You say potato, I say potahto

I woke up one morning about 12 months ago and the strangest thing happened to me.

I felt "violated". I had no idea how much until later that day.

As recently as today I've been in a long-running discussion of civil liberties with various people of differing opinion. Apparently while I wasn't looking, the President snuck in and stole my civil liberties right out from under me. I seem to remember my grade school history pretty well, and I do believe prior to the American Revolution noted statesman Patrick Henry spoke of liberties and said, "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing."

Wait, that may have been Vince Lombardi. I'm always getting those two mixed up. But speaking of getting things mixed up....

Lets see. We have freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom to ignore Janeane Garafolo.

Shall we discuss? Lets start with this freedom of movement thing. That morning last year I arose early because I had to go to the airport to take a flight. As I re-read this, I can see the stupidity of my last sentence. Where the hell else would I go to take a flight? In any case, I had to wait in line approximately 3 minutes to get through the screening. Needless to say - I was furious. Think of the things I could have done if I didn't have to spend all that time in line: I could have been setting the world's fastest mile record; I could have boiled an egg; I could have exhausted my time limit in a rousing round of the Parker Bros. game "Taboo". But not on this morning. No siree mister...I had to wait in line forever just so some person could check my shoes to see if I had a bomb. How silly is that??? No one would ever try to hide a bomb in their shoe. How come these people don't seem to know this? I'm beginning to think there may be something to this civil liberty theft after all.

Freedom of speech. The night before the airport debacle, my wife told me to shut up. I was pretty upset about it, especially after she informed me that the new provision in the Patriot Act covers spouses telling each other to zip it. That incident wasn't the clincher though. Another strange thing happened. As I was getting in my car to go to the airport, I was talking to myself. For the record, I'm prone to talking to myself a lot. This time it was different though. I distinctly heard the whir of a camcorder, a tape recorder, or possibly even both. In discussing this later while attending a toothpaste taste test focus group, others in the room said they had a similar if not exact situation happen to them. It was starting to add up. The bastards were up to something, but I was on to them...or so I thought.

I was on here blogging the next day. Every time I typed the word "Rumsfeld", it came out on the screen "Dean". I typed R-u-m...the monitor said D-e-a. I checked my keyboard (right where I knew it would be), and unplugged and re-plugged every cord I could find.

After I got the lights turned back on, I re-typed the name again. R-u-m-s...D-e-a-n. Unreal. And theeeeeeeeen, it hit me. I wasn't on to them. They were on to me. I no longer could control my keystrokes. I ran down the hallway and entered the office of my "Save the naked Sea Otters" co-worker. I pushed him out of the way, spread out the expanse of organically grown ferns, and typed on his keyboard: R-u-m-s- and looked at the monitor. R-u-m-s-.

Oh my God. They had me. Frantically, I ran to the bathroom and tried to compose myself. Exiting the restroom in a cold sweat I was wondering if they had some kind of James Bond type mini-camera hidden in the two-way mirror. They had me from all sides now - why not there as well?

And that was just me...and I'm a conservative. Imagine how the rights of others are being crushed every day.

Yes ladies and gentlemen. I'm here to tell you first hand about my experience. I woke up one morning about a year ago and the strangest thing did happen to me.

Nothing.