The 10 Most Outrageous Civil Liberties Violations of 2006.

Slate has the list.

Opponents and Enemies

Over the last week or so I've watched a controversy erupt within the Virginia community of political bloggers. It involved an owner of a Virginia political blogs aggregator deciding to remove a blog in order to remove an offensive image (a terrorist propaganda photo of a beheaded American man) posted on that blog from his aggregator. What followed was a drama that reflected what I consider to be a troubling trend in politics and political discourse in general over the last decade - decade and a half. People seem unable to distinguish the difference between an opponent and an enemy. In this particular case, nearly all of the people involved in that controversy are obviously Virginians who care about their state, their community, and their country. They wouldn't be bothering to blog about politics if they didn't care. They are people who all care about the same things yet disagree about how to approach political issues. Yet some participants in that controversy began to speak in terms of their political opponents as "the enemy" and using military jargon to describe their own behavior toward "the enemy".
Where did people lose the capability to distinguish between a real enemy and a political/ideological opponent?

Talk radio and trashy cable news channels, with all the hours that they have to fill, have created programming that has encouraged this way of viewing political differences, certainly. As have some columnists and web sites and, of course, blogs.

It gratified me to see that there were many observers and participants in that particular tiff that did seem to recognize that there are deeper and more important things we all have in common that transcend political, religious, or ideological differences. However, I was troubled by the few folks that didn't see that and by the tactics and pressure they applied to their ideological and political brethren to try to pressure them into taking up the same extreme position of viewing their political opponents as enemies. When it really counts, will these people be able to figure out the difference?

"It's A Wonderful Life" maligned as 'commie propaganda' by the FBI

Wisebread has the details, including the original FBI memo from 1947.

'It's A Wonderful Life' has been a favorite of mine for a long time. Yes, it's sappy, yes, it's played over and over, year after year, but for me it never loses its charm. I think its message just gets more and more relevant every year. However, I'm not at all surprised to learn that it was despised by people obsessed with free market capitalism and eat up with suspicions of commies hiding under every bed. It is a film that glorifies the virtues of the working man and disdains greed and materialism.

Why?

I've spent the last two weeks or so listening to the various "smart people" in Washington discussing the idea of a troop 'surge' in Iraq, ostensibly for the purpose of 'fixing' things there. What's been driving me nuts about this debate is that none of the people who are advocating this increase in troop levels will explain WHY they think it would be helpful.

Even the folks who are advocating this surge just for the purpose of intensifying training for Iraqi military and police seem to be ducking serious questions on this issue. How will more US troops working to improve the skills of the Iraqi army address what might be the most serious problem affecting the Iraqi military and police: the obviously deep infiltration of sectarian and political militia within the ranks of the Iraqi forces?

Why would 20,000-50,000 more troops make things any better there? How would such and increase in troop levels address any of the REAL problems that are undermining security and stability there?