June 24, 2002
(Why do these things only come to me at 1:00 in the morning?)
One of my favorite sites posted an update recently about why America is so messed up right now. It got me thinking about the whole right-vs.-left, big-government-vs.-small-government struggle that we don't seem to have any more. Unfortunately we seem to have made the worst choice possible: A big government with an extremely conserative bent.
In 2000, I was faced with the choice between voting for Dubya, who nobody knew anything about, or Al Gore, who everybody knew was the world's biggest tree-hugger. As I have this funny hang-up about the government helping itself to my money, I decided on Mystery Boy. I figured he'd B.S. his way through a term, everyone would realize early on that he was a nitwit, and he wouldn't be able to do a lot of damage.
It all went swimmingly for about eight months. Then came September 11th, and all of Georgie's uber-conservative buddies started coming out of the woodwork. With the exception of the right to bear arms, I can't think of a part of the Bill of Rights that isn't under seige by Ashcroft and Company. The FBI an do just about whatever it wants, warrant or no, the media are being led around by their noses in a way that draws a cynical chuckle whenever someone on CNN describes Iraq's TV station as "government-run," and we're all supposed to turn our neighbors over to the Gestapo if they let go of a fart that sounds kind of like Arabic. Wonderful.
I think we can all agree that the way things are being run here on the homefront are so far from American ideals that they look more like the people we're at "war" against than something that should happen here. Now it's just a matter of being able to undo the damage before it's too late. (I'm pretty sure it's not too late just yet.)
All these new "security" measures need to be scrapped. Letting the FBI read all my e-mails (and forcing my ISP to help them) isn't stopping terrorism -- it's an illegal wiretap plain and simple. Is it helping at all? I personally doubt it, but I have nothing to back that up. But even if it does, how can anyone justify trampling the rights of a quarter-billion people to maybe find one or two? Would you allow the police to randomly search your garage because someone's car had been stolen? Of course not. This is fundamentally the same thing. If they have some sort of intelligence saying someone might be a terrorist, by all means get a warrant and inspect every byte of their hard drive. But until then, leave them alone.
Now I have a new fear: I know Dubya's not going to get re-elected. I'm just worried that the Dems are going to run somebody that makes FDR look like a conservative and I'll have to vote for him just to keep the GOP out of the White House for four years.
What do you think the chances are of installing a parliamentary system by 2004?
