Political Rant 4

Tom DeLay easily carries the Replican primary. The president rolls out the red carpet to foreign management of American ports. Congress approves the institutionalization of the Patriot Act. I'm telling you, we deserve what we get.

Tendonitis will set in so fast from all the finger pointing that will go on when the next 9/11 happens. There won't be time for grief or reflection. It will be all about assigning blame to the Republicans/Democrats/President/Congress and everyone who ever waved a flag screaming about how the government left us for dead.

The fact, plain and simple, is that we are the government. The people in office are still put there by us. And instead of taking a reasonable stab at understanding even a single issue, the overwhelming majority of Americans vote with their dicks or their hearts. They send a prayer out to Jesus and wait for a voice from the great black void to tell them that the candidate who looks most like them is God's candidate.

It occurred to me today that I try to be a liberal. I think that a liberal point of view is the only American point of view. This country was founded upon the most liberal thinking of the day. We banished a divinely appointed king. That is radical stuff. And in return we demanded freedom. But with freedom comes responsibility and sacrifice. If 'liberal' is a dirty word today, then 'sacrifice' is outright blasphemy. Americans made their sacrifice during World War II by cutting down on chocolate and nylons and we owe the world nothing else. The world owes us whatever price we choose to exact.

And now the world is standing up and saying no. Don't get me wrong. I do not in any way support Al-Quaida or the Taliban, or any movement that curtails freedom. I respect the right to disagree with me and hold sacred my right to disagree with the world. And I'm willing to pay a price for that freedom. If I sleep a little less safely tonight because there is a law protecting all of my civil liberties, then that's a price I am comfortable paying. We've asked hundreds of thousands of Americans to go to the other side of the planet to die for those rights. More than two thousand Americans have died in what I consider a completely unnecessary war. What right do I have to be any safer than they are?

Rescind the Patriot Act.

Impeach George W. Bush.