Oh goody

[cosmolinguist]

House votes to extend Patriot Act
Democrats voice civil liberties concerns

Nah! Imagine that! Those crazy Democrats. Always babbling about stupid things like civil liberties.

I haven't had the energy to talk much about politics recently, but goddam, you might say I'm not all that happy with my home country right now.

The bulk of the back-and-forth centered on language making permanent 14 of 16 provisions that had four-year sunset provisions under the original law

The bill also proposed 10-year extensions to the two other provisions set to expire on December 31, one allowing roving wiretaps and another allowing searches of library and medical records.

"While the Patriot Act and other anti-terrorism initiatives have helped avert additional attacks on our soil, the threat has not receded," said Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

What really irritates me (well, okay, it all really irritates me, but this is what I want to talk about right now) is that it says ... just hours after televisions in the Capitol beamed images of a new attack in London.

What, you mean that one that made people actually in London go so far as to say "This must be a Thursday, I never did get the hang of Thursdays" and "a bunch of nails and a detonator in a rucksack? that'll sure make a mess of ... the rucksack" and "I could start to get fed up with this, you know"--that attack?

Quite the proportional response.

Especially because, as brighn so effectively points out, perhaps--just perhaps--the Patriot Act may not actually be the panacea for terror that it's made out to be.

Maybe the detonators and nails had a bit more of an effect than it seemed, after all--the less direct effect of becoming a good excuse for dooming what civil liberties we USians thought we had left.

Comments

Quite frankly

[newwaytowrite.livejournal.com]

the Patriot Act is just another reason for the terrorists to point at the US and say,"Man do you guys have your head up your ass...it is this type of attitude in policy home and aboard that make us HATE you and thus want to kill you!"

So much for American citizens having freedom from their own government's agaenda.

Re: Quite frankly

[acoustic-riff.livejournal.com]

What do you mean exactly? I'm not seeing it.

[cosmolinguist]

Being in Britain has hammered home the "if we cower, if we sacrifice our liberty for a temporary 'security', that's one way we'll let the terrorists know they're winning." And here, many of the the "normal" people and the leaders both seem determined not to let that happen. Also not to bomb random countries for it, which is heartening.

[emyjo.livejournal.com]

I am in hate with my own country.

I am in envy of you for getting out.

I am in lust with the idea of being in Canada for a while.

I am in infatuation with the idea of moving away permanently, though preferrably somewhere like the UK.

[cosmolinguist]

Well put.

The UK is fun; I recommend it. It certainly has its problems, politically speaking, but anything seems sane compared to the reign of the current King George over on the other side of the ocean.

[acoustic-riff.livejournal.com]

Come on, you don't really believe that do you? That's an oversimplification. The US may have its problems (I'll be the first it admit it) but its not that bad.

[cosmolinguist]

Of course I really believe it. You can go on thinking the US is "not that bad", that's fine. I was comparing two things, which is something else altogether.

[emyjo.livejournal.com]

Well, the moving away (to be honest) has less to do with politics and more to do with just the idea of it.

I'm a Dem, I voted for Kerry, etc etc. BUT. Really, in my day to day, life, I don't notice much of a change depending on who is in office. And maybe it's because I'm young and haven't been in the work force (for real) under anyone other than Bush and yada yada yada. But, also in response to the_forecast down there, a large reason I don't notice it is because of where I live. Because even though we bitch, we don't realize how lucky we are that we don't have to worry and that we have the right to bitch.

[cosmolinguist]

Oh yeah, I mean I'm obviously not here for political reasons myself. It's just that, since I started talking about politics, didn't want people jumping on me to say "oh, you think life is just perfect there in the UK? stupid girl!" or whatever. I'm definitely glad I've got the chance to travel, it's made me think about the rest of the world and all the stuff I never thought about where I always lived.

[acoustic-riff.livejournal.com]

Honestly I don't know enough about the Patriot Act (which is a pretty stupid name - designed to make those who would dislike it easy to paint as not a "Patriot"), but I haven't really noticed anything different since the act was passed to care one way or the other (plus I think roving wire taps are a good thing).

My concern would be the 'Pubs would get all excitied that they got this through and think they could get Patroit Act II passed. You do have to draw a line somewhere, cause you can't stop a suicide bomber no matter how many laws you pass or how much money you spend.

[(Anonymous)]

You don't know the half of it. The name, USA PATRIOT in full, is actually an acronym: "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism." I wonder how many hours were wasted just to come up with the name.

On the other hand, you can stop a suicide bomber...but only once you're willing to drop even the pretense of individual liberty. I don't expect suicide bombing attempts would have got very far in Stalinist Russia, for example.

[comradexavier.livejournal.com]

Oops...forgot I wasn't logged in with this browser...

[toastedtuna.livejournal.com]

I've occasionally wondered how many suicide bombers and terrorist attacks we could prevent if we had nations with arms each point a missile at Mecca.

Sure. NORMAL Muslims aren't to blame for any of this, so it would be a damn shame to ruin Mecca for them, HOWEVER, I can't help but wonder if the world merely THREATENED Mecca if the extremists would stop their bullshit.

[cosmolinguist]

Whoa, dude... you're kidding, right? Actually, even if you are, this still isn't cool. Not only would this be a ridiculously ineffective strategy, it's not a very nice thing to say.

This is what I was referring to

[toastedtuna.livejournal.com]

You've heard of this, haven't you?

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/18/congressman.muslims.ap/

[cosmolinguist]

Nope. Jesus. Well, what I said to you still goes--stupidly ineffective, and not very nice. :-)

GAH

[toastedtuna.livejournal.com]

I'm so inarticulate today. I should just stay offline. LOL!

Anyway................................

At least now you know I wasn't serious, and was just making jabs at a retarded political figure.

No, of course it wouldn't be very effective, and it would be a completely dumb thing to do. One guy in our paper today said that it would pretty much write Osama's recruitment material for him. That would be the least of the world's problems.

IMO, it would result in draconian things like the Patriot Act becoming even worse, and people who live here would probably BEG for it! "Keep us safe! Keep us safe!"

[cosmolinguist]

I knew there had to be something with that comment, because that's so not something you usually would say. :-) And while I haven't really been paying much attention to the news anyway, it doesn't surprise me that a thing like that hasn't been widely publicised (if it's true that it hasn't), because it's such a stupid and inconsiderate thing to say. And things will probably get worse before they can get better.

[toastedtuna.livejournal.com]

Well, it's funny, around here today there's been NOTHING, and I haven't seen much on news web sites, either.

[cosmolinguist]

It hasn't personally impacted my life, either, but I don't think that makes it a good thing.

One of the scary things about it is that not only does it allow the government unprecedented powers to spy on people, throw them in jail for no reason, and other such pleasantries, but it also allows this to happen in secret.

It sounds to me like this undoes a lot of the good things always cited by people who talk about how good--or, at least "not that bad"--the USA is, as fair as protecting civil liberties. The government can do pretty much anything it wants now if it can somehow relate it to "terrorism" (it can invade Iraq, and say that's about 9/11!), and all those "checks and balances" I learned about in my civics class seem to be quietly becoming extinct. I happen to find that a bit of a bummert.

[toastedtuna.livejournal.com]

Their totally pavin' the way for the antichrist. I'm tellin' ya. No one's listening, though.

[la-prieta.livejournal.com]

So I guess I'm mistaken in thinking that if you find something wrong with the way the government behaves that you should complain long and loudly to your elected representatives.

[toastedtuna.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. It's much better if we all just sit mutely. That way they won't throw us in jail for our lack of patriotism. *snort*