[Sten]

I am still going to say it is important to watch the government. You QPs are all used to working with the best and brightest. That is not the case for the rest of us, as a general rule the vast majority of government is staffed and directed by the merely adequate.

This is not a left right issue. I am not attacking POTUS or the White House; I am asking to closely watch all politicians. The political animal (left, right, liberal, conservative, commie, socialist, libertarian, all of them..) is scum who would sell any of us out to get reelected. I am not comfortable letting that person have a free hand with my rights (or my pay check or my family or or or.). I am watching the erosion of the 1st, 4th, 5th and 8th amendments and I fear that the second amendment is not going to be far behind. We have to draw the line on what we are going to give up to the Muslim extremists.

We as a nation have to be ever vigilant of our rights and freedoms or we will loose them. As it stands now we have good people fighting a good fight. I am more concerned down the road if people who are not so scrupulous have such a free hand. What is to stop a political party from using the NSA to gather some intel on their opposition party? You are going to say that is nonsense and liberal whiny crap but it is a pretty common tactic in South America/old Soviet/Chinese politics. List your opposition as a terror or rebel group and then destroy them. It is not out of the realm of possibility here, is it?

The GWOT is the most complex military/social problem to face our nation in a very long time and it is not going to be solved quickly or easily. If we are going to give up freedom for security I would like to vigorously debate that trade off. It is easy to give rights away; it is very hard to get them back.

Our government is for the people by the people, we need to remind the jackasses in Washington of that sometimes.