Patriot Act is Essential

Fire of Liberty
Thomas Sowell has a wonderful column on how silly the various Senators, Congressmen as well as the MSM have gotten over the so-called "Dangers" of The Patriot Act. In his typically brilliant fashion, Sowell notes that the nervous nellies seem to come out of the woodwork claiming how the The Patriot Act was an over-reaction to a threat that never materialized thus it should be scrapped in the ash-heap of history. As Sowell notes, these people fail to realize that The Patriot Act - that they want to dismantle - is the reason why terrorist disasters have been averted. Here's a small part of Sowell's column:

Let us go back to square one, to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, which were the reason for passage of the Patriot Act.

Do you remember how long every major public event -- the World Series, Christmas celebrations, the Super Bowl -- was a time of fear of a new terrorist attack? Do you remember all the advice to stock up on medicines or food, so that we could ride out any new terrorist onslaught?

Do you remember all the places that terrorists were expected to strike? The different colors of national alerts being announced regularly?

Now, after years have passed without any of these feared disasters actually happening, the eroding of a sense of danger has led many to repeat the polio fallacy and act as if the dangers from which we have been protected did not exist -- and that the enhanced protection is therefore unnecessary.

The many crackdowns on domestic terrorists under the Patriot Act, as well as the ability to intercept and disrupt their communications under the powers of that Act, receive little or no credit for the fact that there has been no repetition of anything like 9/11.

At least Sowell, President Bush and the people of the US understand how precious The Patriot Act is for the safety of the US.