*sigh*
There is a very strong history of things being enacted, repealed, then enacted again when more favorable. Each time it gets enacted, it becomes easier to re-enact it, and harder to repeal it. Take for instance, the afore mentioned War Powers Act of 1940. You assert it was repealed. Yet, only 30 years later, a profound push to limit executive power was enacted by congress. AND-- Here we are yet again, another 30 years later, with the patriot act.
There's a rather nice demotivational poster that reads "No single drop of rain believes it is to blame for the flood."
What does that mean, and how does it apply to the current situation in the USA?
Well, aside from the Right, championing bigger and bigger incentives to multinationals so that they can leave the country, set up tax shelters, use cheap foreign labor instead of domestic labor, and other such things, and the Left's insistence that the coffers should be treated as endless (with endless raises to the debt ceiling), and that social reform programs are untouchable-- (That's just the current fiasco) we also have the Left with Dianne Feinstien and pals
insisting that the patriot act is just wonderful, needed, and that FISA is perfectly good as ovesight, we also have
the people who actually wrote the patriot act screaming NO! at several FISA orders, and with
bipartisan support both for and against the extension of the act. (before snowden data releases) After snowden released his documents,
There was a push to combat the powers of the executive to collect surveillance data on american citizens, which ultimately did not succeed. The push to repeal is not very strong, because there is a climate that government surveillance of citizens is "Normal", and "Necessary."
Interestingly, the people opposed to the data collection strongly correlate with the body of persons heavily vilified in this thread, being predominantly house republicans. (just note the names in the above articles and pages.)
In addition to this, you have the rather unusual circumstances under which the ACA (The lynchpin in our current boondoggle) was passed. Namely, It was passed in a lame duck session, immediately prior to losing control of the house, and
the action itself contributed heavily to that change. The arguments about this from the Left, citing things along the lines of
"It's law now bitches, you cant change it, and we refuse to negotiate on the matter!", even in the face of
some pretty serious allegations of impropriety in the process of its supreme court validation.The people most strongly in favor of repealing the patriot act are also the people most strongly in favor of undoing the lame duck legislation that is the ACA, and the current vigor of that disagreement may very well pan out that the congress is lost in the upcoming election cycle. At that point, the major voices against patriot act will also go away, replaced by either unknowns, or voices that support. At that point, we are essentially guaranteed it will persist for quite some time.
This kind of intractable situation where ideology and penis waving (Left: HAHA! We got away with a sneaky! The Supreme court told us it was OK! NYA! Right: Fuck you, we wont let you get away with it, no matter what! even if that means burning the nation down!) instead of actual rational argument and eyes toward upholding freedoms, upholding oversight, and above all, upholding integrity and responsibility, that I vehemently denounce both groups of capitol cronies.
Under this trend, the Patriot Act will likely never be repealed. If, under this trend, a president is allowed to become a dictator, he will not relinquish power. Historical precedents for such things strongly favor the negative outcome.
It does not matter how many times you have had anal other freaky sex. Those are non-sequitors. We have the equivalent of the Alien and Sedition acts right now, alive and well inside the patriot act. It's back, and it has a new trick-- Officious government is 10 times as sick as the last time, the last time you saw it; now you know why the people abhor it.