I Can’t Form an Opinion

It’s a shame that “national security” has turned into such a divisive political issue. Politicians have a way of managing to argue in the absence of facts, as facts just don’t get voters excited quite like rhetoric does. Congressmen give bills names like the PATRIOT Act and the Protect America Act to make opposition look treasonous without having to explain why.

I fully expect, by the end of the next presidential term, to have listened to a debate over the “One Homeland, Safe Haven and Immune to Terrorism” act, which will probably have something to do with letting the DHS look at your grocery list.

There has been a lot of talk about the new Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act recently, with the Democrats pushing against retroactive legal immunity for the telecoms who helped the president tap phone lines, and the Republicans arguing that it was necessary for national security. I was going to try to find some sources to do some research so I could opine on the subject, but it’s nearly impossible to find anything impartial. It’s even harder to find anything with a single concrete fact in it.

In this article (on some web site I’d never heard of), there are a lot of quotes from Ds about how the Rs are playing the politics of fear. On the same site, this article has a lot of ballyhoo from Rs about how the Ds are exposing the country to attack.

But none of this rhetoric is ever explained. Not a single fact or figure is ever cited.

I would love to see some information on how the telecom wiretapping managed to stop a terrorist attack, or maybe some numbers for how many phones were tapped. A few examples of how the surveillance programs have been successful or infringed on rights would be nice, maybe a few examples of the awful, awful people that we’re listening in on. Anything at all other then political grandstanding would be extremely useful as a basis for an opinion.

But, it seems that the ages-old trend of politics appealing to emotion instead of reason will continue, and no one will be able to form a defensible position based on reason. We’ll all just continue the shouting match over who’s a patriot and who’s a traitor.