New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie takes on civil liberties, domestic espionage, and the
stupid Founding Fathers.
“And there are going to be some who are going to come before you and are going to say, ‘Oh, no, no, no. This is not what the Founders intended,’” he said. “The Founders made sure that the first obligation of the American government was to protect the lives of the American people, and we can do this in a way that’s smart and cost-effective and protects civil liberties. But you know, you can’t enjoy your civil liberties if you’re in a coffin.”
That Patrick Henry fellow offered up
give me liberty or give me death. Christie disagrees.
Christie still seems to consider himself a presidential contender, God knows why, which was why he was in the Live Free or Die-motto-having state of New Hampshire. (No word on whether their motto also has to go. Perhaps it can live on under a Chris Christie presidency as an ironic reminder of the before-times.) Like the other Republican candidates, he appears to be running on the need for more of everything that 9/11 brought us; more surveillance, more Patriot Acts, more money and more dying in more wars, and in general more of the pants-wetting terror that is required of the general public in order to stomach the things each of these Republican candidates want to do to them. So Christie is breaking out the have you forgotten 9/11 card, which he presumably nicked from under Rudy Giuliani's pillow.
“The thing that’s demoralizing to me is I think there are so many sectors of our country who haven’t forgotten 9/11 -- everyone will always remember 9/11 -- but have forgotten what 9/11 felt like,” Christie said. “I can remember a week afterwards, they canceled our kids’ soccer games for a week. The next week, we had soccer. I can remember standing on this big open field in our suburban town in New Jersey, and an airplane flew overhead, and we all jerked up and looked up. We never used to do that. And we don’t do it now. We did it then. That’s what I’m talking about. What did it feel like for us? That’s what terror does to you.”
Don't you wish we could feel like that again, America? That we could go back to blind panic over little things, and pass bizarre laws, and just trust our leaders to do whatever the hell they wanted? Don't you miss the fun times of calling anyone who opposed the Republican administration a traitor, or anti-American, or telling them that they did not understand 9/11 like
you understood 9/11?
You can almost hear the wistfulness in his voice. Good times, they were. A conservative could really get things done back then.