Disclaimer: this is a very US centric political rant; it may or may not apply anywhere else.
It seems to me that both major
political parties in the
US have turned
away from the idea of
individual liberties. The
Democrats (I refuse to
call them "liberals" until they start acting
liberal again) are busy trying
to turn the internet, and by extention our entire nation into a
police state,
where
big brother reads your
email, listens to your
phone calls, and
monitors your movements by tracking wireles phones. If I wanted that,
I'd move to
China, thank you very much.
The
Republicans have become
so thoroughly entangled with the
Christian Right that their policies sound
more like a sermon than law. The
government should have better things to do
than trying to ban anything that offends
sunday-school teachers. By this I
mean that neither congress nor the states should be able to pass laws
effectively banning
homosexuality, extramarital sex, controversial "art",
mandating
internet filtering, or banning books from public libraries.
The most terrifying laws, however are passed when
Democrat and
Republican
alike work together to further the intrests of large corporations. Read
the
DMCA and tell me that it was passed for the benefit of the people.
Where is the representation of the
common citizen? Which
elected officials are looking out for the rights of the
people? Are there any left? Does anyone care about our rights anymore? Or
do you just blindly believe
the party line that the
latest invasion of your
privacy is really intended to fight
communism,
terrorism, or make your life more
convenient.
Update: two years later
In the weeks and months after the terrorist attack of 9/11/01, even more privacy-trampling legislation has come out of
congress. Expanded wiretapping authority for the FBI, cooperation between the
CIA and
FBI, the infamous
USA-Patriot act, and the like prove that we are all to ready to hand over the freedoms we've enjoyed for generations in the name of the "
war on terrorism". Oh, the irony of taking away freedom in the name of defending it...