LYN'S PAGE

Musings - June 22nd, 2004

"More and more I’m beginning to think that I’m not a conservative at all, but a libertarian. But I think it’s the conservatives who are leaving me and not the other way around.

I believe and conservatives for the most part used to believe that government should let law-abiding citizens alone. I also believe in small government, low taxes, individual responsibility as well as being let alone.

Republicans, who under Ronald Reagan, at least, were the conservative party, used to believe these things, too. But that was then and this is now.

And what is now keeps getting worse.

Yesterday the supreme court voted five to four that the police can stop a person and demand for any reason or no reason at all that that person identify himself. or herself.

The five members of the court who decided that “the right to remain silent� no longer exists were the five most conservative members--Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and “O’Connor.

The five voted to uphold a Nevada state law that makes it a crime for a person to refuse to give his name when stopped for what a policeman deems to be suspicious behavior. Eighteen other states have similar laws.

The court’s ruling may not seem significant but the act is it is one more little step toward turning this nation into a police state

And that’s the way it happens--one tiny step at a time."

Former Reagan press secretary Lyn Nofziger

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These types of actions, that Mr. Nofziger speaks of, by so-called Conservative Republicans is why I realized, a long time ago, that I was not one.

Furthermore, their actions, of late, more than any other party or individuals, is why Whose Paranoid, the blog and domain, exist.

I want to thank Michael K. for sending this out on the Liberty Round Table discussion list, otherwise I would have missed it, and perchance, dear reader, you as well.

--WP