Apostropher has a revealing quote from Representative Chris Shays (R-CT):
“My party is demonstrating that they are for states’ rights unless they don’t like what states are doing,” said Representative Christopher Shays of Connecticut, one of five House Republicans who voted against the bill. “This couldn’t be a more classic case of a state responsibility.”
“This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy,” Mr. Shays said. “There are going to be repercussions from this vote. There are a number of people who feel that the government is getting involved in their personal lives in a way that scares them.”
Meanwhile, Sisyphus Shrugged documents the strange alliance between conservative Republicans and the ACLU, brought together by the overreaching provisions of the Patriot Act:
It was a Washington rarity to see the American Civil Liberties Union line up with conservative lions like David Keefe of the American Conservative Union and former Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga. But they were among those at a Washington press conference held to assail such Patriot Act provisions as those allowing law enforcement agents to look at library users’ records or to conduct unannounced “sneak-and-peek” searches on homes or private offices.
“It is not, and never should be necessary, to surrender our rights under the Bill of Rights to fight the war on terrorism,” said Barr, who as a House member voted for the Patriot Act, which passed overwhelmingly in the House and provoked only one dissenting Senate vote.
I think the Democratic campaign philosophy in the next few elections should be obvious: smaller government. A government that is more responsible, less intrusive, more humble. Under the Bush administration, the national debt has escalated alarmingly; we have become aggressively unilateralist abroad, alienating people worldwide; protections of the privacy and human rights of citizens have been steadily eroded; and the federal executive and legislative branches have been increasingly willing to trample on prerogatives of the states and the judiciary. It’s time to put some grownups in power who know how to balance a budget and will keep their noses out of people’s personal lives.