Patriot Act Powerlessness
Rick writes an interesting essay about the Patriot Act inspired by a post of Michele's. His main question is why something with such a widespread effect on our lives has not generated the type of blogospheric outrage that relatively minor issues like the estate tax and who is delinking whom has.
I think there are several driving factors behind this lack of outrage. The first is that as both Rick and Michele point out, there seems to be mass agreement across the blogosphere and news media regarding the ill-advised nature of the Patriot Act. If anything were to make us come together and sing Kumbaya, this damn act might be it. It's hard to generate outrage over something you're all holding hands on. A chorus of "Yeah, I agree" or "Right on, baby" just doesn't have the same flame-filled potential that a divisive issue does.
Another factor is somewhat more subtle and speaks more to Rick's point about why people aren't doing more to try to defeat this horror. That, I think, is driven by intense feelings of powerlessness. With the Patriot Act we have an interesting combination of an issue that is very pervasive in its reach but was made a fait accompli in such a short period of time that there was little time for public debate. We collectively blinked, and there it was. An old adage goes "It is easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission." Frequently that is the case. Once something is in place, it's much harder to undo it. I think most of us feel powerless to change this act and prefer to spend our energies on things we believe we can influence.
The last factor I can think of right now is that with other issues, most of us have an idea how we could do it better. How many of us have a clue what we would do in this situation to strike the delicate balance between security in the wake of 9/11 and civil liberties? It's easy to mouth off about the estate tax. It has a limited effect on most of us, and we damn well think we know better than our opponents. With the Patriot Act, we come to a grinding halt when the question "What would you do instead" is posed.
Having said that, I will now blog about the proposal to make the powers in the Patriot Act permanent. This is one hell of a bad idea. The only good thing about this legislation was that it was to sunset in 5 years. Take away the sunset provisions, and we'll never get rid of this. Even if you trust the current government, who is to say you can trust future ones? So, I urge you to contact your Senators and Representative to tell them to vote against the proposal, should it make its way to the floor. Following is a sample letter you can use.
Dear Senator/Representative:
Should the proposal to make the Patriot Act permanent be put for vote, please vote against it. While in times of crisis it may be necessary to grant the government additional powers, those powers should not continue ad infinitum. I also do not believe that the Patriot Act was a well-conceived piece of legislation in the first place. For these reasons, I urge you to vote against any such proposal.
Sincerely,
[Name & Address]
Comments
Your comment about the fact that the issue is not flame fodder is dead solid on the money. There is a book by a guy named John Douglas called Mind Hunter and it chronicles the development of the art /science of criminal profiling. Early in his career he was working a Superbowl sting operation talking to a person they had just arrested in a car on a rainy day in Detroit. He had a bit of an epiphany when the guy told him that the law will never stop gamblers. The Gambler told him its not the Superbowl, it’s the action.
"See those two raindrops on the windshield?" He said. "I'll bet the one on the right gets to the bottom first. You have to understand John, it's who we are."
Those who blog will never stop arguing, it's who we are. We're political conflict junkies. And let's face it, you have to have a bit of an ego to do this. Why do we presume that anyone else in the world give a rat's ass what we think? Truth is because there are more then enough people out there who don’t have the ego to dare think anyone else cares what they think. Or they don’t have enough spine to think for themselves. I know people who are great writers who are so good it makes me feel dirty to do it myself, but I have the ego, they don't. If I were less moral I would just steal their material and call it my own.
But in the long run I would rather be a bad writer then a plagiarist.
Good post! You rock.
Posted by: Rick DeMent | April 18, 2003 08:32 PM
Powerlessness? Come on man. People will march to Washington to complain about how much their pills cost and will spend incredible energy fighting tooth and nail against parental notification laws for abortions, but they won't say a peep about this?
Is there any possibility here that the real problem is that there is no such thing as Patriot Act II, or that nothing its critics claim about it is actually in it?
You tell me.
Posted by: Dean Esmay | April 19, 2003 02:16 AM
Actually, Dean, both Rick and I were talking about the original Patriot Act. Michele was speaking about Patriot Act II, true, but I think the point extends backward. How many peeps did you hear about the Patriot Act? How many people marched on Washington to complain about the Homeland Security Act? As you say, people will raise all kinds of ruckus about how much their pills cost and parental notification about abortion. Do you see a similar ruckus raised about the proposal to make the powers of the original Patriot Act permanent? Did you see it about the Homeland Security Act? If not, what is your explanation?
With respect to a Patriot Act II, what I believe is that there is nothing that has been proposed to Congress yet. I do believe that a draft bill is in the works, but if reports are correct, roughly 2/3 of what Justice proposed to Ashcroft will definitely not be presented to Congress. I wish I could now find the report I had read on that, but I didn't bookmark it and can't remember precisely which of the news sources I read it in.
Posted by: Lesley | April 19, 2003 05:35 AM
Your are not the only one.
Posted by: postal code | July 26, 2003 01:02 AM