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As a good modern Liberal, you are always in a sweat about civil liberties. You say that informers, witch hunters, book burners, China Lobbies, character assassins, wire tappers and other agents of the iniquitous government lurk in constant readiness to trample any stray civil liberty as soon as the ADA or the ACLU turns its back, while I maintain that you do exaggerate. I must admit in fairness that what you charge is substantially true. That is the power to crush the civil liberties of American citizens is latent in our government. Several times it has come to the surface, and some helpless citizen has been sucked down by the inexorable undertow of a government that is too powerful for the country's good.
Without embroidering the subject I shall grant the substantial truth of your incessant uproar about infringement of civil liberties. Then, let me ask you one question: How did we get this way?
Who made the government so powerful that it could trample on the rights of the individual? Who subordinated the individual to society? Who stressed security at the expense of liberty? You did, friend. You did.