Civil Liberty Football

"Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an
increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why
privacy should give way to national security, to law and order, to efficiency of
operation, to scientific advancement and the like."
--Justice William O. Douglas (1898-1980), U. S. Supreme Court Justice

So many liberals were and continue to be up in arms about supposed infringement on “civil liberties” because of the Patriot Act that was pushed through after the terrorist sneak attack of 11 September 2001.

The administration was severely pummeled and pilloried because of this. George W. Bush is routinely likened to Hitler, and it has been said so often that it almost appears to be a given in much of America’s psyche that he has taken the country on a turn toward fascism.

Around the world, “journalists” and pundits with agendas have picked up on this notion, and continued to perpetuate the myth.

I don’t buy it. I don’t buy that the Patriot Act put our civil liberties at risk, and I don’t buy that the administration seeks totalitarian rule or anything close to it.

Purported threats to Civil Liberties, like everything else in Washington, is just another political football. It is a false notion that resonates amongst the “sheeple”, and is useful to beat the opponent down with.

Take Sen. Chuck Schumer’s latest cause:

Senator Chuck Schumer wants to amend the immigration bill to require you to get a new Social Security card with biometric information imbedded in it. Creating this new card would . . .

• Cost $9 billion (before the usual government cost over-runs)
• Require the Social Security administration to hire an additional 60,000 employees
• Require you to spend time getting the new card
• Require you to give the central government sensitive personal information

In the past only criminals had to supply the state with things like fingerprints, DNA, or retinal scans. Now, if Schumer gets his way, law abiding citizens will have to do it too, just for the privilege of earning a living.

Meanwhile . . .The people this card is supposed to control will continue to live
underground, work on the black market without papers, or forge documents. The
real control will be over you, not them.

-- Source: www.downsizedc.org

Now, if that isn’t a direct and unwarranted threat to our civil liberties, I don’t know what is. Indeed, a “dagger through the heart of our traditional freedom*”. But it isn’t the “evil” administration of George W. Bush proposing it, but a darling of the left, a complete liberal, the senior senator from New York. Bet we won’t hear much liberal bloviating about this amendment!

When you play political football these days, right and wrong don’t matter. It all has to do with who has the louder cheering section.

* Hat tip: WSJ’s Best of the Web and James Taranto