Skeptic Project

It's not that they weren't allowed, it's just that hardly anyone chose to. The damn thing was like 1400 pages long.

This whole argument is misleading, though. Members of Congress rarely read bills they vote on, regardless of what the legislation is or how long they have to do it. That's what staffers are for. Typically a staffer will be assigned to read the text of bills and write up the main points in an executive summary. Then the Congressman/Senator makes a vote decision based on those summaries, sometimes after spirited discussion with other members of Congress, at which staffers are usually present.

I haven't researched it but I'm quite sure that in the case of the PATRIOT Act (technically it's capitalized, it's an acronym) some poor 19-year-old staffer was tasked to stay up all night reading it so his or her boss could vote on it in the morning.

This is an example of where the mechanics of legislation can and usually are misconstrued, by the general public no less so than conspiracy theorists.

I need staffers for this site.

I don't think we get enough traffic on the forums to actually warrant more moderation.

I don't think we need a moderator. Only 2 people have ever been permanently banned in the entire history of this site. Not exactly a lot for moderators to do here.

I was making the joke that I needed someone to read everything for me.