Pirate's Cove

That’s what super partisan Dana Milbank wants to know

(Washington Post) Where have all the liberals gone?

President Obama, who as a Democratic senator accused the Bush administration of violating civil liberties in the name of security, now vigorously defends his own administration’s collection of Americans’ phone records and Internet activities.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said he thinks Congress has done sufficient intelligence oversight. His evidence? Opinion polls.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi defended the programs’ legality and said she wants Edward Snowden prosecuted for leaking details of the secret operations.

Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Senate intelligence committee, accused Snowden of treason and defended false testimony given to her committee by the director of national intelligence, who in March had denied the programs’ existence.

With some exceptions, progressive lawmakers and the liberal commentariat have been passive and acquiescent toward the secret spying programs, which would have infuriated the left had they been the work of a Republican administration.

In all fairness, it is a mixed bag when it comes the average liberal/progressive: some are for the program, some are against. Some think Snowden should be prosecuted but still did a great service in exposing the extent of the programs. That’s the impression I get when traveling to Left leaning sites. Many, though, are either ignoring the issue or doing all they can to protect Obama, like the good little brain-dead sycophants they are.

Polling this week by The Post and Pew Research Center produced discouraging evidence that Democrats have shed their suspicion of government overreach now that one of their own is in charge. Sixty-nine percent of Democrats say that terrorism investigations should trump privacy as the government’s main concern, compared with 51 percent in 2006, when the Bush administration’s warrantless wiretapping program had come to light. Then, 37 percent of Democrats found the NSA’s actions acceptable, compared with 64 percent now. (Republicans went in the other direction, suddenly becoming more privacy-conscious.)

Yet it is jarring to see the left so compliant now that the surveillance has been sanctioned by a Democratic president. Even if the programs ultimately prove defensible, isn’t it worth finding out what they really are, before liberals accept a suspension of civil liberties they may come to regret?

No, really, it’s not jarring, or, at least, shouldn’t to anyone who understands that Progressives love Big Big Government and all that comes with it. Jonah Goldberg referred to Progressivism as “nice fascism”, and along with that comes the notion of spying on fellow citizens, both at the government level and the citizen level. When one talks of Progressives in terms of Government, they are actually way, way, way to the right on the old school political scale, sliding into authoritarianism, particularly in terms of the Economic (government being heavily involved in the private sector) and Moral (citizen’s lives, except for abortion on demand, of course) Cores, as it relates to government control, regulation, rules, and law.

When it comes to the Political Core, ie, voting and involvement, Progressives do what they can to suppress the opposition vote through action, rather than government.

The question that should be asked in a poll is “are you OK with the government potentially spying on you to protect the country from terrorism?” Liberals/progressives would surely say they are not at close to, if not, 100%. On the political left, it’s always about Someone Else. Progressives are A-OK with surveillance as long as it doesn’t involve them. And, let’s face it, their opposition during the George W. Bush years was opposition primarily to Bush the man and that he was a Republican, not to the programs.

Crossed at Right Wing News and Stop The ACLU.