Congress is full of cowards and the Tea Party is full of shit

In a miscalculation yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner expedited a vote on three expiring provisions of the horrendous USA Patriot Act. Under the move, the renewals required a two-thirds vote (290 votes) to pass. They got 277. It will pass eventually because most of our congresspersons are gutless cowards who have no qualms about sacrificing liberty for merely the illusion of security. The Republican Party—supposedly the faction of “small government”—was the worst offender today, with 210 of them voting to grant Barack Obama’s wish of continued overreaching executive power.

Meanwhile, where the fuck is the Tea Party on this one? All we hear from those people is how government under the Obama administration is taking away our freedom, but they’re nowhere to be found on this issue. Show me a Tea Party rally against the Patriot Act, or the Afghan War, or the military-industrial complex. You can’t because there are none. And the reason there is none is because 90% of self-described Tea Partiers are statists. They’re the same people who rushed to line up behind Dubya and his military adventurism and Bill of Rights curtailments. They’re the same people who virulently trashed, as traitors, opponents of Bush’s “big government” policies. And they’re the same people, who right now, are doing jack shit while the Obama administration is about to be handed extensions on roving wiretaps, expansive surveillance powers, and warrants issued by secret courts. Why? Because they are authoritarians who simply don’t like the current Dear Leader in power. Sure, they’ll protest a health care plan or whatever, but anything that contributes to the security and glory of the State and it’s thank you sir, may they have another? One day, the Tea Party may very well get its dream president: a white man or woman who will return the Fatherland to the days of the Cold War and the nuclear family. And if the president has to start World War III to get there, so be it.

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Does Ron Paul ever not nail it when it comes to civil liberties? Guy’s like a one-man police state wrecking crew. Here he is before the vote to extend the three sunset provisions.

- Max max.canning@gmail.com