[Indie]

One of the best editorials I've ever read on FIP and terror. It is still very much relevant today.

[Prime Choice]

But that's what the Bush administration and Congress have asked of Americans -- to give up essential liberty for safety that's not even guaranteed. By not being fully appreciative of the fact that it's Washington, not Osama bin Laden, that represents the greatest threat to both liberty and security, we've gone along with the agenda.

Where were all these Franklin-quoting Champions of Liberty when our Second Amendment rights were (and still are) being annihilated on the altar of "public safety"?

Try undoing the long-held anti-gun attacks on our Constitutional Right to Keep and Bear Arms before griping about TIP and the Patriot Act.

[concerned about politics]

I'm not a member of America's sissified generation.

The only nation keeping Israel from being wiped off the face of the earth? Is this author an ungreatful Democrat? Yes.

Exactly what "right" has this author lost? None, unless he's planning his own terrorist attack.

[dr_lew]

Benjamin Franklin warned, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

This remark of Franklin's is universally misconstrued. The occasion of his making it pertained to the powers of the nascent governing body of colonial Pennsylvania, not the civil liberties of the colonials. The governing body wanted to float a bond to finance a militia for the purpose of suppressing Indian raids, and the English Colonial overseers told them that the term of the bond must be 10 years and not 20 years ( or something like that. ) Franklin's admonition was meant to inspire the governing council not to back down in the face of their English masters. He meant that they should not buckle under to the Penns out of anxiety to raise the militia.

It's a very great stretch to apply this sentiment to the niceties of criminal law as we have come to know them in our own time - something quite alien to Ben Franklin.

[AppauledAtAppeasementConservat]

"Europe might be a U.S.S.R. satellite by now."

Williams is a smart man and wonderful commentator. How he doesn't see that the EU is the NEW and IMPROVED Russia I can't understand.

[squidly]

I remain unaware of any liberties I've lost, with the exception of the assault weapons ban.

[Captainpaintball]

One of the best editorials I've ever read on FIP and terror. It is still very much relevant today.

I agree. It is outrageous when the administration would be more distrustful of its LEGAL CITIZENS than those responsible for 9/11.

[RLK]

Had former President Clinton made the same proposal, conservatives would have greeted it with open outrage -- but since it's Bush, shoulder-shrugging indifference carried the day....

------------------------

This is a pattern in everything.

[ppaul]

WMD?

AP Survey: 61,000 Baghdad residents executed by Saddam

[Squantos]

Kinda interesting.............Stay Safe !

[Atlas Sneezed]

Your needlessly excerpted article is linked to the current article, not the one you posted. I wonder how it concludes.