Civil liberties should be as big of an issue (if not bigger) during elections as the economy.
Hard to do...
The original PATRIOT Act passed the Senate by a vote of 99 to 1 I think. The Senator from Wisconsin was the only one to vote against it. Feingold I believe.
He was replaced by a more "law and order" type Senator. I still think to this day it was because he threw wrenches into all of these programs whenever he had a chance. (And sometimes even if he didn't have a chance, he would sabotage the machinery.)
The thing is ... the people of Wisconsin voted him out. Now you can argue that they didn't understand what they were doing... but you can't argue the vote. And this illustrates the problem.
In a nutshell...
There is little political profit in fighting these programs.
THAT, is what we need to find some way to change.
EDIT:
BTW, just a point of fact I think may be relevant here...
Wyden voted YEA for the PATRIOT Act.
Just Sayin'.
This. Fixing broken economy takes years. Fixing broken civil liberties takes decades, if not centuries.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1968
I think you may be referring to changes that preserve current power and political structures, but that's not required.
It's just a pity nobody on the intelligence committee has the backbone ti stand up for their constituents.
* Stop the spying
* Save the children
Blah blah ...
The terrorists will persist. Globe trotting capitalist crisis will persist.
Radical ideologies don't die, easily.The problem is Action <-> Reaction. You spit on me, I plot revenge.
What will happen after another deeply painful attack ?
Everyone usually just hand-waves and says "Do something !"
This is when american hypocrisy is updated to 11.0.
"I want to be comfortable ! They are the idiots, kill them ! I don't care who ! Don't tell me how, Just do it ! Don't bother me, I need to workout ! I want to bang this person you see ... "
So, faux laws are created, damage is done, lives are saved, movies are made, everyone feels icky about the new laws and then we get new presidents and new laws like new muffins.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
I laughed, because I can't even bring myself to make statements like that anymore.