Where have all the civil libertarians gone? Nat Hentoff does what he can with the forum he has, and Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are about all that's left in Congress. The country has tilted strongly in a get tough/law and order/three strikes you're out direction. There is little or no sympathy for the imprisoned, even when DNA evidence proves their innocence. The fact that a defendant is considered innocent until proven guilty is only mentioned now when a celebrity or wealthy person is on trial. A staunch reluctance to see justice done runs through the entire legal profession as well as the general public at large.
We've become all too willing to grant police, judges and prosecutors the kind of power that no human being should have. "Power corrupts," as the classic nineteenth century civil libertarian Lord Acton noted. Every week, we can see new examples, on You Tube and elsewhere, of police officers caught on video tape blatantly abusing their authority. Where are the so-called "liberal" politicians speaking out about this obvious problem? Is anyone, even Reps. Paul or Kucinich, demanding more oversight and accountability for law enforcement officers?
The simple fact is we have too many laws and too many Americans in prison. The answer is not to make it easier to imprison more of them, for longer periods of time, for things that were formerly legal. The drug "war" has been a monstrous failure. The average citizen has little awareness of and less respect for the Bill of Rights than ever before. For a country that boasts constantly about our affinity for "rugged individualism," we place a depressingly unimportant value on individual rights. The Thought Police that Orwell warned us about are just around the corner, and more citizens each day wouldn't object in the least to their presence.
Classic liberalism is all but dead in American politics. The term "liberal" now describes a hack career politician who is devoted to mouthing empty, bureaucratic rhetoric to a few special interest groups. No one fights for the civil liberties of each individual citizen any more. Few seem to care about the injustices inflicted upon others, as long as it doesn't directly affect them. "There but for the grace of God" seems an antiquated expression now, especially among those who consider themselves religious. Civil liberties are crucial to the survival of any free society. From my quiet corner of the internet, here's a toast to civil libertarians.
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