One good thing I can say about Barack Obama winning the 2008 presidential election is that John McCain has basically faded into irrelevancy. But every so often McCain feels the need to remind America that he’s still alive (which is kind of shocking when you look at him) and to reaffirm the fact that he is still a total asshole. During one of his recent interviews McCain decided to give us his opinion on the surveillance state:
“It’s the world we’re living in. You don’t like it, but everything I say I expect to be recorded,” McCain told Patrick. He went on to defend its place in the lives of American citizens:
“It’s just the way we live. It is something you’ve got to accept. I don’t particularly like it, but it is what it is.”
McCain dismissed a poll that showed 53% of Americans believe that their phone calls are being recorded. When asked by Patrick if they are, McCain laughed, “no, no.”
“Young people aren’t particularly happy. We’ve forgotten a little bit about 9/11, and how if we’d intercepted the right communications we might have prevented 9/11,” McCain continued.
So we just have to accept it? I’ve got news for McCain, we don’t have to accept shit. Thankfully we have the tools to render his beloved surveillance apparatus impotent. And if McCain expects to be recorded I say we give him what he expects. Let’s follow him around 24/7 with cameras, tap his phones, and stream everything he does on the Internet for all to see. I guarantee that he won’t enjoy it and will sick his thugs on us for violating his privacy and harassing him.
Let’s also take a minute to talk about the 9/11 card. It has been pulled out every time the state wanted to implement some new draconian law that infringes on our supposed rights. After 12 years of infringements the card has worn thin. Especially when you consider that the vast surveillance apparatus currently in place hasn’t foiled a single terrorist attack. If the system hasn’t managed to foil a terrorist attack in 12 years it’s pretty hard to claim it could have foiled 9/11.
I can’t imagine what four years of McCain would have been like. OK, I can. It would have been exactly the same as the first four years we suffered under Obama but without Obama’s pretty bitchin’ speech writers (while the man’s policies are crap I must admit that he did hire some excellent speech writers for his first term).
When someone is in favor of amnesty for criminal aliens, I don’t have much use for his opinions about how an attack by terrorists who weren’t in the country legally could have been stopped.
You missed one thing he may have done right if he’d been elected president – we’d probably have someone better than Sotomayer and Kagan on the Supreme Court.
I actually doubt it. McCain is probably pleased as can be with Sotomayer and Kagan. They’re right up his alley.