“So we should restrict our own freedoms and liberties, which you say we are defending, in order to prevent the enemy from using them to destroy our freedom and liberties?”
I didn’t really say that, but in ANY war, we have to accept some kinds of restrictions on our activities which we would normally oppose. We did that in the Revolution, Civil War, WW1, and WW2. We didn’t in Viet Nam, which is one of the reasons we lost.
“Just because you say it’s a culture war doesn’t make it so.”
Its more people than humble me who have stated that and in very clear terms, and a good many of the speakers were our enemies themselves. Facts speak for themselves. Only the blind refuse to recognize them.
The Civil War and WWI were unjust wars that were fought to increase the size and scope of Government; the Civil War was NOT over Slavery, but over the South's Constitutional right to secede. Lincoln the Dictator did a bang-up job of birthing big government.
WWI - We had no dog in that fight, and we lost hundreds of thousands of men for no good reason. It did, however, allow the USG to try out strong controls on the economy for the first time.
A restriction of civil liberties was not necessary during WWII, with overwhelming support. The threat of Japanese subversives is entirely unfounded.