BankRate.com is reporting a story about the use of financial transactions being used to track down terrorism.  Of course, our anti-American partners at MSN are, of course, lapping up the story like a dog to a toilet bowl. 

The article states:

According to their rules, any group of transactions totaling $5,000 or more that “is not the sort in which the particular customer would normally be expected to engage” can cause enough suspicion to create a SAR [Suspicious Activity Report].

Having engaged in more than my fair share of transactions last year that involved more than $5000 on a weekly basis, and having had my fair share of “irregular” bank transaction requests, I can state that I more than likely have one or more of these reports generated about me and suprisingly enough, I’m not cowering in a corner waiting for the feds to bust down my door.  Now, if I had engaged in any illegal activity, I am sure I’d be singing a different tune. I also appreciate the fact that our government is trying to track possible terrorist activities and I’m thankful that we have a President who is willing to do what is necessary to meet that need.

It seems to me I remember some certain “Jersey Girls” complaining:

I watched my husband murdered live on TV. . . . At any point in time the casualties could have been lessened, and it seems to me there wasn’t even an attempt made.

Among other things, they charge that nothing was done in a meaningful timeframe to save anyone’s life, that the delay was on purpose, and that [President] George Bush was responsible for the deaths of three thousand people.

I actually can understand the sentiment and complaints. I can even sympathize with the rationale, but these same women are complaining when we do try to gather intelligence.  Democrats are proud to bring up the intelligence failures of 9/11, but are also quick to leak intelligence to ensure failure again in the future — and they wonder why they lost the Presidential election as well as the House and Senate in 2004?

Now, I’m certain I’ll be attacked for taking this stand, but I want to get one thing straight. I don’t believe that the government should be so involved in our lives either.  I think that we have let the government etch itself too deeply into our way of life. Let’s not forget that the government was never intended to control so much of our lives.  Instead, we’ve perverted it to do so and now we are paying the consequences of those decisions.  Socialism has crept into our society years after we supposedly defeated it.  We’ve put the burdon of our every-day lives onto the government and now that the government is taking what we have given them over the years, we are going to complain? 

You cannot have it both ways. Either you have a government that is in charge of distributing wealth, protecting citizenry, giving “free” health care to “everyone”, establishing what is moral and what is not, literally robbing from the not-so-rich and giving to the not-so-poor, educating our children (if you can call it that) and caring for our every need, or they can be a thin layer of government that conforms to the will of the people and doesn’t have the ability or business of prying into our every day lives.

The news has been reporting about China’s President Hu visiting Seattle, its businesses and, of course, Bill Gates’ home. What wasn’t widely publicised was the number of protesters in the area. Monday night, I had to run back up to my office and grab some paperwork I left in my desk. On my way up there, I saw several protesters at the corner of 40th and 156th in Redmond. Their banners decried alleged ill treatment of Falun Gong supporters, and, of all things, communism. Having only been in the Puget Sound area for a short while, I find myself wondering how this can be. They don’t call this side of the continental US the ‘left coast’ for nothing. That puts us square in the center of the pro-socialism crowd. So again, I ask, what are these people complaining about? This is what this side of the country yearns for — complete government control over what you can and can’t say at what time, in the presence of what company and with what tone. If government were a drug and communism were crack, socialism would definitely be cocain — the perfect gatway drug to ease you into the rest of your useless life as a crack adict. So I say, put your banners down and bring peace to this riddled puget sound area. Quit rocking my boat! The government of China knows what is best for their people and has every right to tell people what they can and cannot do with their money, their children, their weapons, and, of course, their voice. And don’t you worry with programs like social security, medicare, medicaid, welfair, unemployment, national endowment for the arts, Department of Education, FCC, minimum wage, income tax, tarrifs, gas taxes, sin taxes and the like, you will never have to worry about forming your own opinions on what is an appropriate income at retirement, what drugs are best for you, being responsible at work, painting something that someone is willing to pay to look at, what your children are and are not allowed to learn, what your radio DJs are and are not allowed to say, how much crack a single mother of four can afford to buy while holding down a part time job at McDonalds, how much you are allowed to earn for yourself, what you are allowed to buy from other countries, where you can afford to travel, or what habits infringe on another person’s rights so much that you have to pay extra for the right to continue it. Isn’t socialism fun?