Yesterday, a leftist pig friend of mine asked what I’ve been doing lately besides right-wing blogging. Rather than answer his question here (because I answered it elsewhere), I’ll return his jest and just ask: can’t we all just get along?
Here’s a letter from an organization my “leftest pig” friend no doubt admires. It’s a letter with which I agree 100%. In fact, this letter is so important that I’ll “waste my time” blogging about it just to make sure that you read it. Are you ready? I’ve temporarily obfuscated the names of the (sometimes) innocent to keep my “right-wing nut” readers from jumping to conclusions and discrediting the content based solely on the author. Here goes:
Dear XXXX Supporter,
Despite the outrage coming from a broad coalition of concerned citizens, by tomorrow night the House of Representatives will vote on whether or not to gut the Constitution and give immunity to phone companies who broke the law and spied on Americans.
We have to act now. Even if you’ve emailed, called or visited your members of Congress about FISA, we need you to contact them again today.
Congress is moving so fast and so secretively that we only got a copy of this bill this morning. I can tell you it’s horrible. It contains vacuum cleaner style surveillance that sweeps up the phone calls and emails of Americans. And it’s blatantly unconstitutional.
The bottom line is that this is legislation that benefits a few of our country’s largest corporations while taking away basic rights from the rest of us. And it is unacceptable.
I’m going to spend the rest of the day on the phone calling Capitol Hill trying to stop this bill. I hope you will spend whatever time you can to make the voice of freedom heard in Congress — make calls, ask your friends and family to call — please do whatever you can.
Put Congress on notice that the American people don’t want a “compromise” that sells out our rights. Act now. We’re hearing the vote is tomorrow, so we could have less than 24 hours.
Believe me, no matter what happens, the XXXX will continue fighting this — if necessary, in the courts.
Thank you for all you have done through this fight. Your dedication has truly inspired me and all of us at the XXXX. Now, let’s hit the phones!
Thank you,
Caroline Fredrickson, Director
XXXX Washington Legislative Office
What is the name of the “leftist pig” organization with which this “right-wing nut” blogger nut so readily agrees? Why it’s none other that the ACLU of course; and even though they refuse to defend my constitutional right to bear arms, the ACLU is dead right on this issue –and they’ve been dead right on a number of other issues as well.
So what’s my point? Too often we turn our brains off when hearing an important message just because it’s delivered by someone we’ve already labeled as a leftist pig or a right-wing nut job. “Liberals” do this to Bush all of the time. “Conservatives” do it to the ACLU just as often. It’s like we’ve been programmed to judge a message solely by the messenger, discrediting the content altogether; and no amount of good logic can compensate for our need to aways agree (or always disagree) with so-and-so.
If conservatives are are always pushing for limited government, why in the world do they want to give big government unlimited access to American citizens’ phone records? And how is it that the supposed “big government” democrats are the ones fighting against this? Seriously, think about it. I think our desire to identify with and support our constituents while disagreeing with and thwarting our political rivals often times inhibits our ability to just use our noodle –and we’re all worse off for it. (No, I don’t think my good friend is guilty of this sheepery; I just draw on his toungue-in-cheek question to prove a point.)
Anyway, this letter demonstrates an issue that both parties should be able to rally behind. Government should not be allowed to spy on citizens willy-nilly. If they suspect a citizen of terrorism and want to tap the wires, they should get a warrant. These measures are there to protect citizens against a government that, if left unchecked, would in due time become tyranical.
In questions of power then let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.
–Thomas Jefferson (via Quoty)
Please do as the letter suggests and contact your representatives in congress. We don’t need big government to get any bigger. Because the FISA bill would jeopardize our liberty, both sides of the aisle need to come together and oppose it.
