Sweet Jesus, I Hate The Democratic Party

No.
As a matter of fact, I wouldn't. I believe the Second Amendment, like the Fourth and Fifth, means what it says it means, beginning with the phrase, "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state..."
Near as I can tell, that puts me a couple of miles ahead of you, who are willing to hand the Bill of Rights over to a criminal president and a perjurious lickspittle AG because you're a'skeered of brown people.

 

OK, you're a'skeered of your own shadow. Better for you?
If you think that "allowing a few phone calls to foreigners to be monitored" is what this abomination does, you haven't read nearly enough about it. It permits the president of the United States -- or his political operatuves in the Executive branch which, for the past seven years, has meant pretty much everyone -- to decide which Americans he will put under surveillance, and to do so with the consent only of his pet attorney-general which, in this case, is a guy that most of the people in DC believes lies before Congress the way the rest of us breathe. No oversight. No warrants. No appeal. Nothing. Jesus, get informed.
I'll consider myself thoroughly mantled here until you deal with that pesky dependent clause in your favorite amendment, OK? The only one in the entire Bill of Rights that mentions the word, "regulated," by the way.

 

Dude, Clinton and Reno are long gone.

 

Not so much.

In 1786, Thomas Jefferson, then the ambassador to France, and John Adams, then the ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the ambassador to Britain from Tripoli. The Americans asked Adja why his government was hostile to American ships, even though there had been no provocation. The ambassador's response was reported to the Continental Congress:

That it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman [Muslim] who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_pirates

 

I'm ashamed to say that my congressman, whom I like very much, was one of the people who voted for this bill.
Sorry to interupt the fight.

 

Jay --

Mine, too.

But the one that pissed me off was Klobuchar from Minnesota.

Disappointing.

 

Not a fight. Guess I'm just trying to figure out how circumstantial or expedient or temporal our relationship to the Constitution is supposed to be. Different times? Certainly. Different principles at the core of contemporary public life, based on self-interest and fear and ignorance? I'm not sure that isn't what got us in this fix to begin with.

 

I won't speak for the crusty old Bastard, but my sense is he'd be railing against this one if Rooselvelt proposed it.

 

Here's the thing, Junkie. I agree with F_B. Here's the relevant passage from the story:

The legislation, which is expected to go before the House today, would expand the government's authority to intercept without a court order the phone calls and e-mails of people in the United States who are communicating with people overseas.


As a person who often communciates with other people overseas - both in the course of my work, and privately - this is chilling. This isn't the kind of governance we're fighting for, Junkie. This is the kind of governance we're fighting against.

 

Why shouldn't I be worried?

 

Are you honestly not?

Because you should be.

 

Because this administration has turned the nation's law enforcement into a political dirty tricks squad, and has no qualms admitting it.