law and a dictatorship would do that too, but I don't see anybody advocating for those...
Granted, I'm not an expert on intelligence or terrorism. (Though I did help put together a nifty presentation in college on imaginary scenarios for how to get Secretary Madeline Albright out of an IRA hot zone.) I think the general consensus regarding the Patriot Act is now--over-reaction much? I've seen too many policymakers hint that they didn't really know the extent of the laws they were voting for in the Patriot Act. There have been numerous documentations of abuses of power justified through the Patriot Act. Not to say that there aren't some positive things about the law. Sure, there are, but overall it's too many steps over the line.
I like Senator Durbin's comments ,"We do not want to end the Patriot Act. We want to mend the Patriot Act." Take out the violation of civil liberties and human rights, keep in the stuff that gathers intelligence legally, sounds like a good idea. The White House will never go for that though, because mending something means there was something wrong with it to begin with. And this is not an Administration that does anything wrong.
I'm not trying to Bush-bash here. His refusal to think that anything he does might be wrong seems to be a very consistent characteristic of individuals with an exorbant amount of power. I just finished reading James Stewart's book, DisneyWar about the tenure of Michael Eisner. According to the book's portrait (and I understand it's extremely accurate), Eisner saw himself as so powerful that he was incapable of doing anything wrong and even when something went wrong on his watch, it wasn't a problem, nor would he ever acknowledge that he had anything to do with it going bad--despite the fact that he was the guy in charge.
The main problem I have with this Administration is its consistent refusal to ever apologize for anything. (To hear them talk, you'd think they were wrong even less than my brother, who is never wrong--particularly when talking to me about things like how there is no real difference between widescreen and pan & scan, but I digress.) I understand the idea that if you apologize it makes you look weak, but that's bollocks. I find this particularly distressing because for a president who is so vocal about his faith, you'd think he would be aware of the fact that there has only been one perfect person in the world. Romans 3:23? And to be sure, that perfect man's name was not George.
posted by cinegod @ 11:23 AM
1 Comments:
oooooooooooooooooooo snap!!!!!
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