Patriot Act Ramification at Home

Oy. Talk about being torn between the unending battle for civil liberties and the desire for public safety…

First let me say that I absolutely hate tweekers. The only good tweeker is a dead tweeker. That may sound harsh and cold, but it is my harsh, cold opinion. Don’t share it if you don’t want to, but it is mine and I doubt I ever abandon it. Tweekers suck, and that is, in my point of view, more than a bumper sticker. It is immutable fact.

That fact established, how did the Patriot Act, enacted to combat terrorism after the attacks by Islamic fundamentalists against the World Trade Center, become a tool to combat domestic drug manufacture and distribution – among a population that on balance couldn’t find the Middle East on the map? (Ever met a tweeker? White trash deluxe as a general rule.)

I am all in favor of battling methamphetamine manufacture, distribution, addiction and abuse. I just want it done on the up-and-up, and I have serious questions about how legislation written to combat terrorism by Islamic extremists, based in other countries,
morphed into something that city and county law enforcement agencies now have the right to use to override the basic rights of ordinary Americans.

The thing is, I could get behind this ephedrine-control legislation, and even back the Republican senator from Missouri who sponsored it, if it were a stand-alone bill or part of a properly debated and vetted package that funded and/or regulated law enforcement agencies that operate at the state and local levels, and proper consideration were given to the various facets of the issue that are likely to escape Federal lawmakers sitting in their ivory towers overlooking the Potomac. I don’t think it takes a federal official long, especially a Senator with a six-year term, to forget the folks who sent them to Washington to begin with.

I also have a few concerns about federal limits on over-the-counter cold remedies. East of the I-35 corridor, where the majority of Americans live, outside of a few very remote and inhospitable areas, it is difficult to find a point that is more than a mile from a roadway; and pharmacies, groceries, general stores and mini-marts are not located at points far separated on a map. Most people east of the Missouri River/I-35 corridor will not be hardshipped by this new measure. But West of these demarcation points, a different picture emerges if one looks carefully and considers the various aspects.

I have lived in a handful of states from Kansas on west, and worked in healthcare all the while. I have taken my turn at public health clinics that serve rural areas of these states once a month tops. I know of families in Oregon who live on ranches along the Snake River who get provisions and mail once or twice a month from a boat that comes upriver and drops off what you ordered last time around, and delivers the stuff bought on ebay and from Amazon. Then the pilot departs after delivering the news that didn’t make the local papers or Yahoo! News.

I “know” families in remote regions in the wilds of Idaho, Arizona, and Nevada who only venture into town for provisions two to four times a year. I realize that this is a small constituency, and many (most?) of these separationists don’t vote, wanting instead merely to be left alone to see the life they were issued for this mortal coil lived out the way they themselves see fit, and everyone else can go hang, but I still fear that they will be unfairly punished by this specious provision of questionable legislation. What they think about the likes of me notwithstanding, I give a care about them because they are human, and I am in the business of caring.

Let me say here that for a leftie, I cleave pretty strongly to the concept of states rights. I’m not a typical leftie. I have voted for more than one Republican in my day. Nancy Kassebaum remains, to this day, the finest Senator who ever represented me, and the elected official I remain the most proud to have cast my ballot for. Hell, I never passed up a chance to vote for Bob Dole, either, because he was a good Senator and the Dems in Kansas never offered up a sacrificial lamb that I felt could do even half the job of representing the state Dole did. Apparently I’m not alone, because bleeding Kansas, one of the reddest of the red states, repeatedly sent these two back to Washington with 65% of the vote in a state that isn’t that divided if the voter registration roles are to be believed.

Back to states rights: I live in a state that has already moved pseudoephedrine, as well as other cold and allergy drugs behind the counter and requires proof of identity before allowing purchase. At the state level, I strongly supported this measure, calling e-mailing, and writing state legislators of both political stripes – we only have two here in Missouri – and our Republican governor – to pass and sign into law the act that mandated these actions on the part of pharmacies and retail outlets. States that have passed similar legislation have seen a precipitous decline in the bust of meth labs, and trust me, it ain’t because the cooks have gotten more clever, it’s because the main ingredient of their illicit product has been placed just slightly out of reach of the nefarious.

I don’t have a problem with the states enacting virtually identical legislation to combat the meth problem.

I do have a problem with the feds tacking it on to the Patriot Act. The feds are notoriously ham-handed, insensitive to individual plights, and imbued with a form of tunnel vision that prevents them from seeing the train that is about to impact the side of the school bus. In other words, I trust the states (slightly) more than I do the Feds to make appropriate provisions and exceptions to the laws they enact.

Call me paranoid, but I have been called worse…I adhere strongly to the dictum that all that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to stand idly by as the evil enacted by the less forthright unfolds. I see the erosion of civil liberties in the big picture, as it appears on my personal monitor, and legislation like the Patriot Act shook me to my civil-libertarian core, even before they started tacking on provisions to battle domestic nuisances.