Stop the country, I wanna get off

Slowly over the course of the Bush administration -- and, in all fairness, related movements involving his religious allies -- I've watched in disbelief as feelings of sadness, shock and revulsion overtake me.

I'm a progressive, a liberal, a democrat, and, yes, a patriot, and I can no longer tolerate certain trends in our society that roll back so much of the progress made in the second half of the 20th century.

Conservatives and liberatarians can also feel this way. Andrew Sullivan, a man I admire and often disagree with, nonetheless has led in the fight against torture and prisoner abuse, and I consider him -- Brit though he may be (has he become a citizen?) -- a fellow patriot in the larger sense and certainly an ally in the good fight.

Though I may wander off-point from time to time, the theme of this blog is meant to be the striving to reclaim our moral compass, especially as it pertains to torture policies, the erosion of rights under the Patriot Act, the endangerment of all our rights under the guise of "fighting terror," the manipulation of media for nefarious -- okay, read political -- purposes, the anti-intellectual movement and, finally, the watering-down of our Constitutional protections under a false guise of "strict constructionism" -- read "our kind of judicial activism."

Oh, and don't be surprised if I fight stores such as Wal-Mart that force artists to change the lyrics of their songs to get carried on their shelves or Target, which now places the religious beliefs of its pharmacists above the dispensing of legal, FDA-approved prescription drugs.

That's a New Normal we can't live with.