I'm as patriotic as the next person, maybe even more so if the next person is the cashier at my local convenience store which still doesn't seem to employ REAL Americans; but I digress.

Anyway, the rules for being a patriotic American were always a little bit fuzzy prior to 9/11, so I thank God (can I still thank Him in America?), that our President and his Attorney General took the time to put it all down in writing.

What's really amazing is that they were able to encapsulate everything that it actually means to be an American patriot, and get it all written down and passed by Congress, only 6 weeks after the World Trade Center was blown all to hell by some decidedly un-Patriotic non-Americans. It took our founding fathers a hell of a lot longer to write the Constitution than it took Bush, Ashcroft and Haliburton, I mean Cheney, to "un write" it. But, there I go digressing again.

Since we've become a "sound bite" society, let me save you the trouble of reading all 131 pages of "Constitution II, the Sequel" AKA the Patriot Act.

Here's what is says in summary:

"There are lots of bad guys in the world and we just found out that they existed on September 11, 2001. Some of those bad guys live here in the U.S.A. Some of those bad guys might even be YOU. In order to protect "US" from "YOU", we're going to check up on YOU, from time to time, to make sure that YOU aren't doing things that YOU shouldn't be in an attempt to hurt US".

"Further, if we even suspect that YOU might be doing bad things to US, then we might haul you away in the middle on the night and hold you, without charges, for as long as we feel like it and you can't talk to a lawyer because YOU might be a terrorist and terrorists don't have any rights".

It goes on to say...

"In an attempt to avoid accidentally confusing Patriotic Americans with Unpatriotic Americans, we're going to appoint a neutral third party, the FBI, to monitor your e-mail, medical records, library accounts, video store rentals, internet activity, land line and cell phone conversations, bank and credit card records, and whatever the hell else we think is appropriate, all without probable cause. And, if you complain about it, then YOU must have something to be afraid of and that "something" just might be that you're unpatriotic".

So, there you go. Just print out this article, add "I Agree" and sign it so you too can be a Patriotic American.

However, if you REALLY want to be a Patriotic American then you should also join the Army and go to Iran so you can help liberate their citizens from a repressive regime that monitored and controlled their every movement, hauled their citizens away in the middle of the night without charges, and held them for as long as they wanted. But then, there I go digressing again.

This article was posted on September 09, 2005