Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
A Little Politics
Tuesday
June 15, 2004
The greatest legislative scourge of this decade, the Patriot Act, was presented as a way for the federal government to better crack down on terrorism. Civil libertarians warned that this could give the government the capacity to grow in a Big Brother-like way, spying even further into the lives of everyday citizens. And, of course, that's proving to be true. Read this to find out what I mean.
Meanwhile, President Bush is running anti-John Kerry campaign ads that promote the Patriot Act as a good thing. Government knows best and what not. Funny, I don't recall hearing any of this on the campaign trail in 2000. And it kills me -- I wanted to like President Bush so much. And as a public figure, I do. But in the past two years, with out of control spending and the placating of the "Christian Right" with the unwarranted FCC crackdown on popular shows (like Bubba The Love Sponge and Howard Stern), it seems impossible for me to support Bush in the 2004 election. Not that Kerry, a Massachusetts liberal who said on C-Span that he also supports the FCC crackdown, appeals much more. Voting Libertarian is very appealing, except that the candidate has no chance to win (the only upside would be potentially getting the candidate enough of a percentage to earn matching federal funds for the 2008 election).
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