Democrats As Invertebrates...

[sleigh]

The Democratic Party displayed again the skeletal structure of a jellyfish and has given King George exactly what he asked for: the ability to spy on anyone he wishes without having to worry about ugly things like laws or warrants. The Congressional Democrats, too afraid that they may appear "weak on security," opted to tug their collective forelocks and kowtow to the president rather than stand on principle and force the administration to obtain wiretapping warrants from the rubber-stamp FISA court.

After all, that wastes precious time.

The Dems are showing (again) that they have no ability to act together and that they'd all rather cover their own asses than to produce legislation that might actually restore some of the damage the current regime has done to privacy, security, and law. They would rather take no chances with their re-election than do what they were elected to do.

Sure, they claim that hey, this is just a six-month stopgap and after this expires, they're going to make real, substantive changes. Honest. Yeah, right. I believe that.

My bet? Six months from now, the Repugs will start howling again about how if this law isn't extended then evil tearists will be crawling out from the sewers and none of us will be safe because of what the awful, nasty Liberals have done. The Dems will moan and shuffle their feet, talk to their precious focus groups and consult with their pollsters, put both hands on their posteriors, and acquiesce.

They're really good at acquiescence, evidently. We should rename them the Acquiescent Party, with a jellyfish as their mascot. This was a litmus test for whether the Democrats actually wanted to roll back the ravages of this administration and stand up to the illegailities of the last six years, or whether their rhetoric was merely a ploy to get themselves elected.

Now we know.

To the Democrats who voted to go ahead with this: shame on you. You voted to protect yourself, not your constituents.

Comments

[casaubon.livejournal.com]

Maybe they're just looking forward to the time when they're in charge and thinking that the ability to spy on people would be a nice power to have.

Or am I being overly cynical here?

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

While, yeah, I think that's overly cynical (or perhaps just too subtle a strategy for Democrats to develop), this is one of the real dangers of the Bush II administration: that he's strengthened the executive branch beyond what the constitution intended, leaving some other president in the future -- Republican, Democrat, or Other -- with the tools needed to be yet another dangerous despot...

Maybe what it will take is a president who's a Democrat and a Republican Congress -- since the Repugs evidently do know how to work together, and if they see that a Democratic president wielding executive power like the heavy, blunt instrument Bush has made it, they'll enact legislation to bring it back to more reasonable parameters.

Maybe. Certainly the Dems don't appear to have the will to do that in the face of shrill Repug accusations of being "weak on terror."

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I can't even begin to describe how angry I am over this.

B

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

I'm furious, myself, and my representatives will hear about it.

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

Every time I read this kind of news I am filled with numb horror. Then I consider moving to Yellowknife, B.C. and becoming an ice road trucker. Then I remember that the radical right wingnuts are dead set on taking over Canada too so it won't do any good to run. Then I get angry at myself for thinking of abandoning my country to the wingnuts anyhow. Then it occurs to me (perhaps because I'm a little slow with politics) that's what the Dems are doing every time they turn into jellyfish. They're abandoning our country and their constituents.

Could we stick them all in that machine from that Heinlein book, the "evolution" machine? With work we might get them up to vertebrates willing to defend their social group.

[sleigh.livejournal.com]

That's the problem. I've no confidence in the Dems ability to actually accomplish anything, but to not vote for them or to give my vote to a third party candidate who will garner a single-digit percentage of the vote only hands control back to the Republicans, who have already aptly demonstrated what they will do, and whose political, social, and religious agenda fills me with horror...

[greenmtnboy18.livejournal.com]

here here... and love the icon

[rmeidaking.livejournal.com]

The thing is, as a general rule, and traditionally, Democrats like things that help keep people safe. It had traditionally been the Republicans that were opposed to open wire-tapping and in favor of privacy laws.

Now it turns out that it's just the minority party that holds that position, because it's the majority who is going to be able to get the information and then use it against the minority.

Power corrupts. It's pretty indiscriminate as to party lines, apparently.