Don’t Expect Tea Party “Libertarians” To Care When Real Liberties Are At Stake
I’ve never been a fan of pointing to a singular event and trying to show how it can lead to a national nightmare. The U.S. is a pretty big country, after all. But over the last few days, there have been several stories of Americans having their liberties infringed upon. They include:
- British Petroleum threatening to arrest CBS reporters trying to investigate the Gulf Coast oil disaster.
- British Petroleum holding injured workers captive until they sign a waiver.
- An unemployed man getting indicted for “harassing” Sen. Jim Bunning with several irate e-mails.
- Several Marylanders face felony charges for recording their arrests on camera,
- The Transportation Security Administration says it’s keeping records of people who make its screeners feel threatened as part of an effort to prevent workplace violence.
The term “slippery slope” is often misused. Because a man can marry a man doesn’t mean a man will then marry a duck. But it shouldn’t be hard to see the slippery slope that leads away from blithely taking away the rights of American citizens. And don’t expect bank-account “Libertarians” like Rand Paul to care much. As long as their civil rights and the rights of corporations are protected, then that’s all they need.
And when you see the Tea Partiers clamoring for lower taxes and fewer black U.S. presidents, be aware that they very likely have no idea any of those incidents even took place. They have their conspiracy theories to work on and are too busy to notice when people really have their liberties infringed upon, would be my guess.
But while totalitarianism isn’t around the corner, just know that in a corporate-run U.S. where civil rights are often looked at in disdain, there will be more of the above incidents. And the U.S. is certainly not too big of a country to see its citizens lose true liberties.
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