The Patrioc Act is not Patriotic!

When the United States, with our coalition partners, invaded Afghanistan, there was a direct link between who and where the enemy was. When the United States, without global support invaded Iraq, we were no longer fighting those who were responsible for 911 and in fact created more enemies than we had before. We are in far more danger of a terror attack on U.S. soil for having gone into Iraq.

The Patriot Act (who would want to vote against anything named that) was supposed to provide intelligence agencies greater investigative tools to protect U.S. citizens. But the actual content of this Act allows for the very violation of our constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties. The means does not and cannot justify the ends.

I do not want, for example, a suspect tortured to gleam information that may or may not protect me from another attack. What ever happened to “two wrongs don’t make a right.” Didn’t we learn that in kindergarten?

For a brief time, I worked for Dr. James Dobson when his headquarters were in Pomona. The first floor housed the largest room in the facility. It was where all the minimum-wage worker bees received and opened up correspondence, orders for material and books, and worked the phone banks receiving orders and donations.

There was an entire wall (2 stories high) that showcased happy families playing in a park, eating a meal together, and spending quality time together. Time and time again, however, management would pressure these minimum wage employees to work six days a week, Saturdays, and overtime (10-12 hour days) to keep up with the demands of the Christian public who "needed" help from Dobson's "Focus on the Family."

Almost all the employees in this area were working moms. Our morning break had been turned into a bible study and we were “encouraged” to participate. One morning, during what was suppose to be our break, our supervisor passed around a sign up set for the week's overtime. A mom with 2 kids failed to sign up and was berated in front of everyone for failing to do her Christian duty. I grabbed the sheet and pointed to the “wall of happy families” and said “Don’t you think Jesus would want this woman home with her family?” I was later counseled that I had taken “The Lord’s name in vain” and would be receiving a letter in my file. I gave my two weeks notice and left.