Grayson rips ‘bootlicking’ Bashir!

From the video:

Congressman Alan Grayson (D-FL) takes on MSNBC host Martin Bashir after the anchor likens him to the NRA for daring to criticize NSA activities and compare what they’re doing to North Korea or Nazi Germany.
BASHIR: Congressman, aren’t you being as counterfactual as the NRA when you invoke North Korea and Nazi Germany? I mean, the NRA says a bill which prohibits a gun registry is actually an echo of Hitler. And, of course, you’ve mentioned the Nazis in connection with the NSA.

GRAYSON: Martin, let me ask you, how do you feel about the fact that the government is keeping a record of every single phone call you make? Are you happy or unhappy with that?

If you wouldn’t mind, sir, I’m merely here to ask you certain questions. And our viewers have no interest in my view. They’re interested in your view as he an elected member of Congress and responsible member of Congress. And what I’m asking you is do you think you were being as counter factual as the NRA by invoking Hitler and North Korea?

GRAYSON: Martin, you are completely missing the point. The point is that we’re taking measures that are not correlated in any sense with our safety. And even if they were, it would be beneath our dignity as human beings. That’s what this is all about.

Listen, you could always make people safer by taking extreme measures. For instance, if we lowered the speed limit to 10 miles per hour, people would be safer. If we outlawed knives and forks, people would be safer. If we made everybody everybody fly on the airlines naked, people would be safer. None of those things corresponds to my sense of human dignity. And I think I’m not the only one who feels that way.

Later in the segment, Grayson says it is irrelevant who is president because this is “about us.”

BASHIR: Mr. Grayson, do you find it a little bit galling to see conservatives who embraced these programs and in fact far worse and now they suddenly have a problem with this because, of course, there’s a Democrat in the White House?

GRAYSON: Well, yes. But again, that’s beside the point. This is not about President Obama. This is not about Snowden. This is about us. This is about our conception about how we want to live as a free people. And again, it grossly offends me to have a government surveilling individuals’ e-mails, their photos that they post online, every single telephone call that they make. That is not my sense of the kind of country I want to live in. That is not America. It’s irrelevant whether people are pinning this on President Obama or not. It’s about us.