Is Melissa Hughes the only one embarrassed?

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 20 Mar 2006 18:49:58 GMT  <== Politics ==> 

Chris M. at Unknown News - an excerpt from a recent showing of Boston Legal on TV. Glorious! Transcription of the speech in this video. Bravo! [paladin]

When the weapons of mass destruction thing turned out to be not true, I expected the American people to rise up. Ha!

They didn't.

Then, when the Abu Ghraib torture thing surfaced and it was revealed that our government participated in rendition, a practice where we kidnap people and turn them over to regimes who specialize in torture, I was sure then the American people would be heard from.

We stood mute.

Then came the news that we jailed thousands of so-called terrorists suspects, locked them up without the right to a trial or even the right to confront their accusers. Certainly, we would never stand for that.

We did.

And now, it's been discovered the executive branch has been conducting massive, illegal, domestic surveillance on its own citizens. You and me. And I at least consoled myself that finally, finally the American people will have had enough.

Evidentially, we haven't.

...

Last night, I went to bed with a book. Not as much fun as a 29-year-old, but the book contained a speech by Adlai Stevenson. The year was 1952. He said, "The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live and fear breeds repression. Too often, sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-Communism."

Today, it's the cloak of anti-terrorism. Stevenson also remarked, "It's far easier to fight for principles than to live up to them."

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