Has President Obama Gone to the Dark Side?
I am not a conservative. I voted for Obama and will probably do so again. But liberals are starting to wonder whether Obama will ever deliver on some of his campaign promises. True, it’s only been a year and Obama was thrown into quite a mess, but the failure to deliver may be a big gun in the arsenal of the GOP and their red-headed step-sister, the Tea Party.
It looks like Obama is finally going after Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. He didn’t address it at all in 2009 but he appears to be tackling it in 2010.
One area, however, that he didn’t go after and in fact flip-flopped a bit on, is the Patriot Act. This piece of legislation is the most shocking thing to ever have been passed, and supported by two presidents. Obama has done nothing to overturn it and has in fact supported some of its provisions.
The Patriot Act is something that should never have been passed. That famous quote of Benjamin Franklin comes to mind: “Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither”. Nevertheless, it was passed and it is still in effect. The Patriot Act gives a tremendous amount of power to the government to do whatever it feels it needs to do in the protection of this country. Because of the Patriot Act, the government can spy on its own citizens. It can lock up its citizens based on mere suspicion.
I do believe we must protect this country from terrorists. But let’s face facts. It wasn’t an inability to spy on Americans that caused 9/11. It was inter-agency miscommunication and bureaucracy getting in the way of protecting this country. Has the Patriot Act addressed these issues? No. Even if the Patriot Act were to provide us with some immeasurable increased level of safety, do we want to gain that security at the price of our liberty?
Why not? The worst of it may not even be the Patriot Act. It’s what comes next. If a President who is sensitive to protecting our civil liberties won’t repeal it, what will President Palin do with it? What future presidents pursue in the name of security may lead to the eventual eradication of our civil liberties. When you open the door to the restriction of rights, someone will find a way to drive a truck through it.
President Obama may not have opened that door, but he has done nothing to shut it either. I really can’t imagine how this thing is still in place. There simply has to be a way to protect the safety of America without sacrificing the liberties that we as a nation hold dear.
At the end of the day, it’s the giant multiple bureaucracies of this country that cause more danger to Americans than anything else. Why do we need so many different agencies? Why can’t we have a combined FBI, CIA, Secret Service, ATF, etc etc? One agency, one director. Wouldn’t that eliminate the intelligence failure that caused 9/11?
I’m no expert on this, and yes, I know that Homeland Security was meant to be that central agency. Unfortunately, Homeland Security became just one more bureaucracy on top of the pile. The Patriot Act does not streamline communication between these agencies. It only allows them to gather and hoard more information for themselves.
Maybe I am beating an old horse. But Obama, by supporting one of the most contentious bills ever passed by Bush, has done himself and his supporters a disservice. Allowing the Patriot Act to stand simply maintains the dangerous power-mongering that came to define the Bush era in the minds of liberal Obama supporters. I can only hope that this too will one day be tackled and removed by Obama. Let’s hope that day comes before 2012.
