Civil Liberties

Do not believe that they can be threatened by a few methods only.

The inimitable Victor David Hanson has the details.

It is stereotypically easy to identify authoritarians who seek restrict civil liberties during war in the name of "national security." But it is much harder to take on crusading special interest groups, district attorneys, court justices, and liberal Senators who ignore, twist, or subvert our constitutional freedoms under the liberal clarion call of helping minorities, stopping the war, or championing the underclass.

If we are to lose our civil liberties, it won't be all of sudden due to Patriot-Act zealots in sunglasses and flattops, but rather insidiously and incrementally by egalitarian professors, moral crusaders, muckraking journalists, and government utopians all unhappy that constitutional justice is too little and too late for their ever impatient desire to ensure heaven on earth.

Comments

[Greg]

I agree 100% with the above statements. I am curious to know if you see any civil liberties being curtailed and infringed on, and if so who do you feel is the culprit? I personally feel that things have swung too far in the name of security and while I can blame those that have done these things, the biggest fault lies with ourselves or those who have sat silently as these things have happened. I am curious as to how those who on different from my philosophy how they view this most important issue.

[Peg]

The so-called "Fairness Doctrine" is a terrible infringement on our free speech rights - as is "McCain-Feingold." Forcing children to be sorted according to race in schools is another.

Of course, McCain - and President Bush, who signed McCain-Feingold are Republicans, but other abuses on the Right recently are keeping people in Guantanamo indefinitely. I do think that they ought to have military trials.

Good that we have 3 branches of government. When one goes too far, others are there are back up.

[Greg]

I was actually commenting on the infringement of civil liberties, such as the spying on American citizens, and the silencing of those who dissent from the President. The issues of the "Fairnes Doctrine", and your take of the Supreme Court decision has nothing to do with civil liberties. They are just red herrings to keep people stupid, pacified, and ignorant of the pressing issues that confronts this country. How does anything you just said deal with the first line of the text that you highlight?

"It is stereotypically easy to identify authoritarians who seek restrict civil liberties during war in the name of "national security."

Remember it was Ben Franklin that once said

" Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

[Peg]

Greg - there is hardly a civil liberty more precious than our right to free speech. Both the "Fairness Doctrine" and McCain-Feingold crush that right.

Doesn't get more basic than that.