Hard Right
[2013-06-11 09:23]
Lately, there has been a lot of kerfuffle about the NSA data snooping programs (PRISM, et al). I'm, oddly, glad that some Republicans are supporting the President in this, because to do otherwise would be completely hypocritical (and I'm really sick of their hypocrisy).
Those who believe that these programs make Obama as bad as Hitler, Nixon, or whomever, please remember that it was the Republicans who tried to scare the country into thinking that Obama would NOT support programs like these and that America would be destroyed as a result.
Case(s) in point:
During the 2008 Presidential campaign, McCain noted that Hamas endorsed Obama, suggesting that Obama is in league with terrorists.
Republican talk show host, Hugh Hewitt, warned that the US probably "gets blown up by the Islamists under Obama."
In a mock letter Focus on the Family Action suggested that, if Obama were elected in 2008, by 2012 "terrorist bombs [would] have exploded in two large and two small U.S. cities, killing hundreds, and the entire country [would be] fearful, for no place [would seem] safe."
In Manchester, NH (2007), Rudy Giuliani warned that Democrats would be weak on terrorists, if elected:
�I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense,� Giuliani continued. �We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense.�
Emphasis, mine. The gist of this accusation is that NOT using electronic surveillance is a bad thing which will lead to more attacks on America.
This fear-mongering has had an effect because there are many people who buy it. In looking for links to these things, I ran across many comment sections where people echoed these fears, such as this post in Yahoo Answers:
If Obama is indeed elected the United States will cease to exist. Terrorist will attack our Country and Obama will not know what to do. They will attack us because they are not afraid because they know that Obama will not do a thing about it.
Obama's main crime, it seems, is trying to appease these fears. But if a large portion of the US demands that he do these things, isn't he duty-bound to do so? I think it's highly unlikely that Obama went to the NSA/CIA and asked for a program to gather and mine Internet data, and more likely that the NSA/CIA went to Obama and claimed that we needed to do these things. No doubt there are NSA/CIA employees and contractors who share the fears and irrational dislike of Obama of that Yahoo commenter.
So, yes, I think programs like these need to be managed and scrutinized very carefully, if allowed at all. And yes, I a little disappointed that Obama could not or did not oppose using such programs. But the push for these programs (and the fear-mongering to justify them) seems to be coming from the right, not the left, which is why fascism is traditionally on the right side of the political spectrum.