(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie.Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Okay. Maybe, for example, Rush should just consent to let the government examine his medical records. If he has done nothing to hide, why should it bother him?
The problem is that surveillance becomes a matter of interpretation. Those that watch you are also simultaneously attempting to interpret your actions and, if they deem you "suspicious" (a purely subjective standard), they report you for further investigation. That is not freedom. Free people should not have to worry about how their actions and what they will say will be interpretted by the government. Our rights don't hinge on the government's say-so, but are, rather, granted by God.
But if some one does plan to do something to harm other people and this process this country, he can be intercepted before his plans can come to fruition. 3,000 people would be alive today we could have watched the 9/11 terrorists in the manner I described.
What proof, exactly, do we have that the Patriot Act would have prevented 9/11? What proof do we have that, had the government been a bit more diligent under existing laws, that the disaster wouldn't have been diverted? It is easy to overlook the fact that, had the passengers on the planes known that they were going to be crashed into the twin towers and the Pentagon, they most likely would have taken control of the plane themselves. That in itself would prevent similar attacks from happening in the future.
Did 9/11 overrule the basic, fundamental conservative principle that the government does not serve as an effective means to solve society's problems? I keep asking this throughout the threads I have been on lately, but I still have yet to receive a satisfactory response to this question. Instead, I bump into individuals who seem to have this notion, at the root of their thoughts, that this traditionally Democratic idea that the government, if we just give it enough power, can somehow solve our problems, and that somehow THIS is the "mature" approach in a post-9/11 world. If one holds this view, they might as well just come out and state that traditional conservatism is dead.
Under the Patriot Act, it would have been possible to take them into custody the moment we learned what they were up to.
By that reasoning, we ought to just apply the Patriot Act to all crime. Suspending the 4th amendment in all criminal cases will enable us to take criminals into custody without the messy burden of proving them to be criminals and will save us a lot of work. We can call it the "War on Crime".
If we prohibit passive surveillance as a tool out of a paranoid fear people's civil liberties will be compromised, the simple truth is a lot more people will die because the government doesn't have that tool.
I suppose that the Founding Fathers of this country were a bit paranoid because they thought a little tax on tea were an impediment on their liberties.
I suppose that I would rather have "paranoid fear" of my God-given freedoms being violated than to give up my right not to have my every action scrutinized by law enforcement officials under the "paranoid fear" that another terrorist attack is just around the corner. Remember those constant, weekly terrorist attacks on American soil that culminated in the destruction that was 9/11, that were quickly ended by the implimentation of the Patriot Act? Neither do I.
I can't think of anything more irresponsible and if there's one thing above all that the Constitution doesn't stand for - is that its not a suicide pact.
It is "irresponsible" to refuse to embrace the fairy tale that if we just give the government enough power, it will solve all of our problems? That type of talk was, at one time, the sole venue of Democrats. It saddens me to hear respectable conservative Republicans uttering such words.
By the way, the Constitution is at loggerheads with many of the provisions being pushed forward currently. If that means the Constitution, as it is, is the equivalent of a suicide pact, then you'd better vote to repeal it.