Appropriately your choice of Mencken proves my point and contradicts yours. Heaven forbid that my government agree with my ideas. Just as long as it agrees with yours. Right?

Given that the Bush administration has adopted and enforced your theories on justice and security I’m at a loss to see who is more idiotic, you (and your ilk) or the moron we call a president.

It’s been fun. Best I leave you all in your play pen. Mind you don’t drool on each other.

H.L.Mencken

Your comment merits no further response.

I’m afraid your knowledge of history is as poor as the other disciplines you play with so casually. No noble intentions in the French Revolution? Try “liberty, equality, fraternity”. These three words continue to guide the constitution of the French state and have since informed almost every revolution against the “tyranny” you profess to despise (but would happily have us live under - so long as it’s painted in your political colors).

Your nod to the vagaries of historical determinism is equally banal. I guess I wasn’t born under a bad star or government. But that doesn’t mean I should acknowledge my “good fortune” and keep my mouth shut when those in power corrupt the law to their own ends. Or should I, so long as they pretend to know as much as you do and claim to be acting in my best interests? I suppose that’s a “privilege” you all enjoy for being so well tutored.

I’m afraid loyalty to tin pot tyrannies does not allow for the freedom of expression you profess to believe. As to my reading list, I assure you it’s not made up of right wing polemicists and other assorted ignoramuses (none of whom have ever had to fight for the “privileges” they enjoy either).

Frankly, if I am the “seed” of my own destruction, your are the repeating loop of your own befuddlement. Do please respond as you’ll only prove my point.

Just try to keep in mind, while on your high academic horses, that there are actually people fighting to defend your ability to pronounce your self-righteous judgments about civil rights!

I claim no “expert” knowledge of law and god save me from claiming “expert” knowledge in politics, but I sure know where my loyalty lies and why. Do you? The historical events you reference, I’m afraid show your clear bias in historical interpretation - which is all but understandable - after all, nothing is more biased than history. Ask Putin! And thank your lucky stars - no, thank the administration you so despise - that you were not born at those times when you would have been executed for treason! People are sacrificing their lives so that the likes of you can lax lyrical about democracy and Rights. These are not rights. They are Privileges! i.e. you’ve got to earn them!

Judging by the political bias of your comment, you should be all too familiar with Marxist dialectics, so if I say to you that you are the seed of destruction of your own system of beliefs and values, it should make sense to you at least theoretically, no?

p.s. There were no noble intentions in either the French Revolution or the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe. I suggest you widen your reading list!

Civil rights and civil liberties have evolved over the past 1,000 years with the purpose of protecting citizens from the excesses of rulers and governments.

Abolishing these “limits” in the interests of “national security” doesn’t advance the security of the individual or that of the state. Rather, it undermines both, resulting in the tyranny of the few and the dubious legitimacy of the “state”.

The French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe, the continued Chinese occupation of TIbet, the rise of the ayatollah’s in Iran - I could go on but I think these examples suffice as evidence of how governments’ “good intentions” result in violence, intimidation and fear.

Alas, your argument smacks of the very obfuscation the Bush administration has used to assault the two things philosophers should hold most sacred - truth and the dignity of man.

Your a priori / a posteriori thesis holds little moral or philosophical water. In fact, it’s laughably absurd. The environments we live in are always uncertain. My next door neighbor may be a mass murdering serial killer intent on my demise. Of course, I don’t know that for sure but I’d improve my sense of security 100% by killing him first, right? Such arguments would make dictators and terrorists of us all.

The fact that you consider the Patriot Act Bush’s most “enduring legacy” shows you know as much about politics and political accomplishment as you do about law.

If human life is so sacred to you, you should learn to defend the laws and norms that make it so, and not abandon them to flawed rhetoric.

Alas, if the past eight years have taught us anything it’s that there are few things more dispiriting than seeing intelligent people defend ideas that are so incredibly dumb.