Republicans do love themselves some law and order. The reason I am worried about this one is that both parties covet their secret lists and neither cares all that much for civil liberties. Plus, American Populism is on the rise again, and that particular school of thought has always favored law and order over civil rights.
Whether we want to admit it or not, Trump’s instincts on this have a home. There’s plenty of people out there if you said, “Well, what if someone proposed a law that no one on the terrorist watch list could attend mosque?,” wouldn’t see any problem there. But I will say that at least the populists are consistent.
I’ve been observing for years that there never has been a significant constituency for individual liberty in the United States, though camps “left” and “right” both use the liberty rap to a fault. A close study of “liberal” and “conservative” constituencies shows the former to have its genesis with supporters of the communists before WWII, and the latter its genesis with the supporters of the fascists. Those opposing state coercion have always been politically homeless.
Even the Libertarian Party, which never had a huge constituency, degenerated into being apologists for mainly “conservatives,” and polluted its own name to the point where “libertarian” is applied to personalities like Rand Paul and even Ted Cruz.
I guess my point is, never be surprised what the American populist mill will grind out. Back in the 1980s, the latter day Populist Party was itself already overtly fascist.
Not sure why we should expand intelligence gathering since even when we get it the FBI ignores it, if it is a Muslim. The only people they seem to target are Americans.
Americans need to feel more paranoid