I don’t know if I’m more impressed by these people’s tenacity in defending their position even as it circles the drain, or horrified that they’re willing to grab up weapons like these in order to avoid having to admit they were wrong.
– Brian Tiemann commenting over on Cold Fury regarding comments on Gabriel Syme’s recent post.
Tieman’s comments are spot on.
It amazes me that so many libertarians generally fall down and start writhing when the topic of John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act come up. Yep, we sure are treating foreignors who break U.S. laws tougher, and if an intelligence service catches you planning a terrorist act, they can hand the information over to the prosecutors… with these changes it’s amazing any of us have any freedom left at all. In all seriousness, if you check out libertarian fora in the U.S., like the blog at Reason.com, you’d think that libertarianism is actually an outpost of the Workers World Party, such is its constant borking of conservative and right libertarian thinkers.
Meanwhile, the EU is about to take regulatory control over your person. You are about to lose the unqiue things that make Britain, Britain. This passes nearly without comment.
I’m really glad everybody cares about the mote of dust in our eyes here in the U.S. but the beam in yours probably poses a more immediate threat to you…
I watch big brother