Civil liberties when they're civil!

That's the attitude of the President and his men. Civil liberties when people are civil. Since the war on terror will never end civil liberties will never be as robust as they were before 9/11. You don't really know what you have until it's gone. I used to go a local chinese restaurant for years. Then one day it was closed up and cleaned out. One of the worst days in my cranky life. The same is happening with your civil rights, your individual freedoms and if you believe the polls (I don't) people are happy to not be bothered by the slow death of their freedoms.

Do you think power mad theocrats say, "We are now going to take away you rights so the government, that is us, can protect you from evil-doers. Yes we become a country governed by the whims of men and not laws but hey if someone has to have absolute power it might as well be us." No. The death of liberty in free societies happens slowly and by secret decree. Sometimes public decrees which are all based on the argument that it's just a temporary situation and when things go back to the way they were then the rights will be restored. They won't. No government or agency willingly gives up power or budget authority. People become desensitized. It becomes the norm for cameras to record you all day or spy agencies to listen into your phone calls or FBI agents to read through your tax records, medical records and credit card receipts. If you asked people "would you allow random searches of you, your car, your house and your office if it would stop another 9/11 attack would you agree to it?" I'm sure a majority would say, "yes." That's the sadness of it all. People don't know what they have until they don't have it anymore. And then it's too late. You can't go back. And W and his goons only go forward into a future without real laws you can actually look up in black and white to know what the rules are. They just make the rules up as they go along.

Ask yourself another question. If The Bill of Rights were brought up for a vote today would W and his Republican lackeys in Congress support them or just half of the Second Amendment? Losing my Chinese restaurant was traumatic enough. My right to be left alone by the government to read, write, blog, talk, watch, spend and travel where I want is non-negotiable. I guess extremism in the pursuit of liberty really is a vice. It's the vice of the Vice, W and the Republicans who would support anything they want to do including giving them a line-item veto of the U.S. Constitution. Remember W telling us endlessly that "they hate us for our freedoms?" Apparently W hates us for our freedoms too.