If you are a civil libertarian,

Here's a good challenge in the sideblog at americandigest:

if you are in the ACLU or a law professor, or a liberal in good standing who swore that George Bush from Texas, with strut and twang and mangled vocabulary, destroyed your liberties with FISA, with the Patriot Act, and with Iraq, then please extend that outrage to Barack Obama, for whom all such shredding of the Constitution suddenly has become merely complex and problematic rather than fascistic. Please list, cite, name just one instance from 2002-8 in which you lost your freedom, or you were censored on the library internet, or you were followed around by the FBI, or your letter to the editor earned a wiretap, or even one instance of the loss of any freedom under Bush-- and if so, just one example of how the election of Obama has once again restored your lost liberty. Nothing in the abstract, please-- something concrete, an example both real and personal. -Works and Days - An Uneasy Feeling

Is dissent still patriotic?

A good question by David Harsanyi at the Denver Post:

Do all Americans truly have a yearning to fundamentally "remake" our nation? There must be a subversive minority out there that still believes the United States — even with its imperfections and sporadic recessions — is, in context, still a wildly prosperous and free country worth preserving... ...Is there anyone who still believes the Constitution was created to ensure each citizen liberty and the ability to pursue happiness rather than a guarantee of happiness — and a retirement fund, health care, a job, an education, a house ... ?

I would be one. Read the whole thing. (HT: insty)