Try this irony on for size:
The “conservatives” in the U.S. have since 1980 squawked relentlessly about reducing government in our lives. Then comes 9/11 and now government can’t be big enough to suit them: bankrupt the economy with nonstop war, trash the various civil protections of the Constitution, spy on your neighbors, turn librarians into Big Brother recording machines, etc.
Not only city and town councils - - but even LOCAL POLICE departments – have made it known publicly that they will refuse to enforce the dictates of Patriot Act II (the resistance began to Patriot Act I; this new bill is more of the same, in spades). When your local cops start saying there are some new laws and procedures they will refuse to follow – pay attention!
cc, you are incisive with your comparison to Castro. The Bush-Ashcroft administration is paternalistic. Americans are asking themselves: Do we want big daddy to tell us what to do and not, say and not, where to go and not – or are we a nation of freedom-loving individuals, ready to defend our reasonably structured civil rights with the same dedication and heat that our ancestors applied to win those rights in the first place!
