Hero: GOP Senator / Specter

Domestic spying funds threatened by GOP senator / Specter wants Bush to stop 'walking all over Congress'
I just read a very disturbing newspaper article: “Domestic spying funds threatened by GOP senator” marking Senator Arlen Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania, a hero.

Although he doesn’t seem to posses the will to do anything more serious than talk about it, at least he is raising the issue, again, and that issue is President Bush’s disregard for civil rights and his arrogance to do any thing he wants, specifically, domestic spying. Senator Specter wants to know where the outrage is. Doesn’t he recall this was an issue about two months ago? Isn’t it obvious that the administration at the White House diverted the attention to immigration and more recently the price of oil has taken over as hot topics? The senator does make an excellent point, people don’t think it is their problem, it is someone else’s civil rights that are in danger. This is very reminiscent of the beginnings of genocidal holocaust, isn’t it? The fact that people do not think the violation of the rights of others concerns them is timeless. It has always been with us, the French Revolution, Nazi Germany, the Tutsis and the Hutus. We don’t want to stand up and we don’t care about others, plain and simple. I have always been proud that this country has watch dog groups that fight to keep greatest atrocities away, the erosion of any one’s civil rights. The largest group responsible for this should be the US Congress.

I am ashamed of our short attention spans. I saddened more by the Democrat senators who are only reacting to every distraction created by the Republicans to divert attention away from this important issue. Dianne Feinstein of California and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin don’t want senate action to limit President Bush’s ability to spy on me. They say doing anything is legislating in the dark because they don’t know what the investigation will turn up, and the president needs to come to them to make the case that current law is inadequate. From the arrogant president’s point of view, why would he need to do anything? He is just as happy as can be because the senators have no stomach to stop him. The argument that Senator Feingold makes that there are no assurances the president would abide by any restrictions as his logic not to do anything is insulting. I want all of congress to stay on message, defend our constitution and our civil rights. I might not be a subject of domestic spying, how would I know, but any instance of subverting or ignoring laws to protect any one of us is wrong.

Remember the poem by John Donne: No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main.... Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in Mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.