Back in the USSR, the next generation

Jim Henley comments on the latest outrageous assault on liberty by Commissar Gonzales. Here's what Torture Gonzales said:

Some people will argue nothing could justify the government being able to intercept conversations like the ones the Program targets. Instead of seeing the government protecting the country, they see it as on the verge of stifling freedom.

But this view is shortsighted. Its definition of freedom--one utterly divorced from civic responsibility--is superficial and is itself a grave threat to the liberty and security of the American people.

Henley's post includes this excerpt from Acticle 39 of the Soviet Constitution:

Enjoyment by citizens of their rights and freedoms must not be to the detriment of the interest of society or the state.

On the other hand, this is what the Declaration of Independence says:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...

To summarize. According to Torture Gonzales and his Soviet predecessors, whatever rights you have are granted by and subordinate to the state, whereas according to the founding documents of the United States, the state is subordinate to you, and its rights derive from you.

Gonzales is a sick, twisted man, without the least regard for freedom or justice. It says a lot about what America has become that he is now the Attorney General.