A front-pager at Shakespeare’s Sister who lives in Illinois has the response that he received from Senator Obama. It is not good.

Russ Feingold is the only Senator who has opposed every one of these power grabs from the USA PATRIOT Act forward.

The last time FISA came up, both McCain and Obama managed to be missing.

I’m not sure you can do much with this bill, as some bills are immune to anything except a vote. I know it works that way with some appropriation bills after they come out of a House/Senate conference committee, and that may be the Senate rule for all bills coming from a conference report. I’ll have to see if I can find out.

No offense taken, and I took your comment (I believe) in the spirit it was given — a recognition that the founders understood that violence may be, at times, the only recourse left.

Now, the most urgent questions for all reading this are:

Have you contacted your Senator about the FISA Bill?

Have you contacted Sen. Obama?

These are the actions required of us here and now, as well as calling the citizenry to join their voices with ours.

But the thing is, non-violence requires courage. And I haven’t seen a whole lot of that from Americans lately, who are too fat, too lazy, too bought to care about anything other than where they’re going to get their next fix of black gold from…

In the end, we get the government we deserve. Alas.

I inserted “non-violent” because:
1) I believe that our aim — preserving the Constitution — is better achieved through the political process at this juncture. I believe that the combination of pressuring our elected leaders and rallying public support is much more likely to succeed than any violent alternative.

2) I wanted to note that while, as Jefferson, et al. stated:
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.,

they also warned us that:
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

It is conceivable that the danger is still transient, and that public activism will turn the tide of authoritarianism that in rising in our government. While there is an appreciable chance of correcting this usurpation through the political process, the founders of our nation told the world that we should suffer the evil in the interim.

Of course, the founding fathers went on to say:
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

The question before us is this:
Will the existing Guards for the security of our rights be sufficient?”

It is our obligation to exert every effort to make them so. If we try our best and fail, then the next step is laid out for us.

…because THAT is what it will take.

They should at least match your commitment today, if not your level of commitment when you took an oath to support and defend the Constitution.

and that they probably think I go overboard when I perceive threats to it.

If they do, they are wrong, for you don’t.

This administration’s attack on our Constitution is the gravest threat the nation has faced since the Civil War, and it is far more insidious than that massive, armed uprising against the lawful government of our nation. The threat is grave, and it calls for the strongest possible non-violent response.

There doesn’t seem to be a legitimate purpose, so there must be an illegitimate purpose.

I would also note that there those who worked on the language of the bill and those who are only voting on the bill. The first group is trying to subvert the Constitution.

The second group may have, among its members, a wider range of motives for voting for the bill. I suspect that sloth and indifference play a role for some of them. I suspect that a desire to conform and not rock the boat plays a role for some of them. I suspect that a desire to please particular donors, particular constituents, or the party leadership plays a role for some of them.

To some extent, some of those in the second group are susceptible to public pressure. While the odds of our succeeding are long, it behooves us to apply the pressure however we can. Emails, phone, Fax, all are useful tools. But we have to speak out to those in the Senate who we might sway.

We need to urge the Senators to not just vote against the bill, but to support and take part in a filibuster to stop the bill, if need be. We need to urge them to amend the bill to strip the egregious provisions (or at least as many as they can), to amend it enough force the bill through additional deliberation (i.e., to stall), and/or to amend the bill to the point we would expect Mr. Bush to veto it.

As I said, this is a long shot. But the Constitution of the United States of America deserves our support, especially at this time that so many of our elected leaders are abandoning it.