"They call them terrorists now."

[kag]

For a fourteen-year-old, my son is pretty politically astute. He watches Rachel Maddow and Jon Stewart, reads about American and World history and studies politics and religion on his own time...for fun. Today he asked his dad and me about what happened in Congress with regard to the Patriot Act. My husband began telling him, but quickly launched into a tirade (as he often does), blasting the Republicans for passing the Patriot Act in the first place. His rant went something like this:

"They scream about 'small government' but then they go and pass something that allows the FBI and CIA to wiretap your phones without a warrant, and lets the government look at your library records! They go see that you've been reading a bunch of books about Communism and the Soviet Union, so they conclude that you MUST BE A COMMUNIST! And God forbid we have COMMUNISTS in this country...!!"

My son listened calmly until this point, but then stopped him. "Dad!...Dad!" And when he finally got my husband's attention, he said. "Dad, they call them TERRORISTS now."

Like I said. Politically astute.

[virgogal]

1. Now there's a kid that's going to go places.

[Luminous Animal]

2. I hope your son also understands that the vast majority of Dems voted for the PATRIOT ACT.

http://educate-yourself.org/cn/patriotact20012006senatevote.shtml

[kag]

3. Oh, he's pretty aware...

of the hypocrisy coming from both parties, and of the corporate slavery that controls many (most?) of our elected officials. He doesn't really have a hero in American politics (except maybe his dad).