Meanwhile, the U.S. Government is using the "ideological exclusion provision" of the Patriot act to bar perfectly peaceful people from the United States because they may express points of view that the administration dislikes. These are the actions of a totalitarian state.

"These are the actions of a totalitarian state."

Can't be emphasized emphatically enough.

The U.S. we thought we knew is already gone. The terrorist's brutal and horrifying tactics have done precisely what they were designed to do : Created a culture of fear, mistrust and oppression, bankrupted the treasury, shattered world opinion, mired us in war and destroyed the moral compass set forth in the Constitution.

No one seems to want to take up that call because of the political repercussions, but the bottom line is that it WORKED. That's the scariest, saddest, most depressing thing I can think of. For all the fine words and heartfelt sympathy for the victims of 9/11, the plot was allowed to succeed. Not the plot to kill people in the buildings, the preventability of which could be argued over for an eternity, but the plot to shake the Nation's very foundations loose from their moorings. We're adrift in a very fundamental way, and it's heartbreaking.

The Two Malcontents » U.S. Border Patrol Bars Canadian Psychotherapist Andrew Feldmar