Stacy Summary: Watching DemocracyNow! the other day, I was struck by the response of Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center to the question of whether the US mood today was similar to that before the Oklahoma City bombing.

While I’m hardly a candidate for the ‘right wing militia’ as the Democracy Now item is discussing; the notion that it is those that “fear the government as an imminent threat to their security and civil liberties” that are the frightening ones and not those who condemn that fear is something I would like to see discussed here.  Personally, my reading of history suggests the latter are consistently the greater danger than those who fear the government.  For while the former may themselves commit criminal acts due to their beliefs, there are laws to deal with them. It is the latter, however, who pave the road for arbitrary law, fascism and criminal acts toward the entire population.  And it is because we have so many of these latter sorts that we have the following:

Unconstitutional wiretapping and eavesdropping on US citizens, the unconstitutional imprisonment of people without due process or the rights of habeas corpus and the latest unconstitutional matter of assassinating citizens.  And these are just three examples of the government being a genuine threat to civil liberties (and security as I don’t think any of the above do anything but make us less safe).

When the Supreme Court ruled that the Bush Administration’s suspension of the 800 year old rights of habeas corpus was ‘unconstitutional;’ the Justices, in their ruling, wrote: “The Framers’ inherent distrust of government power was the driving force behind the constitutional plan that allocated powers among three independent branches. This design serves not only to make Government accountable but also to secure individual liberty. . . .”