Let’s look at some violations of civil liberties.<\/p>\n
Can you tell the difference between these ten gross violations of civil liberty?<\/p>\n
I can. 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 are things the fringe-left in the Twin Cities are positing as their worries for the Republican National Convention, which is coming up in about 18 months. All of them, in the fevered imaginations of these fringies, are like bayonets aimed at the civil liberties of left-of-center protesters who will gather in their hordes for the RNC. And all of them, as far as anyone knows, are pure imagination (beyond the measures the Secret Service takes to safeguard all <\/em>presidents, regardless of their party).<\/p>\n 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10 are all real-life infringements on civil liberties that are in effect or proposed throughout and within the US right now – campus speech codes, McCain\/Feingold, restrictions placed on anti-abortion protesters at Planned Parenthood clinics, gun control measures that attack the law-abiding gun owner, and the mainstream Democrat push to reinstate the “Fairness Doctrine” to muzzle talk radio.<\/p>\n I don’t like any <\/em>of them.<\/p>\n I just wanna make sure we’re clear on that.<\/p>\n ———-<\/p>\n I’m a genuine civil libertarian. I’m a constitutional constructionist. I support all ten <\/em>amendments in the Bill of Rights; hands off my speech, my church, my group, my firearms; keep your troops and unwarranted searches out of my house; don’t take my property, life or liberty without fair, due process, and keep your federal government out of my state, local and personal decisions.<\/p>\n I am demonstrably more fervent about genuine <\/em>civil liberty than the vast majority of those who’ve been caterwauling about the issue since John Ashkkkroft was sworn in as Attorney General (before which most of them thought “libertarians” were toothless banjo-playing redneck tax protesters). I ran for office<\/a> as a big-L Libertarian, in 1998). My credentials as a “civil rights first” conservative are vastly more solid than those of the “quit being rude to terror suspects” sect of the movement that’s been grabbing the headlines for the past few years.<\/p>\n So for the record; protest. Dissent. Go to the marketplace of ideas with vats of roiling ire.<\/p>\n And remember, always – your rights (like mine) end where mine begin. There is no right not to be offended (and have no fear, I’ll mix it up with any of you, and win every time, rhetorically speaking), and I certainly don’t ask not to be. Neither should you, of course.<\/p>\n ———-<\/p>\n