by Clifta Frizzell

Created on: January 05, 2010   Last Updated: January 06, 2010

In our post 9/11 world, it's difficult to strike a balance between the safety and security of our nation and the personal freedom and privacy of its citizens. For instance, we all want to maintain our freedom of speech, but that means that Neo-Nazis, Communists, and the KKK are also entitled to that freedom. 

We want freedom of religion, but that allows any charlatan to open a church and suck a few million tax-free dollars out of his followers. We want freedom of the press, but that allows sleazy gossip rags and pornography onto our newsstands.

So we all want privacy and freedom, but at what risk to our National Security? We all need to take steps to protect ourselves but at what point are we going too far? Under the Patriot Act, Habeas Corpus was suspended and any government Bully-boy can check my on-line account and see what I get up to on the internet. (Actually he would only find that I download recipes and gardening tips, but it's the principle of the thing.) 

In his essay "Setting Limits on Tolerance", Charles Krauthammer states that he would allow a group of Neo-Nazis to march on a suburb of Chicago simply because the Nazis are "Utterly Powerless...Pathetic losers" and dismisses them as not being a real threat...unlike Jihadists.

I'm really at a loss to see how he makes that distinction between two groups of radical extremists or why he thinks that one is more dangerous than the other. In another article "Give Grandma a Pass; Politically Correct Screening Won't Catch Jihadists", Krauthammer provides us with a detailed list of what to look for when one is terrorist-hunting (a sort of 21st Century version of Cotton Mathers' "How to Recognize a Witch").

The trouble is, Krauthammer thinks that terrorists are never White, Hispanic or Asian, never over 60 or under 13, and rarely female unless they're "Fidgety, sweaty, suspicious-looking, knapsack-bearing, overcoat-wearing young women. (When I'm about to get on a plane I'm frequently fidgety and sweaty, does that make me a suspect?)

The sort of extremism that Krauthammer reccomends is not new. He points out that Abraham Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus during the Civil War and FDR put Japanese-Americans into what amounted to concentration camps during WWII.

I'm sure his point was to show that these were reasonable and necessary acts by two beloved presidents. After all, if Honest Abe suspended Habeas Corpus that must be a good thing, right? And Roosevelt incarcerated Japanese

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