a4886c57
XPost: alt.society.liberalism, alt.atheism, talk.politics.guns
XPost: can.politics
From: spaXm-mXe-anXd-paXy-5000-dollars@pobox.com
On Thu, 13 Jun 2013 17:07:28 -0700 (PDT), Kurt Nicklas
wrote:
>Tea Party on NSA Snooping: We Told You Not to Trust Big Government!
>by Michelle Cottle Jun 13, 2013 4:45 AM EDT
>
>As NSA news keeps coming, the government-fearing right is taking a
>victory lap.
>
>As if Tea Partiers needed any more evidence that Big Government is out
>to get them, along come Edward Snowden and operation PRISM.
>
>It was bad enough that the tax man had been yanking their chain:
>Everyone knows the IRS is a bunch of jerks. But the NSA combing
>through people’s phone calls and emails? That’s a whole different
>level of sinister.
>
>“I read threads all day long by Tea Party people nationwide. I talk to
>dozens and dozens of people on a daily basis,” says Ken Crow, the Iowa-
>based editor of the Tea Party Tribune and cofounder of the activist
>hub teapartycommunity.com. “They’re all afraid.”
>
>
>Not surprisingly, Senator Rand Paul, a Tea Party darling, has been one
>of the most outspoken critics of the NSA surveillance programs. Here's
>what rankles him so.
>The mood among Tea Party Patriots is equally tense, reports the
>group’s cofounder Jenny Beth Martin. “A lot of people are saying,
>‘Wait a minute, we seem to trending much more toward a police state
>than we ever imagined.’”
>
>For a political movement largely driven by the specter of government
>run amok, the NSA snooping news is, to borrow a Bidenism, a big
>fucking deal, a smoking gun akin to Donald Trump unearthing Obama’s
>Kenyan birth certificate.
>
>Indeed, Tea Partiers’ reaction to the news of late may be best summed
>up in four words: We told you so! “They say that those of us in the
>Tea Party wear tin foil hats and we’re out there and all that,” says
>Crow. “But take a look around!”
>
>“This is definitely not an isolated thing,” says Jackie Bodnar,
>communication director for Freedom Works. “It’s part of a huge list of
>Fourth Amendment violations that have been happening for years.”
>
>But almost as outrageous to many Tea Partiers as the NSA snooping
>itself has been the lack of outrage by Republican leaders. Even as a
>sprinkling of folks like Rand Paul and Glenn Beck decry the
>government’s assault on the Constitution and declare Snowden a “hero,”
>most party players have been more in tune with Sens. Lindsey Graham
>and John McCain, who have been quick to remind people of the hard
>realities of fighting terrorism, and Speaker John Boehner, who called
>Snowden “a traitor.”
>
>“We’ve given up on McCain and Graham,” says Crow. “It’s obvious to us
>that they are not going to carry the banner of freedom and liberty.”
>As for the speaker? “A marshmallow,” says Crow. “With a lot of these
>scandals, there is overwhelming evidence of perjury by senior
>officials in the administration—overwhelming evidence that criminal
>activity transpired. Nothing is being done, and we want to know why!”
>
>Not that Tea Partiers expected much more from a GOP elite that many
>members have long held in disdain. “The political establishment voted
>to allow these things to happen and for government to get this large
>and out of control,” says Martin, adding sadly, “At this point, very
>little surprises me.”
>
>“We’ve given up on McCain and Graham,” says Crow. “It’s obvious to us
>that they are not going to carry the banner of freedom and liberty.”
>This does not mean, however, that the Tea Party intends to take this
>insult lying down. Far from it. Various groups are rallying members to
>express their displeasure through calls and email petitions to
>Congress on any number of issues. “We have a lot of different calls to
>action on our website,” says Bodnar. (“Demand Lois Lerner’s
>resignation from the IRS”; “Stop the NSA seizing of Your Phone
>Records”; “Tell Your Senators to cosponsor Rand Paul’s S. 1037, the
>Fourth Amendment Preservation and Protection Act of 2013”; “Keep IRS
>Away From Your Health Care”…)
>
>More broadly, groups are scrambling to juice up education efforts.
>Next month, Freedom Works will launch a new civil-liberties training
>program at its Free the People weekend in Salt Lake City. “It’s been
>something we’ve been trying to make happen and something that
>activists have wanted for a while,” says Bodnar. The NSA mess is
>simply “the straw that broke the camel’s back. There has been a big
>uptick in the demand for education programs like this.”
>
>With a little luck, such programs won’t merely galvanize existing
>members but also recruit new ones. “The phones are blowing up with
>people who want to know how they can get involved,” reports Bodnar. In
>addition to longtime activists, she says, “there are also a lot of
>people who are brand new saying, ‘I didn’t know about you guys before,
>but I can’t just sit at home and yell at my TV anymore.’ ”
>
>It remains to be seen whether this latest dust-up can reenergize a
>movement that has been struggling for a couple of years to recapture
>its early mojo. Still, at the very least, the events of this spring
>have provided a shot of affirmation and adrenaline to loyalists. Crow
>in particular is looking forward to a long, hot, combative summer. He
>chuckles, “It’s fun fighting for liberty and freedom!"
And yet they don't seem to have a problem with big government when it's
quashing
women's or gay rights.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)
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