[geeks] 4th Amendment Gone

[Joshua Boyd]

On Thu, Apr 01, 2004 at 08:31:21AM -0500, Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:

> > > How can Congress not be allowed to see it before they vote?
> > 
> > They were allowed to see it, but they were only given a few hours to
> > read a several-hundred-page document.
> 
> So they were irresponsible, again.
> 
> They should have refused to vote if they didn't have time.
> 
> Silly me, expecting my representatives to have a brain and give a damn.

They have a brain and they give a damn about some things.

For instance, the normal person would refuse to vote on something they
hadn't read.  The smart person would realize that come re-election,
their opponent would make them look bad for not voting PATRIOTicly, and
if the politician said s/he didn't have time to read it, their opponent
would then cast them as too lazy to read about important PATRIOT things.

The smart politician who gives a damn (about its career) is the one who
would vote for it.  It is the not so smart ones, or ones with a very
unusualy constituancy that would do otherwise.