Three cheers for Chris Dodd:

• U.S. Senate postpones consideration of spy bill (Reuters)
• Harry Reid — compare and contrast (Salon.com)

So I’m in the States again, visiting family (again), and while I’m genuinely pleased to be here it’s a little bit odd to be immersed in a two-party zeitgeist. It’s not that I didn’t see it coming — I’ve been paying rather obvious attention to American politics — but it’s different on the inside.

Fortunately, the combination of naked avarice on the part of the Bush 43 administration and craven cowardice on the part of each and every opposing Democrat leader has made some of the sports-team cheerleading seem rather (realistically) hollow. For example, this FISA bill thing.

See, back in August, the Dems passed a FISA bill that gave Dubya &c. more powers than they’d requested… and essentially raped the Fourth Amendment. Now, nine months and change earlier, a clear majority of American voters gave the Democrats some sort of a mandate to end the dubious war in Iraq (which they haven’t), curb the Executive’s more egregious breaches of civil and personal liberties (which they haven’t), and so on. When Reid and company passed the aforementioned FISA bill, they touched off a shitstorm of protest that may well cost them the White House in 2008. (More on that later.)

Now, American politicians are (at least technically) permitted to have consciences. Moreover — and unlike their Canadian compatriots — they’re allowed to act upon those consciences every once in a while. And fortunately for those of us who don’t enjoy having our doors kicked down, Chris Dodd reached into his trousers, grabbed his balls, and filibustered a new FISA bill that would grant retroactive immunity to telecomm companies that had (need I say it? illegally) spied upon their customers at the behest of the Bush 43 government.

This does not, of course, mean that the Fourth Amendment is out of danger just yet. The FISA doesn’t sunset until early next year, and it’s entirely likely to be renewed with even more odious provisions than it has already accumulated. Still, it’s a nice thought.

Now, about that filibuster: you might remember that the Democrats control the Senate these days. Yeah, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada — enough caps for you? I’m just being respectful) tried to push this damn bill through. (You might recall that the Congressional Democrats recently caved on yet another Bush 43-dictated budget. Go team! That’s going to hit the Senate in the near future. We can only hope that Sen. Dodd will still be there: one hand wrapped firmly around his gonads, and the other grabbing the microphone in a death-grip.)

You might have heard the name “Chris Dodd” before. That’s probably because he’s running for the Democratic nomination for President. He’s not alone: three other Senators with “D-” in front of their names are doing the same. However, Senators Obama, Biden, and Clinton were missing in action — still on the campaign trail, while Dodd did what he was elected to do. (The Huffington Post indicates that Obama, Biden, and Clinton offered “rhetorical support” to Dodd’s filibuster. Isn’t that just special?)

This adds particular weight to an editorial coming out of the most self-spied-upon nation in the world:

• At last the great divide is coming into focus (The Observer)

It’s not left versus right that matters any more. The real division is between authority and personal liberty.

Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich (and the sadly mostly-forgotten Mike Gravel, and now perhaps Chris Dodd) have more in common with each other than they do with whom they ostensibly share a party.  These fine people choose essential liberty over temporary safety (for the most part… each has campaign planks with which I strongly disagree) and do so without apology.  They choose liberty over authority, freedom over statism.

On the other side of the coin, neither mainstream party lacks for candidates — depressingly popular candidates — who value authority over freedom, coercion over liberty.  (Clinton; Giuliani; I’m looking at you.  Not exclusively, of course.)  It’s easy to see why this is the case: government represents power (in much the same way that free enterprise without competitors represents money, and government, unlike most corporations, has no competitors within its market) and there are a lot of things that government can do, at least in theory.  This makes the gratuitous use of governmental power irresistible to those who dearly want to solve their neighbours’s problems… but I’ve ranted thus dozens of times before, and once more isn’t going to make much of a difference.  Suffice to say that I try my damndest to avoid government “assistance” out of self-preservation, not misplaced pride.

In any case, kudos to Chris Dodd.