How Does A Patriot Act?

Patrick Henry of the American Revolution was a spirit proud to know that his name would forever be synonymous with "Patriot". What grander and more humbling legacy could grace any mortal man? As I write in the hand of my reincarnated kindred spirit, as Patrick Q. Henry, we are alarmed. Very alarmed. Today, the word "Patriot" has become a slippery bar of soft soap, often crafted mainly to try to lend honor and trust to things of which the American people should be extremely leery. Topping that list is the "USA Patriot Act".

Surely, some of you will object, saying that we need to grant our government as much authority as we can, to protect us against our enemies. Initially, I fully agreed; I saw the Patriot Act as a powerful tool to combat evil, as I detailed in my previous essay, "Three Questions for America". But recently, in a startled cold-sweat nightmare in the deepest sleep, I was struck with a terrifying vision of a dastardly double-edged sword.

We need look only at our southern border, where no meaningful action is being taken - by either Democrats or Republicans - to stem the absolute deluge of illegal entrants into our great nation. Please note that my concern is not about any particular race or nationality or ethnic group, but about the simple fact that our border is open to ALL intruders, including terrorists. Amid the estimated 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 illegal entrants each year into our nation (I will assume 1,500,000 here, for round numbers), let us say that 1/100th of one percent - a mere .0001 ... one out of ten thousand ... are terrorists. At that rate, each year since Mr. Bush the Junior has been in office, 150 Mohammed Atta's have taken up residence within our sacred shores. 150 terrorists - times the eight years of two terms - totals well over a thousand new suicide killers, and possibly many more, who will all be waiting for the right moment to murder us and our families.

Why this ongoing invasion? Why are our borders left wide open? For no reason greater than the olden pestilence that plagued the peers of my namesake in the 1700's: the convenience, quick profit, and unbridled wealth that the rich obtain from inhumanly cheap labor.

But, what has all this to do with the Patriot Act? Observe. We all know the extremely broad & sweeping powers that the Patriot Act grants to those within government's Upper Echelons. Initially, decent citizens like you and me felt safe, because we knew that we would never do anything to betray or endanger our nation. But ride now this next train of horrifying, irrefutable logic:

1. To enable future hordes of quick-profit cheap labor, the Upper Echelons of "our" government - amid both political parties - have abandoned their duty to protect our borders from intruders.

2. Using the earlier carefully conservative estimates, hundreds of demonically deadly terrorists (quite possibly, thousands) have have been wilfully allowed entry into the US, by both political parties.

3. Just for the sake of easy profits from cheap labor, the wealthy Upper Echelons in our society clearly want the above unguarded borders to remain that way - despite the feeble recent speeches to the contrary by Mr. Bush and various Democrats, which never mentioned why they all have ignored this crisis year after year. Since We The People clearly and loudly and adamantly have been rallying against that deadly open-border policy, and against the people and officials who enable it, then it is certain that those Upper Echelons must see us as their enemies.

4. The Patriot Act grants all of its terrifying, invasive, secret-police, secret-arrest and secret-prison powers exclusively to the political officials who serve those Upper Echelons, who certainly can target anybody - including us - as among their enemies.

Of course, you may choose to trust Mr. Bush and your other elected officials & representatives to never take advantage of such incredibly frightening powers. Which is fine. But what about after those specific people are gone? Kindly read on.

The current Upper Echelons are feverishly trying to not only expand the Patriot Act with "Patriot Act 2" but also to make the Patriot Act permanent (it was originally scheduled to expire at the end of 2005, but was extended on Dec. 22, 05 for one month). If made permanent, its wide-ranging and awesome powers will be in the hands of whoever takes over our government in the future, from now on. Whoever. We know that those Upper Echelons are the ones we have heard about for generations, whenever we are told "The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer." How does that ongoing imbalance and injustice continue to happen? By that Upper Echelon's wilfull, premeditated and never-ending plan to always have huge pools of cheap labor available. Can we be so naive as to hope that they would have a sudden change of heart now, after their centuries of boundless greed? Sadly, we can know for a fact that they plan to continue getting richer and richer - decade after decade, generation after generation - by ensuring the flood of more and more poor and desperate immigrants, whether legal or illegal.

However the details unfold, two things are certain.

First, since we true and legitimate citizens of America (and our children) will continue to resist and rebel against this outrageous and willful invasion, we (and our children) will continue to be on the "Enemies List" of the wealthy Upper Echelons, of both political parties; thus, we will be amongst the enemies targeted by all of the political operatives that they help put into power. Plus, making the Patriot Act permanent means that they will forever be able to deal with their "enemies" - including us - however they wish, fully cloaked behind perpetual and pernicious secrecy.

