In fact, you perversely turn Prager’s alleged insight on it’s head by what you said in the above comment. You write, “You (meaning me) worry more about a perceived threat to the treatment and freedoms of criminals and terrorists, whereas I fear the erosion of the liberties of honest law abiding hard working Americans.
Here, let us agree to disagree.”

What you write about my motivations is not true, and what’s more, you KNOW it isn’t true. I’ve provided evidence (the Gonzales testimony, for one) that shows that the threat to civil liberties extends to all Americans…and yet you say that I worry more about the rights of “criminals and terrorists” than those you’re concerned with, “law-abiding and hard-working Americans”. Nonsense. The difference between you and I is that you think it’s OK to allow the Bush Administration and its minions to decide on its own exactly who is a criminal and a terrorist and deal with them as they see fit, while I think we should use the Constitution and the legal system to make those determinations. You don’t fear “erosion of liberty” because you feel comfortable that YOUR liberties won’t be snatched away from you. If other Americans have their liberties taken away, ehh, no big deal. They’re probably criminals or terrorists. Probably. It’s best to blindly trust that the President knows what he’s doing.

So far as us agreeing to disagree…that would require me agreeing with you. And I prefer not to do that. It sets a bad precedent.

Glen wants me to name one single freedom that has been taken away from me personally. So…you’re OK with freedoms being taken away from OTHER people? So long as YOUR liberty isn’t infringed upon (for the moment), you aren’t bothered. Wow, talk about having no clue about what America stands for.

If the right of habeas corpus doesn’t exist, then the only thing that prevents the government from rounding up and imprisoning anyone they want is the whim of the President. If you’re comfortable with the President having the right to arrest and hold anyone he (or she) wants, then move to North Korea. Leave America for those who believe that the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were good ideas.

For example, in 2009 either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is going to be President (there isn’t a viable Republican candidate beyond Ron Paul). And let’s say someone in the Clinton Administration sees that Cao made the outrageous statement that the Clintons killed lots of people, “kind of like Hitler”. What if agents from Homeland Security arrested Cao for her slander, tortured her, and held her incommunicado for years? Would this be a bad thing? I would argue that it is, very bad indeed, because the Constitution expressly forbids this kind of dictatorial conduct. But Glen and Cao think that this sort of totalitarian outrage is fine and dandy so long as it happens to other people. Like terrorists. Alleged terrorists. Random brown people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or people that those in power just don’t happen to care for. Cao and Glen seem to think the government should have that power, hoping that that power will never be turned against them. The naivety is breathtaking, and it’s dangerous. We’ve seen what happens when too many people give in to stupidity and cowardice the way Glen and Cao have–people like George Bush and Dick Cheney get elected to the highest offices in nation.

So far as Glen saying that he hopes “I didn’t scare you with my Right-wing, gun toting, child hating, homophobic, racist, islamophobic, sexist lingo did I?” fear not. There’s no way I could be afraid of a person who is so frightened of the big, bad world that he’s willing to sacrifice his freedom and liberty in the futile hope that a cabal of idiots like the Bush Administration will protect him. I pity you, certainly, but fear you? Please.

Odd that you rattle off phrases like, “child hating, homophobic, racist, islamophobic, sexist” as if you’re proud of them. If you are indeed a child-hating, homophobic, racist, islamophobic, sexist person…that speaks very poorly of you.

I’m not going to bother addressing Cao’s ludicrous screed against Hillary Clinton, except to say that I’m forwarding a link to it to the Anti-Defamation League. They don’t appreciate people using the death of six millions Jews as cover for an asinine attack on Hillary Clinton. If I were you, Cao, I’d keep a low profile. Hillary strikes me as the sort who would be more than happy to use the executive powers George Bush has seized (and that you’ve so enthusiastically endorsed). One reaps what one sows.

There are tons of dead people in the wake of the Clintons, kind of like Hitler. Clinton pardoned a laundry list of criminals before he left the Oval office, there is the Waco debacle to his credit, and the two of them plundered the whitehouse before they left. Clinton is a sexual deviant, much like Hitler, but at least Clinton prefers women over men, unlike Hitler–but the Clintons still support the gay agenda, just like Hitler.

The Clintons are socialists, just like Hitler and his National Socialist party who met in the basement of a gay bar.

In addition there’s Whitewater , Hillary’s schmoozing with the Black Panthers, Chinese illegal campaign contributions, Clinton’s Chinese decisions, Peter Paul, and any number of scandals connected with those two socialist psychopaths; only they never spent any time in jail and Hitler did.

How they’ve managed to avoid that is anyone’s guess. Clinton throws a party on the whitehouse lawn for his impeachment, Nixon resigned in shame.

