This was sent to a conservative Republican representative by Bill Peach, a novelist who lives south of Nashville, TN.

If you have thoughts about the Patriot Act,
send us a note
and we'll share them here!

I will share with you an E-mail I have sent to Representative Blackburn to assure her that there is no terrorist threat in Williamson County:

Marsha,

Pursuant to the successful defeat of the Sanders-Otter amendment I will continue to keep you informed on my reading and video rental habits.

[This was a bipartisan amendment to the House of Representatives bill that funds the Justice Department. It would have barred the Justice Department from using federal funds to search bookstore and library records under the USA PATRIOT Act. In a fairly tough power play, the Republican leadership of the House kept the voting open until they could press enough of their party members to change their votes, staving off a legislative defeat for the President.]

Earlier this week, I watched a DVD of Bowling for Columbine. This might elude detection by Blockbuster since it was checked out by one of my daughters and would not show up in their records in my name.

I don't know if there is a provision within the Patriot Act for information relevant to movies seen in a theater. Last week, I went to Thoroughbred 20 and saw Fahrenheit 9/11. I attended a 4:30 showing (during daylight hours) and was seen by Senator Jim Bryson who was attending another movie. He told me he was going to see "something funny" which I assumed would not be Fahrenheit 9/11, though it did have elements of comedic dialogue.

I don't know if I need to share this information with Tim Chavez, Phil Valentine, and Steve Gil. Locally, I have reported this to my friend Hugh Dupree, Chairman of the Williamson County Republican Party.

I still have the three library books that I previously mentioned to you, including the one on the history of the ACLU and the ones on liberalism and civil liberties. These are due back on July 14 at which time I will choose other books. I will send you a list of those titles. I may include one conservative title just for diversity. Library records reflect only physical possession of books and do not verify actual reading of the printed material.

I did recently purchase one book from Franklin Booksellers. I attended the book signing by Scott Roley and purchased an autographed copy of God's Neighborhood. This book, as the title suggests, has religious overtones. However, the religious references seem to be bipartisan, including both Republican and Democratic images of Christianity.

I realize that all this information is obtainable through Homeland Security, but I do feel an obligation to keep you apprised of potential subversive thought within Williamson County. This seems to be a philosophical upheaval, not just the quadrennial insurrection of proletarians and infidels. Williamson County seems to have a growing presence of intellectuals, artistic types, radical students, secularists, middle-income Episcopalians, liberals, African-Americans, Jews, Hispanics, and some folks who are just not our kind of people. I don't think any of these are potentially subversive or even unpatriotic, but I frequently do hear utterances of dissent. We try to be tolerant of dissenters as long as they retain their allegiance to the First Amendment. But, we are keeping a list; and we know who they are; and we know where they live--even by precinct.

Bill Peach
Franklin, TN

The author

Bill Peach is the author of a novel about his childhood, entitled South of Boston. This Boston is a crossroads in rural Williamson County, now one of the wealthiest suburban counties in the country; because of this it has become a stronghold of conservative Republicanism. His religious heritage is in the Churches of Christ, our Southern non-denomination. He is involved in historic Downtown Franklin; he and his wife own and operate Pigg & Peach, a men's clothing store in Franklin. At some time he received a bachelor's degree from Middle Tennessee State University "after thirty-four intermittent years of college."