Paul's Blog of Wisdom

The typical liberal reaction to the Bush administration's policies regarding civil liberties vs. security is one of vitriolic denunciation. Ask a liberal about the Patriot Act or the wiretapping controversy and they'll start foaming at the mouth as if the world is going to end. Remember that these are policies enacted by an elected President who is Constitutionally barred from seeking more than 2 terms and who is subject to democratic checks and balances. The Patriot Act, for instance, is about to come up for a renewal vote in the Senate, while top leaders of Congress knew about the wiretapping. On the other hand, one common liberal reaction to the Mohammed cartoon controversy is to denounce the cartoon writers and to self-censor by refusing to print the cartoons. They say that we shouldn't "provoke" Muslims by showing the cartoons and that these cartoons "didn't do any good." I find it rather shocking that so many liberals get so stark-raving crazy in response to what are very small restrictions on our civil liberties enacted during a time of war by a democratically elected government and that can thus be changed by a future democratically elected government, yet they seem perfectly fine just voluntarily giving away one of our most cherished rights, that of freedom of speech, in response to a few psychos. This is not all liberals, of course, but it seems to me that these have been the "typical" liberal reactions.