Most of my fellow Tea party friends are against the Patriot Act.  Until today, I thought that opposition to the bipartisan bill which has helped us stop more than a few attacks was isolated.

A piece in the Wall Street Journal today suggests otherwise.  The 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which reaffirms the President’s authority to try terrorists in military court, is, to pacifists and Tea Party folks alike, outrageous.

So much so that states are reacting.  From the Wall Street Journal Story: “This month Virginia became the first to forbid state employees from ‘assisting’ the feds ‘in the conduct of the investigation, prosecution, or detention of any citizen” under the provisions of the NDAA. This means that as of July 1 in Richmond a state trooper could not arrest the likes of the late Virginia cleric-turned-terrorist-recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki because he might end up in a military brig. A U.S. missile targeted and killed Awlaki in Yemen on Presidential orders, but Virginia police couldn’t detain him.’”

When the Tea Party started, the object, I thought, was to reign government in and return it to its proper and limited tasks, one of which is protecting the nation.

Now, it seems, some in the Tea Party have decided to treat terrorists the same way that the Left treats illegal aliens.  That must change.