I love you Russ Feingold

"'What the administration has said is that when it comes to national security, the problem is that the Democrats have a pre-9/11 view of the world,' Feingold said. ' . . . The real problem is that the president seems to have a pre-1776 view of the world. That's the problem here.'

Russ Feingold
-Washington Post

"We all also had our own initial reactions, and my first and most powerful emotion was a solemn resolve to stop these terrorists. And that remains my principal reaction to these events. But I also quickly realized that two cautions were necessary, and I raised them on the Senate floor the day after the attacks.

The first caution was that we must continue to respect our Constitution and protect our civil liberties in the wake of the attacks. As the chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, I recognize that this is a different world with different technologies, different issues, and different threats. Yet we must examine every item that is proposed in response to these events to be sure we are not rewarding these terrorists and weakening ourselves by giving up the cherished freedoms that they seek to destroy.

The second caution I issued was a warning against the mistreatment of Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, South Asians, or others in this country. Already, one day after the attacks, we were hearing news reports that misguided anger against people of these backgrounds had led to harassment, violence, and even death.

I suppose I was reacting instinctively to the unfolding events in the spirit of the Irish statesman John Philpot Curran, who said: "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance." "

-From his speech Oct. 25th 2001.
He voted against the Patriot Act.

I need to get more political.
This may mean more political rants than personal ones, I'm sure you won't mind.