Julia brought up a good point. Why did the republicans, who are the 'protectors of freedom' bully the patriot act through congress. (The Patriot act does allow the gov to spy on possible terrorists).
So I wondered how closely did the patriot act pass, was it the slight majority that the reps had? I did not know, so to the Senate Website! This is what i found:
Senate Patriot Act votes
Yup that’s right it passed 98-1... not the Republican push that i had thought. The media has done good at portraying the Patriot Act as a Republican backed bill... but in reality it was also Dem backed. So both sides are to blame for its passage, not one or the other.
This is similar to the Dems bashing Bush saying that he shouldn't have invaded Iraq. Remember Kerry said he would have invaded Iraq as well... So it isn't an arguing point, everyone agreed. Only in hindsight can we say if it was good or not.
2 comments:
I was actually aware of how thoroughly the bill passed. The bullying that I was referring to was the allegation that I heard of that some of the worst parts of the Patriot Act were changed to a more strict wording by a subcommittee of Republicans just prior to the vote (thus making the bill not the bill that many senators and house members thought they were voting on). I'm not certain of the complete truth of this (I heard about it at a Michael Moore talk), but Michael Moore usually sites his information pretty well. He just tends to use different information and interprets the information differently than other people. Now as far as the Kerry Iraq thing (first of all I voted for Howard Dean because of his firm anti-Iraqi war stance), but Kerry also said that he would have been more cautious about entering the war (i.e. waiting for the weapons inspectors to finish their jobs and then making a complete plan of attack and removal after securing allies). If Bush had waited, then he would have realized there were no WMD.
I am not up-to-date on either subject (final minute changes to the patriot act, and What Kerry would have done about Iraq).
But i do know this, Moore takes a grain of truth and uses it to built a castle of an idea.
Although did you see on his website he thanked me for voting? (well 18-24 year olds)
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