The modern Republican: defender of the 2nd amendment, with no thought to its conditionality and destroyer of the remainder of Rights, including the 4th amendment. I guess I can see why they’ve spent so much time and energy on the 2nd now. With searches no longer hinging upon probable cause, maybe we all should have guns to defend our property, physical and electronic. The government, purposefully wrecked by Republicans, obviously has no interest in doing so any longer.
Is the House vote the end of the world? Obviously not. I’m angry the vote happened the way it did. Just as Pelosi and Hoyer learned that they needed to quickly schedule this vote to avoid hearing from constituents, activists will learn from this event as well. There are other things need attention too. FISA is definitely important, but only one facet of a larger war going on. Longer-term goals need to be established, fought for, monitored, and “audited”. I’m going to transform my emotions on this vote into continued action to make a difference. It’s what got me started as an activist and maintaining that drive to improve my country will be fed by this capitulation. As part of this, I’m no longer going to use an AT&T/Cingular cell phone. They charge too much and now I know where all that extra money is going. Instead, I’m going to do business with CREDO mobile. They didn’t lobby Congress to absolve telecoms of admitted lawbreaking. It’s an easy choice.
The fact that FISA isn’t the only story we should are about doesn’t mean we should be quiet and simply accept blatant political maneuvering. I think back to my participation in a Politics West roundtable: when Dems do something I consider wrong, I will not hold back my criticism of those actions. As a Dem, I expect more from other Dems than I do of Republicans. I’ve written before about the role of elected officials: they are our employees. Any time an employer gives an employee a task or project and the employee doesn’t perform to the employer’s standard, it is the responsibility of the employer to do something about it. And do something we must. Displeasure left uncommunicated festers and destroys relationships. We have the opportunity to let those officials know how we feel about their performance. Take it.
