Patriot Act Redux

I was just watching the passing of a data-mining amendment to the Patriot Act on C-Span, and one of the callers they had in support of the bill stated his reason as (paraphrasing):

We need it to spy on the Democrats because they're always up to no good.

While you are trying to stomach the mind-bogglingly deranged thought process that produced that comment, let me state that although I hate (make no mistake about it) reactionaries and people who would try to take away my liberties for ridiculous reasons, I find the flip idea of creating a double standard in this country by spying on Republicans, who are almost always up to no good, nothing short of disgusting. We live in a democracy. Everyone is (ostensibly) equal. If you cannot stomach that idea then you can get the hell out of my country.

I would also like to point out that most of the supporters of the Patriot Act cited safety as their chief reasons. In response to this I would kindly ask such supporters to read the Act, H.R. 3162, in its entirety and think long and hard about whether the Patriot Act will really make them safer and at what cost. Furthermore, it seems to me that if people are living in such a state of fear that they need the passage of the Patriot Act then the terrorists have already won. These people see an enemy around every corner and are living their daily lives in such fear (otherwise why need passage of the Patriot Act?) that it has reached the point of paranoia. Who is fueling these fears? Why our own good little Republican run government. Bush is not creating a culture of life and freedom, he is bent on creating one where Americans are kept in a perpetual state of fear so he can get away with doing whatever he wants.

My land is the land of the free and the home of the brave. Not the land of the closely monitored and the home of the afraid.