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re: absurd argument
TB — (archived)

You might have noticed that I haven't been posting as much in political areas lately. I came to realize that about 90 percent of my time in writing was simply bringing people up to speed so they had some idea of what the hell they might be talking about.

Most of the laws people scream about as far as potential threats to American liberty long predate 9/11, or George Bush, and you wouldn't have had to spend much time on right-wing militia websites some years back to get more than your fill of "executive orders" and "secret laws" that are supposedly waiting out there for just the right trigger to bring 1984 to the U.S.

The President of the United States technically has the authority, on his own, to drop an atomic bomb on Tehran. Oddly, I have never lost any sleep over this. Maybe it's because I'm not a paranoid loon.

There are countless interferences with my life on the part of the government, particularly in how I earn my living and what happens to what I earn. These controls are worshipped by the same people who get hysterical over the idea that someone might track a piece of their phone call across the border. People who shout about individual liberties, but have no problem with nearly half my life's work essentially absorbed by the almighty State.

Some forms of liberty and privacy are apparently more equal than others, and I'm not all that impressed by half-baked socialists who screech about things like national ID cards or watch lists, but have no problems with a 1040 long form or a census survey.

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