'We are facing a massive assault on our liberties'

[spindrifter]

Sunday November 5, 2006
The Observer

<snip>

HP: In the days after 9/11, did you imagine that we would see this kind of attack on civil liberties?

AG: No, and it should be seen as shocking, in America at least, that so many individual rights have been lost so quickly. I believe that there has been a diminishing of the role played by reasoned debate. And when logic and reason are withdrawn from the public sphere, it creates a vacuum into which ideology and religious extremism rush in.

<snip>

HP: Do you think things can be restored? Say you become President, could this happen?

AG: Well, first of all I'm not planning to be a candidate, but a new President committed to restoring these rights could do so. The greater vulnerability we have now involves a rather radical change. Democracy is ultimately a conversation. If people are routinely excluded from that conversation or absent of their own choice, then it will be dominated by those who are primarily interested in political and economic power. Individual rights will be honoured and protected when individuals are full and vigorous participants in the public conversation.

++++++++++++++

The above is from an interview of Al Gore by Henry Porter for the More$ channel in Great Britain.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1939773,00.html

[SeaBob]

1. LibertiesK&R

Once again you have hit the nail squarely on the head.

K&R

[Doctor_J]

2. As Maxwell Smart would say,

"and loving it". Or at least begging for more