by Jack Hunter
EDITOR’S NOTE: Jack Hunter will be a featured speaker at Nullify Now! Jacksonville. รย Get tickets here – https://www.nullifynow.com/jacksonville/ – or by calling 888-71-TICKETS
If Americans needed another reminder of why the Democratic Party is absolutely worthless, they got it during the recent Patriot Act extension debate when Senate Majority leader Harry Reid again behavedรย exactly like the Bush-era Republicans he once vigorously opposed. In 2005, Reid bragged to fellow Democrats, รขโฌลWe killed the Patriot Act.รขโฌย Today, Reid says that anyone who opposes the Patriot Act might be responsible for the killing of Americans. Dick Cheney now hears an echo and Americans deserve congressional hearingsรขโฌโas to whether Harry Reid is a sociopath, mere liar, or both.
But while Democrats stand pat for Bush Republicanism, the GOP now debates the extent to which it will remain the party of Dubya. Tea Party favorites like Senators Rand Paul and Mike Lee and Congressmen Ron Paul, Justin Amash, Allen West and others, all voted against the Patriot Act. To varying degrees, each of these GOP representatives questioned the actรขโฌโขs effectiveness and legality. But unfortunately, most Republicans still wonรขโฌโขt ask any questions.
The รขโฌลWar on Terrorรขโฌย that defined and preoccupied Republicans during the Bush era brought with it not only massive government growth and debt, but an unprecedented expansion of extra-constitutional state power, symbolized most famously by the Patriot Act. In the name of national security, government officials could begin wiretapping phones, hacking into email accounts, prying into business records and spying on citizensรขโฌโall without a warrant and at government officialsรขโฌโข own discretion. Defenders say the Patriot Act did what needed to be done after 9/11. Critics say it did away with the 4th amendment.
Let us say both have a point, and that for arguments sake, both Harry Reid and Dick Cheney are correct in arguing that it is sometimes necessary to surrender our liberties for increased security. Is this still true a decade after 9/11? Will it be true two decades after 9/11? How about three? Have the actions of Osama Bin Laden and his fellow terrorists forever altered our Bill of Rights?
Allegedly, the default position for conservatives is to distrust the government and defer to the Constitution. Concerning the Patriot Act, too many conservatives blindly trust the government at the expense of the Constitution. This type of thinking mirrors the logic of the Left, in which the constitutionality of a big government program like Obamacare is considered irrelevant due to the severity of the problem at hand. The liberal healthcare ends justify the unconstitutional means. This characteristic mentality of the Left is exactly how most of the Right approaches the Patriot Actรขโฌโthough it is an outright rejection of what most conservatives of any generation have held most dear.
Think about it. Conservatives get upset about many things on a regular basisรขโฌโACORN corruption, NPR funding, demanding that French fries be renamed รขโฌลFreedom Fries.รขโฌย At any given time there is always some new and outrageous rightwing distaste of the week.
But most of these controversies are a speck on a gnatรขโฌโขs ass compared to the damage done to the Constitution by the Patriot Act. For genuine constitutional conservatives, something like NPR funding is undoubtedly wrong but ultimately trivial and peripheralรขโฌโwhile the protection of the Bill of Rights is crucial and integral. If George Washington or Thomas Jefferson were alive today, are we to believe that they would be more outraged that: A. The federal government helps fund public radio. B. The federal government snoops on citizens without restraint. Those who answered A. truly donรขโฌโขt understand the mindset of the men who founded this country.
A Republican critic of mine once asked me during a radio broadcast รขโฌลJack, can you show me where any American has been harmed due to the Patriot Act?รขโฌย I replied, รขโฌลCan you show me where any American has been harmed by Wikileaks?รขโฌย The caller said he couldnรขโฌโขt, but stated that he believed private individuals shouldnรขโฌโขt havenรขโฌโขt access to private government documents. The gentleman was basically saying that whether or not Wikileaks has hurt anyone to date is irrelevantรขโฌโthe whistleblower outfit shouldnรขโฌโขt be trusted with such power to begin with. I argue the same is true of the federal government. So did the Founding Fathers. Thatรขโฌโขs why they wrote the 4th amendment.
The entire reason we have a written charter like the Constitution is to specify the enumerated powers that define the hard parameters of our federal government. Among those powers is national defense and security. But much of what we call รขโฌลdefenseรขโฌย is anything but. Similarly, a total police state could undoubtedly provide much better security, though few Americans would desire a country so void of liberty. After all, most Americans can barely tolerate the way the federal government handles air travel these days.
When Ronald Reagan said there was nothing closer to eternal life on this earth than a government program he could have easily been describing the Patriot Act. When Barry Goldwater said that รขโฌลextremism in the defense of liberty is no viceรขโฌย he could have easily been describing the minority of Republicans who now at least question the Patriot Act. When James Madison wrote, รขโฌลOf all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other,รขโฌย he could have easily been describing our current state of perpetual war that now gives seemingly permanent life to the Patriot Act.
If the รขโฌลWar on Terrorรขโฌย is a perpetual warรขโฌโas so many politicians readily contendรขโฌโhave we now permanently given up our liberties? If terrorists really do รขโฌลhate us for our freedomsรขโฌย is the best method of defeating them to permanently surrender our historic freedoms? And if so, who is really winning the War on Terror? Us or the terrorists?
By the very nature of their philosophy, conservatives are supposed to question their government. And given the very nature of our Constitution, this is precisely how the Founders would expect any true patriot to act.
The “Southern Avenger” Jack Hunter is a conservative commentator (WTMA 1250 AM talk radio) and columnist (Charleston City Paper) living in Charleston, South Carolina. See his blog.
Copyright 2011,American Conservative Magazine