For those of you are staunch Libertarians*, I respectfully ask you to consider this history lesson written by Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily. In this article Farah points out Thomas Jefferson's, the father of libertarian values and a strict constitutionalist, response to the Islamic Terrorists of his day. Now, while I think a the War on Terror is a necessary war, I do not think that means we have to give up any of our domestic rights like the Patriot Acts wants. However, it is important to note that they are two separate issues and while the current Administration tries to tie the two together, we don't have to. Congress can vote down the renewal of the Patriot Act while voting to continue to fund and support the global War on Terror and our liberties would not be trampled on. If Thomas Jefferson, the defender of liberty that he was, could in good conscience destroy the militant Islamic terrorist of his time without compromising the principles of American libertarianism, then certainly we can as well.
*Note: I use the capital "L" because you fall lock-step with the Libertarian Party as opposed to the little "l" for those, who like myself, are for libertarian values, but know that a party can be wrong. I think the Libertarian Party is very wrong in its current stance on the War against Terrorism. In the modern world where America is an 8-12 hour plane ride away from the other major continents and we exist in an instantaneous global economy (i.e., Americans have economic interests in every part of the globe) then the classic "isolationism" attitude of the past is not only unattainable, but would also weaken and impoverish our country. Only by having a global military response, can we truly protect our citizens' personal and economic liberty no matter which country they happen to be doing business in.
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