Reason number four hundred seventy five...

To not live in this crazy freaking country!!!!

Unofficial NPR (Nat'l Public Radio) poll... On the Capitol Mall (RealPlayer)

Americans, in general, have NO PROBLEM with the Government looking or listening in on phone conversations of Americans.

That's right... No problem. The culture of fear has over taken my country SO MUCH, that Americans are perfectly happy surrendering their constitutional rights in order to "fight terrorism" in the U.S.

The most common opinion: "If you don't have anything to hide, why should you care if the Government listens in on your conversations?"

The amusing thing... Is that my fellow Yanks have the balls to turn to the converse of this statement and say:

'If you DON'T want the Government to listen to your conversations, OBVIOUSLY you DO have something to hide."

Man.

Look, okay... Tuckmac's "Bleeding-Heart-Liberal" response to my OWN fellow Americans:

You are all fucking insane!

Some of the people interviewed were a bit less "forceful" in their idea, saying simply that giving up a few rights in order to combat terrorism is a patriotic thing to do.

But still, this idea, this surrendering of our basic constitutional rights, seems to THIS Liberal, to be an example of letting the terrorists' WIN. They ARE winning.

What's Terrorism? It's using terror to achieve one's political or social or religious agenda. And the loss of our privacy, the loss of our rights to unlawful search and seizure, the loss of our rights to due process (ask the American citizens that have been captured and shipped to countries for torture (rendition) how they feel about this one)... I just think that there HAS to be a line that we draw as Americans in this fight against terrorism. There HAS to be a line, a place in the sand where we say, here... NO FURTHER. The line MUST be found!

To my fellow Americans... You are under the mistaken premise that you can actually TRUST the U.S. Government to only chase after terrorists. You forget that the so called "data mining" that the NSA is doing on our phone records is collecting MILLIONS of phone calls. MILLIONS. Do you HONESTLY think that there are MILLIONS of phone calls from the U.S. to foreign terrorists? I mean... MILLIONS?

I have nothing against phone-taps used legally, with judicial approval in the search and hunt for terrorist suspects. Fine. However... You cannot TELL me that there are THAT many suspects in the U.S.

Do you know who's being listened to? People like ME. That's who. A bleeding-heart that has a foreign wife, and calls and texts and e-mails Europeans almost daily.

Obviously I must be a suspect. I mean... What American would have friends or family OUTSIDE the U.S.?

Shit.

You see... I take this very personally for many reasons... First of all... I have a pretty major F.B.I. file. Yep... me. And you know what's funny... Look, my file was huge BEFORE 9/11 and I'm sure it's getting pretty scary-full now that I'm a crazy foreign-married Liberal BLOGGER!!!!

I MUST be a suspect... I just must be.

Shit.

Look.... To the NSA folk reading this blog...

I am NOT a terrorist. I was raised Catholic, and my wife was raised Church of Scotland. Yeah... I have Muslim friends that live in Egypt and Jordan... But they're nice people, (one's not even that devout) and they're not terrorist's either. Okay, perhaps you won't take my word for it... But whatever.

Yeah... I have a foreign bank account... But it's only used for paying my wife's British credit card... Which is used over here for such frightening things as oil-paints or the occasional sculptural medium...

And yeah... I don't like my country very much at the moment... But I'm still pretty damn happy I was born an American.

I DO love my country... I love the landscape, I love 'most' of the people, I am happy to be an American... However, the way my country is going really, really frightens me. I wrote before about the "Jack-booted thugs at the door in the night" and you are not making me revoke that statement. How do I know you WON'T come to my door and take me, or my wife away? How can I trust you?

Trust is something that is earned and gained and frankly... You've LOST my trust, and you have done everything EXCEPT earn some replacement trust in the past four years!

To my fellow "If you have nothing to hide" Americans...

Everyone has something to hide. Everyone. Yeah, I find it amusing that the government may be listening in to my calls back to Britain... As they're hearing all sorts of things about Art college, and exhibitions, and the wish and need to see people again. But the REALLY amusing thing that I'm imagining is the N.S.A. trying to "crack the code" of my calls, assuming that "exhibition in East London" means something about illegal money transfers to "parties unknown" or some such shite.

I have a lot to hide... My life is my own... I've done "dodgy" things... Oh, nothing horrific, but... Well, vaguely dodgy. And MOST Americans have done that. Look... Occasionally I speed on the highway, or smoke withIN the 25 foot distance from the outside of a restaurant, or something... But serious stuff? Please.

I know you're listening... I know you're reading this now...

Feel free.

You see... The funny thing about privacy, is that I KNOW I don't have any. If I really wanted a tonne of privacy, would I blog for everyone and my Government to read? Probably not. But... You see... THIS is my choice. I CHOOSE to post my Liberal views on the internet. I do NOT choose to have you listen to my phone calls, or open my mail from or to Britain. And in my FORMERLY free country... You wouldn't have done those things. Now you do. And no matter what most of my scared and sad fellow Americans are saying now a days...

It's wrong.

-- Tuckmac