Today I was planning on writing a tirade on the much maligned — and rightfully so — Patriot Act. Nobody seems to be willing to take any sort of stand on creating a balance between Security and Stupidity. I like my privacy, and while I really don’t care if anyone gets a list of what I bought at Amazon.com, it’s also nobody’s business. Ditto for e-bay. (For those concerned, it’s actually pretty easy to figure out what any e-bay user has been recently buying or selling. And on Amazon, many people actually list what they’ve bought — even I do that sometimes.) The question is why the government needs a law to accomplish this. They’ve always had the power to request a subpoena to get anything they need for a specific case. What they’ve done, however is made a mess.
Here’s an example. Let us say, for instance, one of my employees at work is telling a joke about Fidel Castro. Someone is walking by and hears him saying something complimentary about Fidel. He doesn’t realize it’s part of a joke. So, he reports a tip that this person is a communist sympathizer. Next thing you know, this person is being investigated for no valid reason. Sound silly, doesn’t it? Now replace the word “communist” with “terrorist” and you have modern day Patriot Act. The Patriot Act is an evil thing, and so is the primary champion of the Patriot Act: George Bush — he of less intelligence than your pet dog.
Like I said, I was going to write about the Patriot Act, but I just wrote a few comments because this proves our government is run by people who are almost as dumb as your president. (He’s not my president because I certainly didn’t vote for him.)
Four year old boy on don’t-fly list. Yes, you heard right. Our government in its infinite wisdom and in an effort to protect us all from Osama BinLaden has decided four-year-old children are a threat to your safety and liberty. Of course, now that the media has gotten ahold of it, they have stated “there are no children on the don’t fly list” even though, quite clearly, there is one on the list. They suggested the airline just ignore it, but they neglected to mention that ignoring the don’t fly list deliberately can be theoretically prosecuted as an act of treason. The airline, and I understand their position, wanted someone else to make the decision. So instead, the four-year-old on his way to visit his grandmother gets the third degree. It makes you ever so proud to be an American.
I can picture the headlines. “Republicans Protect American From Four Year Old Terrorist.”
Someone has to bring some measure of sanity to our security.
Say, which reminds me. Did you hear the one about Fidel Castro…….