Second, consider what must certainly happen, sooner or later. Fact: These tens of millions of illegal intruders are not likely to just disappear; and neither Democrats nor Republicans show the slightest political backbone needed to send these invaders back home. Thus, inevitably, sooner or later, they will be granted American citizenship, which includes American citizens' sacred right to vote. Indeed, this very kind of thing happened not long ago when the president granted amnesty to a large wave of "undocumented workers". And, we cannot rule out that - despite his promises to the contrary - he may well do it again. (After all, we all remember the previous President Bush promising "Read my lips! No new taxes!" to a trusting nation who believed him, and who then were promptly betrayed by new taxes.) Even if the current President Bush does not again grant blanket amnesty to all the illegal intruders, can we trust a Democratic president to not do so? Thus, sooner or later, it will happen.

And then what? Do the math. Just under this current presidential administration, we will have seen about 1,500,000 illegal entrants per year, for eight years, which totals roughly 12,000,000 new potential voters entering our nation, just during the current 8-year term. Even if only 1/4 of them vote... nay, even if only 1/10th of them vote... such huge numbers could easily change the outcome of any and every election, in any and every state of the US.

Before long, the politicians and elected officials - and all of the secret police and invasive policies and spy-equipment that are hired and enacted and utilized by them - will all be firmly behind the wheel of the Patriot Act, with all of its existing and newly expanded powers... and with us (the "enemies" of their catastrophic border & immigration policies) solidly in their cross-hairs.

It gets worse. What if those tens of millions of "new citizens" decide to vote for people and political/cultural values of the "old country" from which they came? What if they vote into power the kinds of communists and anarchists whose well-financed billionaire conspirators populate and control the brutal drug cartels, corrupt police, paramilitary puppets, and death squads so common in "third world" countries? How safe will you feel when the Patriot Act - if made into permanent law, as planned - is in their hands?

How safe will you feel when they can freely read your household mail and email and business correspondence; secretly invade & ransack your home; copy all your computer files, both remotely via modems and while you are away from your residence; study all your personal, financial & medical records; catalog all the Websites you visit; wire-tap your family's home-phones & cell-phones; arrest you without a warrant, and keep you in secret jails year after year, with no charges, without any lawyer, sending you (and your children) to foreign prisons for special "interrogation"... all without your family or friends having any idea where in the world you are?

Those are only some of the powers granted to God-knows-who by a permanent Patriot Act; and even more secret powers would be available under the proposed expanded Patriot Act. We have already seen the present administration's willingness to circumvent the law to spy on American citizens, trying their best to keep their improper actions secret, outraging even staunch Conservatives and Republicans. If the Patriot Act is made permanent, can we trust the Liberals and Democrats (and God knows who else might be elected by 12,000,000 new "citizens") to display any greater level of law-abiding integrity? Human beings - all humans, of all stripes - are simply too weak and vulnerable to be trusted with that much power. That is why our Founding Fathers - in their great wisdom - made it our right and our duty to always keep all seekers of power on a very short and tight leash.

Remember too that the concerns of "domestic spying" go far beyond whether or not you have anything "to hide". It is more than naive to say "I have done nothing wrong, so I really don't care who listens to my phone conversations." What if you have done "nothing wrong" but you speak loudly against the policies of extremists or anarchists or Communists who have attained power in some future election, and who have inherited all the powers of a permanent Patriot Act? Or what if just one person in your family or household speaks out loudly, or is involved in a phone conversation with some newfound acquaintance who starts spouting extreme or treasonous opinions? Even if your family member quickly chooses to abandon this newfound acquaintance, the record of that conversation - and all of its absurd or treasonous overtones - will become part of the official and damning record associated with your household and all of its members.

As American history has often shown us, even the most "trustworthy" of American politicians and officials - even "Godly" Conservatives - have done far more than keep simple lists of people whose conversations had been secretly monitored. Those lists of names did not merely sit idly on a shelf, gathering dust. They were used to "neutralize" the "enemies" of the idealogues and political snipers who had secretly gathered those lists, subjecting the people on those lists to the most vile and vicious of "dirty tricks" - to greatly embarrass, undermine, discredit, and destroy them, and their careers, and even their innocent family members. Study the FBI's tactics during the Vietnam War, for example. Innocent citizens who merely gathered together to discuss and oppose the war were often targets of the most vile persecution. (In one notorious 1970's episode, for example, FBI agents hired prostitutes who were infected with syphillus, and paid them to initiate affairs with war opponents, in the sick and twisted hope that contracting this social disease would discredit war protesters among their peer group. Imagine that such tactics were to be used against us, after President Hillary were to acheive power.) Plus, details of much of the treachery committed against even the most innocent citizens - who were just peacefully exercising their legitimate rights of Free Speech - are still in secret files unseen and unknown by most Americans.

