Not All "Civil Liberties" Are Equal

....as an emailer to RCP pointed out:

Let's win the war on terror. If that means suspending a few rights - fine. Actually, more rights have been lost to the Environmental Protection Agency than to the Patriot Act or any other legislation meant to keep us safe. For example, and this is only a partial list: I can no longer fish where I want, burn leaves when necessary, drive where I want, water where I want, smoke where I want, dispose of cuttings where I want, swim where I want, have access to inexpensive fuel, make our wine where we want, press our olives where we want, and frankly do quite a few other things because our rights to do so have been subjugated to a few fanatics.

The very same "few fanatics" who insist that the American public be left wide upen and vulnerable to mass-casualty terrorist attacks from a few other fanatics for the sake of "civil liberties" they, at best, value only very selectively.

I recall spending quite a bit of time during the Clinton dark age highlighting the dictatorial abuses of that administration, all justified by worthless and/or bogus abstractions or the welfare of all manner of critters and creatures. Remember Mike McCurry's, "Stroke of the pen, law of the land....kinda cool" regarding Sick Willie's penchant for bypassing Congress and ruling by Executive Order after the GOP took Congress away from him? Can you imagine how the fever swamps would react of Scott McClellan said something like that?

Kudos to the emailer and Tom Bevan for posting such a useful reminder.

UPDATE: And, in the case of the EPA, the Bush Administration is subsidizing its own critics.

"Imperial presidency" my ass.