Intelligence gathering declared "Too Icky" by media/left
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Right now the propriety of spying as a tool of our security apparatus is being attacked by people who would truly love to empty the CIA and NSA. They are unwilling to even countenance the possibility that a single innocent person's call from an old buddy in East Goat Rope, Afghanistan may be overheard by a bored-stiff linguist at the NSA.
If an al-Qaeda operative in Karachi phones someone in Paris, France and tells him to go to the US to carry out an act of terrorism – obviously the President would have the authority to listen to that conversation without a warrant.
But if an al-Qaeda operative in Karachi phones someone in Paris, Texas and tells him to go to Houston to carry out an act of terrorism -- the President would not have that authority to listen to that conversation without a warrant?
In other words, once a terrorist lands on American soil he must be given additional rights, including an expectation of privacy when he gets a phone call from Osama bin Laden.
That's as concise an explanation as anyone should need. The problem is that those who oppose this vital function do so with the same depth of conviction as pacifists oppose war, any time any place any where. They believe spying is wrong and the idea that a blameless freedom-loving, American could be eye or earballed just because they showed up on a jihadi's speed dial is abhorrent.
It tends to be the same anti-war folks doing most of the caterwauling, although domestic spying does rile up libertarians too. There is a loud element of the left that is vehemently opposed to force of any type used for any reason. I don't begrudge them the sentiment, but it is an unrealistic ideal in a world where far too many don't share it. And they are the ones who act on their inhumane impulses much to the detriment of the meek. This is by far the crappiest planet I have ever lived on, bar none. Evil people exist in every civilization and dominate some to the extreme 
misfortune of those oppressed. Sadly this requires that any wishing to live free band together and take measures to ensure their safety.
Beyond an inability to even comprehend the danger, the left is fundamentally against virtually every method of combating it. Flash to the best counter-protest sign ever from Protest Warrior.
Now our internal opposition lives in such safety that they are unable to perceive the threats lurking out in the ugly parts of the world. They sit frozen by the loss of their transit, whining into a $6 cup of freakin' coffee about the greedy transit workers, oblivious to the extent they rely on others to run their world. Those of us who have trekked the hinterlands following the varied treacherous swine who wish us harm, see things a mite differently. Mostly we remember the soul-crushing poverty and misery caused by the depredations of tyrants worldwide. Starving kids, torture, rape, murder and all-around reprehensible evil, that is what forms the fabric of my world view.
I wish we lived in the world the Progressives see from their eyeholes, because it would be marvelous. I mean in that world kids were flying kites and eating ice cream in Sadaam's Iraq, just imagine what things are like in the good old US of A. Just a bunch of organic-farmin', pacifists living in harmony and setting a positive example for all those with bad intentions. If this were so, I would be running grass-fed Herefords and distilling my own Bourbon, happy as a pig in slop. But that just doesn't jive with what I have seen and consequently action is required.
The media/left have shifted fire since victory in Iraq seems likely even to them. They are now aiming at dismantling our entire ability to know what threats are arrayed against us and to actively interdict them. The entire enterprise of intel gathering is distasteful to their mentality and they have shown no inclination to concern themselves with the harm to our security, those sheepdogs out there will handle that problem, right? They indulge their offended sensibilities and leave the heavy lifting, which they are blissfully unaware of, to the brutes standing watch outside. Then they retire to sip wine and long for a world where these idol-worshipping, un-cultured proles would just shut up and let they, the UN and the EU run the planet to the betterment of all.
Not on my watch! And the nice thing is if they ever really did get too far along in sucking the life out of our security apparatus, there's always that good old second amendment. WOLVERINES! Oh wait that was the Russians wasn't it? Well maybe not all that different, although I would much rather face Progressive paratroopers than Russian ones.
I think everyone is predilected toward either yin or yang and that when applied to world view this explains how a dove and a hawk can look at the same world and have irreconcilable views of it. The question is whether the dangers hawks see are real, and if so can we afford to hope they will simply fade away if we get our Karma squared away?
Sounds like Matt over at Froggy Ruminations has his cones chafed by the same garbage. H/T Bloodspite
- Uncle J