As for those people currently in power, we have already seen them display (and act upon) their fervent attitude of "You are either with us, or against us." We have already seen their vindictive retribution against innocent American citizens, coming from even the highest levels, as witnessed by the highly illegal, unethical, unpatriotic and immoral "outing" of CIA operative Valerie Plame. (And she had committed no offense against anyone in power; she was targetted (and her career ruined) merely as vengeance against her husband - a distinguished and honorable US diplomat - as punishment for his speaking the truth that the White House wanted to hide.) You can be certain [as I know, from my high-level travels around the DC Beltway] that time will reveal many other acts of equal and greater treachery.

To answer my own question that I posed at the outset, "How Does A Patriot Act?" - the answer is "Not like the secret police in a monstrous dictatorship." An American Patriot does not act like the USA Patriot Act. Period. I have studied and embraced the life and times of my namesake Patrick Henry enough to know with 100% certainty what he and his brave colleagues would say. They would be utterly, totally and bitterly outraged if even one hundreth of such unbridled and unaccountable power were to be placed in the hands of mere mortals. Into the hands of God, certainly - but never into the hands of mere men. And especially not men and bloated domestic & multi-national corporations whose sole goals are the self-serving greed whose endless obsessions drive them to forever add more and more millions of dollars each day to the hundreds of billions they already possess.

To those who say "But times have changed in our post-9/11 world," I humbly reply that times have been changing since the beginning of time, and always will change; but Democracy never changes; Freedom never changes; Justice never changes; Equality never changes; Liberty never changes; government of, by and for the People never changes; and the principles, the guidelines, the checks-and-balances which made America great must likewise never change, or America herself will change to a nightmare far inferior to the unique beacon of light she has always been.

The reason that America has been so special - so blessed, so set apart from all other forms of government - is that the great minds who crafted this great nation understood human weakness. Having descended from many centuries of brutal and repressive European governments - especially those governments who swore on stacks of Bibles to be the direct spokesmen of God - our Founding Fathers knew three things for certain: that power corrupts, power corrupts, and power corrupts. They knew that when mere men are trusted with excesses of power, Satan himself always promptly takes notice, always works overtime, always sets before such overly-empowered leaders a thousand delicious but disastrous temptations, each and every day.

Just as Adam and Eve fell when they took unto themselves the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, all humans fall within the deadly serpent's grasp when they are permitted to eat from the Tree of Power. What has made America so very special is that We The People were given sole possession of the woodman's axe, to use on any tree and any snake and any treasonous pretender - and we were given the full authority and duty to forever keep a watchful eye on every person to whom we grant temporary authority or power in our sacred Garden of Democracy.

Our unique and blessed form of government allows us - nay, demands of us - to always keep a razor-sharp eye on every leader, up to the very highest levels, including not just presidents but also the Upper Echelons above our presidents; who operate quietly, stealthily, hidden behind the scenes; who will always try their best to manipulate our Democracy and our people, for their own gain. Our magnificent US Constitution fully grants us the power to take back any and all temporary authority that we have granted to anyone, and to put any of them - elected or otherwise, from any dog-catcher to any CEO of the most powerful multi-national cartels or any power-elite - out of office, or out of power, or in chains, or in prison for life, or even on the gallows, if warranted.

As was said by our fellow Patriot, Thomas Jefferson, "The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance." That means vigilance not only against foreign armies or foreign intruders or foreign terrorists, but also vigilance against anything and everything that is foreign to the values, freedoms, governmental powers, and checks-and-balances upon which this great nation was founded.

Fortunately, despite the many changes on the landscape of America between the days of Patrick Henry and Patrick Q. Henry, we still possess elected representatives who are sworn to abide by our wishes. If the words you have read above have aroused any thoughts or emotions within your heart and soul, then now - now - is the time to write and call those representatives, early and often, and loudly, before it is too late. As you read these words, the US Senate and Congress are debating what to do about the USA Patriot Act before it expires at the end of January, 2006; whether to revoke it, diminish it, expand it, or make it permanent. Considering the fallible human beings who will always reside in our precious Garden of Eden, in our noble Sanctuary of Democracy, which outcome to those debates would you like to see happen?

May God bless you, and may God Bless America.

Patrick_Q_Henry@yahoo.com