I can't understand conservatives. Those who talk about freedom the most seem to respect it the least, at least as applied to anyone who doesn't share their view of the world.

Lately the complaint has been that the Supreme Court (encouraged by those damn liberal lawyers) invented a new right to habeas corpus for the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Uhh....the writ of habeas corpus is about a thousand years old, and nothing the Cheney Administration has done hasn't been tried before.

And those damn liberal lawyers? They have forbears too. What did my ancestors say in 1320?

It is in truth not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom -- for that alone, which no honest man gives up but with life itself.

-from the Declaration of Arbroath.

I suspect that the modern supporters of King George, had they been alive back then, would have cheerfully submitted to Edward 2 rather than take the lonely stand with the Scottish nobles who signed the Declaration- after soundly defeating Edward's far superior forces at Bannockburn- and declared that they would either be free under Robert the Bruce or fire him and find another King.

Why, then, do the modern conservatives reject the idea that Presidential power should be limited? My father claimed that the only true emotions are fear and love, and if you're not acting from one, you're acting from the other. Conservatives these days are acting from fear. In the long term, that's not sustainable.