Hillary in fact wrote a 92-page thesis at Wellesley, titled “There is only the Fight, An Analysis of the Alinsky model”. The Clintons are suppressing that document, just like they’re suppressing other records (much in the same way information was carefully controlled in nazi Germany). Hillary doesn’t just want to pass laws or implement policy. Hillary explains: “If the ideals Alinsky espouses were actualized, the result would be social revolution.”

Not unlike Hitler, whose revolution included the demise of the Weimar Republic and achieving his short-lived dictatorship. It would seem that is the goal of the Clintons; national healthcare is just the tip of the iceberg.

Hillary said “we’re going to take things away from you for your own good.”

Things like our freedom and legislating more government theft of hard-earned money to pay for ridiculous socialist programs and cut our military more. Under Clinton, the military shrank; one of numerous problems that Bush inherited. Then there is Sandy Berger…But the Clintons, like Hitler was, are longtime peaceniks; Clinton was a draft dodger back in the day. They have no love for the military, just like the rest of the democrats.

I see a lot of parallels in behavior and methods; Hitler used his nazi stormtroopers, and today we have a leftist equivalent in the streets doing much the same thing to achieve the same goal; bankrolled by Teresa Heinz Kerry, George Soros, and numerous others. Soros also backs Hillary - but is hedging his bets with support for Barack Obama. Big money backs the leftist agenda; not unlike the Soviet Union and Lenin and Trotsky.

“MY lack of self-awareness seems at times at the very least childish, but more often fully pathological.”

To say that the Communist dictatorship of East Germany bears any resemblance to the American “Left” (or American liberals, or the Democratic party) is asinine. The nation spent eight years with Bill Clinton as President and, under the guidance of this bogeyman, the United States enjoyed a peaceful period of almost unprecedented economic expansion. Heck, when Clinton left office there was a budget SURPLUS. Not quite what you’d expect from some commie-pinko-socicalist.

Indeed, your own twisted attempts at “logic” show that you would’ve been quite at home in an Orwellian nightmare state. As you watched “The Lives of Others”, were you wistful that you missed those grey, uneasy days?

You write, “Americans have not lost there rights to habeas corpus, Mr Ebert. I would appreciate any proof you have otherwise.”

I direct you here, to testimony given by then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who said point-blank that, “…the Constitution doesn’t say, “Every individual in the United States or every citizen is hereby granted or assured the right to habeas.” It doesn’t say that.” Nice to know that you’re so concerned about one of the tenets of Western democracy that can’t even be bothered to keep up with the news or use Google.

You then argue that the forms of torture employed by the Bush Administration would be “seen as merely discomfort under the previous East German regime”. I guess if you don’t have a conscience or morals it doesn’t trouble you that the greatest nation on Earth is now employing techniques (such as waterboarding) used by a brutal Communist dictatorship (and by savage regimes like Nazi Germany and the Khmer Rouge).

You say, “Also, the only people who your hated Bush regime want to wiretap are those in contact with foreign terrorists”. Patent nonsense. The reason the Bush Administration decided to ignore FISA was that it was spying on American citizens that they couldn’t prove had any connection to terrorism. They couldn’t get FISA warrants without that evidence, so instead of following the law (or asking Congress to pass a new law), the Bush Administration decided to just ignore it and conduct surveillance of innocent people simply because they wanted to and could get away with it. So what if FISA was designed to deal with just such situations and ignoring it is a felony? The rule of law is just another quaint feature of the world that must be ignored in these trouble times. Like the Geneva Conventions.

You say, “let us, please, at least be honest”. I doubt you’re capable of honesty, since honesty (and integrity, and honor) are your mortal enemies. As is courage, apparently, as you run through a litany of nonsensical affronts to what you probably consider your “dignity”. Rush Limbaugh is gonna be run off the air! Seat belt laws will enslave us all! Sharia law is just around the corner! One wonders how you manage to crawl out from under the bed to face the day.

Your last point continues with the theme of colossal self-delusion: “Third, and last, is the way in which the East German government aimed at controlling its populace. Where does the urge to control come from in today’s America?”

I’ll tell you where it comes from–it comes from the Bush Administration, which thinks it should be able to ignore the Constitution and the laws of the nation and do whatever it damn well pleases, no matter what legal, moral and ethical boundries they trample over. And it comes from people like you, who ignore these facts and support torture, the suspension of habeas corpus, and multiple violations of the Constitution while bleating about those big, bad liberals. Pathetic.

I close by simply pasting what you wrote as your final paragraph. The difference is that, in my hands, the quotation is an apt one. As opposed to how it comes across in your piece, as a final proof of your appalling ignorance:

I believe it was Thomas Jefferson who said, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be.” Maybe, sir, you should learn from that.