Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Domestic Spying

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post called "Rooting for Uniforms" about how Americans tend to support programs they once opposed when they are proposed by members of their own political party. Nothing has exemplified this phenomenon more than the NSA spying scandal.

During the Administration of George W. Bush, when it was revealed that the government was engaging in warrantless wiretapping, the Democratic party and liberal blogosphere exploded with rage. This was called, rightfully, an absolute infringement on the Fourth Amendment, an extra-constitutional expansion of executive police power, and an erosion of our right of privacy. The Conservative political class responded with the usual terror scare tactics, and how in a post 9/11 world we were going to have to live with giving up some liberties in order to remain safe.

In the last two weeks, thanks to the leaks of former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and the reporting of Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald, we have learned the under the Obama Administration the NSA has expanded its domestic surveillance including gathering metadata on every phone call made within the United States, and collecting data directly from the servers of many of the largest internet companies in the United States. The administration claims that these types of activities were authorized under the re-authorization of the Patriot Act as well of the FISA Amendemnts Act (FAA).

You would think that this disclosure would have resulted in a huge liberal backlash against the Obama administration. But, you would be wrong if you did. Instead, every mainstream liberal talking head went into overdrive trying to defend the administration's actions as being necessary for the protection of our country, and painting the whistleblower Snowden as a traitor. From Lawrence O'Donnell to Bill Maher to Joy Reid, the airwaves were filled with liberal commentators who had eviscerated the Bush administration for similar, though less intrusive, programs of domestic surveillance, praising the Obama Administration for their unprecedented dragnet of personal information about virtually every American citizen. Democratic Senators and Congressmen were lining up to defend the administration's actions declaring them legal and even transparent, though conducted in complete secrecy. Even Senator Al Franken, considered one of the most liberal in Washington, said he wasn't the least bit worried about these intrusions.

During all of this, Pew Research Center released a poll looking at the views of the government monitoring e-mails based on party affiliation which when compared with a similar poll of a similar question in 2002, showed disturbing results:

It seems that the partisanship that has brought our legislative process to a complete halt across the nation has permeated throughout the electorate itself. We, as a nation, have nobody to blame for our broken political system than ourselves. As long as we judge the worth of a policy based on which party is proposing it, rather than whether it is good for the country, we don't deserve anything other than the sleazy, partisan, broken government that we have now.

I will say this again: when you look at any proposal of any kind, especially one in which the government asks for more power to intrude on your every day lives, ask yourself if you would support the policy if it were put forth by the other party. If your answer is no, then it is a bad proposal and you should be against it.

What this latest grab of power on behalf of the government should show us is that neither of the two major parties in this country represent our best interests as Americans. Any government that would spy on its on people en masse, is not a representative democracy and does not deserve our allegiance. The only thing that this current group of so-called leaders in Washington and elsewhere deserves is to be thrown out of office, each and every one of them. And if the next group that takes their place shows as much contempt for the protections of the individual liberties of our citizens as the current  Congress, then they deserve the same fate.

It is time for us to stand up to our leaders and reassert our power as Americans. We must hold both Democrats and Republicans responsible for the lawlessness that they have unleashed on this nation and demand a government which doesn't see its citizens as enemies of the state.