…to the post below.

McQ over at QandO cites Galt’s post as the reason why he’ll be voting for the Republicans, despite his alleged Republicanism libertarianism. As Mona at the Inactivist points out, it’s baffling that one could look at what the Republicans are doing and believe that raising the minimum wage is the greater threat to liberty. Mona correctly notes that the powers we give government expand, propagate, and creep. As one of Jim Henley’s commenters notes, any proper reading of U.S history shows that the wiretapping, detention, spying, and lack of access to due process “tools” people like McQ think are necessary to fight the war on terrorism will eventually and inevitably used in other law enforcement endeavors, likely starting with child exploitation, then worming into “fringe groups,” abortion protesters, obscenity prosecutions, and, of course, drug prohibition.

When was the last time the federal government voluntarily limited its own power, particularly when it comes to law enforcement?

Some of us were making these same arguments in the election two years ago. Things have only gotten worse. At what point to people like McQ believe the Republicans will finally make good?

CORRECTION: McQ does actually support returning the House to the Democrats, but keeping the Senate Republican. I was mistaken.

While that would add some measure of accountability to the federal government (or, at least gridlock), it would continue to allow for more Alitos on the Supreme Court, meaning no real checks on executive power grabs. And my larger point stands. The nearly boundless powers McQ is comfortable giving the federal government to fight the war on terror — which ought to be troubling solely within the context of the war on terror — will inevitably creep into other facets of law enforcement.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 9th, 2006 at 9:58 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.