Terrorists who are willing to slaughter as many innocent people as they can, and then die for their cause, are not going to hesitate to use nukes, chemical, biological, or any other weapon they can get a hold of. This is what we're up against, and it's well beyond the ability of Ben Franklin to understand.
I haven't commented about this issue because I'm frankly very amazed that people are surprised that the NSA is collecting info about people in the U.S. But frankly, the criticism the Obama administration is now receiving from the left, is as crazy and as out of line as the lack of criticism the Bush administration was receiving when they were pushing through the Patriot Act, with vast support from Dems both in congress and in the general public.
As bad as 911 was, and it was an historic horrific event, the response to 911 did far more damage to our economy, liberty, military, and future than did the actual event. $trillions wasted on useless wars, thousands of brave American soldiers killed, up to a hundred thousand innocent civilians killed, millions of Americans suffering from the economic damage. Even after George Bush stole a presidential election and gave our government away to the Oligarchs he represented, the vast majority of Democrats rallied around him and gave him a blank check after 911.
The big rant below the fold
When I see people who openly put their sexual escapades, their latest illnesses, and their financial situation on their facebook pages or in their tweets, and then cry about a loss of privacy, I just shake my head. And where is the outrage that the Koch brothers, Rupert Murdoch, Rush Limbaugh... can freely buy most of this information, and probably a lot more, from these private corporations?
Keep in mind, the Obama administration did nothing illegal, like bypassing the courts like the Bush Administration. Now tell me, what president, other than George Bush who ignored National Security warnings, wouldn't use every legal tool at his disposal to try and stop a massive attack from a terrorist group with a WMD? This is a real threat in todays world!
And how would the U.S. respond to a WMD attack that killed thousands, under a wing-nut, global warming evolution denying, God's will, American exceptionalism Tea Party president? The biggest threat to our liberty and our future probably won't come from a terrorist attack, but rather from a fatal response from a group of ignorant and crazy Washington politicians when Democrats across the country once again act like sheep and follow the wing nuts through the gates of hell.
This is what Joe Biden had to say yesterday about the Republicans:
“I’m being straight about this. This is not your father’s Republican Party. It really is a fundamentally different party. There’s never been as much distance, at least since I’ve been alive, distance between where the mainstream of the Republican congressional party is and the Democratic Party is. It’s a chasm. It’s a gigantic chasm.
The criticisms of the administration I see around here and elsewhere from the left, going so far as to call it a "Betrayal", are way out of line and are helping the same type of people who created such a mess for our country in the first place. We need to keep in mind where the REAL danger to our future comes from.
We can and need to have an ongoing discussion about what security we need when technology is making more deadly weapons available to people who won't hesitate to use them against us. Here's how E.J. Dionne put it in his column today.
This is not, in short, an all-or-nothing debate. We can be far more mindful of privacy and liberty than we have been without gutting the government’s ability to stop future attacks.
So the next time you decide to make outrageous and over the top attacks on the Democrats, keep in mind who you're driving the "let's give the other side a chance" voters too, and if the country can survive a Tea party response to the next terrorist attack.