Creeping Tyranny

Via Andrew Sullivan, Conor Friedersdorf deserves the largest audience possible when he tells conservatives to wake the hell up:

If I may address the skeptics on the right directly, it is penny wise and pound foolish to worry about creeping tyranny via government-run health care or gun control when we’re another terrorist attack away from popular support for an archipelago of secret prisons where anyone can be whisked away and tortured without any evidence against them. Look to Europe if you doubt whether government-run health care or black sites run by secret police are a more immediate threat to the liberty of innocents.

Do you think that I exaggerate?

Know that one of the Gitmo Three was arrested at age 17, held for some years without being charged, and scheduled for release at the time of his death due to the military’s conclusion that no evidence linked him to al Qaeda or the Taliban. We may never know exactly how he and his fellow detainees died: A conclusive, independent autopsy is impossible because their bodies were returned to their families with their throats missing.

In fact, there is fairly convincing evidence that they were murdered by torture. We will probably never have confirmation because the Obama government is still part of the cover up. I had lunch yesterday with a friend who was frothing with rage at the tyranny of health insurance, cap and trade legislation, and motor cycle helmet laws but who is unfazed by turning over to the government the power to detain and murder anyone they don't like. Yay for Faux News.

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