- Those bagpipes you hear playing in the
background provide a much-needed funeral dirge for freedom, which died
this week at the hands of the United States Congress.
-
- Freedom has been on its deathbed for
about five years now, mortally-wounded in the post-9/11 frenzy that put
political expediency above the Constitution and gave paranoia supremacy
over what used to be guarantees of individual rights for all Americans.
-
- Freedom went on the endangered-species
list in the hours following the 9/11 attacks when President George W. Bush
turned to attorney general John Ashcroft and said "John, take whatever
steps you feel are necessary to make sure something like this never, ever,
happens again."
-
- Turning a zealot like Ashcroft loose
on the Constitution is like giving Bill Clinton the keys to a sorority
house. Someone is going to get screwed big-time and in this case it was,
collectively, the whole concept of freedom and individual rights in this
country.
-
- Ashcroft crafted his personal vision
of a new America, one ruled by a police state reporting to a totalitarian
government, and called it the USA Patriot Act. It sailed through a shell-shocked
Congress like a fraternity on a panty raid and gave Bush and his gang of
thugs all they needed to create a new American Gestapo, detaining this
nation's citizens without due course, spying on Americans without warrants
and setting the country on a headlong rush to ruin.
-
- The abuses of the Patriot Act proved
so onerous that even firebrand conservatives like Bob Barr joined forces
with uber-liberals like the American Civil Liberties Union to fight it.
-
- Late last year, spurred by anger over
Bush's admission that he authorized the warrantless spying on Americans
by the National Security Act, the Patriot Act appeared to face serious
opposition when it came up for renewal. Congress twice granted temporary
extensions and promised to add new language to protect the civil liberties
of Americans.
-
- But, as happens all too often in Washington,
those promises vanished into thin air as the Patriot Act this week cleared
hurdle after hurdle and heads for permanent renewal when the goons who
call themselves our elected representatives return from the President's
Day recess.
-
- In the end, the White House "negotiated"
a set of meaningless changes with a handful of Republicans and the so-called
compromise sailed through the Senate Thursday on a 96-3 vote. Even worse,
the Republican-controlled Senate Intelligence Committee successfully blocked
attempts to open an inquiry in Bush's use of the National Security Agency
to spy on Americans.
-
- Not that the Democrats did that much
to stop it. Even those who spoke out about Bush's spying on Americans said
they supported the concept but only opposed how the President went about
it. As long as he got warrants, they said, they didn't really care who
the NSA snooped on. And a bunch of Democrats joined with Republicans Thursday
to keep the rights-robbing USA Patriot Act the law of the land.
-
- Which means virtually no one - Democratic
or Republican, conservative or liberal, left or right - can claim the high
road when it comes to destroying freedom in the United States. Only Sen.
Russ Feingold, D-Wis., seems to realize the dangers of the act, continuing
to fight it and saying the law, even as amended, allows "government
fishing expeditions" and an outright assault on the Constitution.
-
- For the most part, the rest of Congress
sold out the people who elected them to office, all Americans who depend
on Congress to serve as a check and balance on the excesses of the White
House and the Constitution of the United States.
-
- Yes, freedom died this week and just
about every one of the bitches and bastards who "serve" in Congress
should take a long, hard look at the blood on their hands. They stand guilty
of high crimes and treason against the United States of America. They are
traitors and should be treated as such.
-
- © Copyright 2006 by Capitol Hill
Blue
-
- http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_8153.shtml
-
|
