> It's utterly antithetical to everything western civilization stands for mccarthyism, the sedition act of 1918, and the espionage act of 1917 come to mind. w

> It's utterly antithetical to everything western civilization stands for mccarthyism, the sedition act of 1918, and the espionage act of 1917 come to mind. whatever your understanding is of what western civilization stands for - and what you are arguing we are losing - are ideals that were created long after those previous acts came and went. my point is that a set of ideals will be at risk if it is too rigid - western civilization has succeeded in part due to its flexibility in difficult circumstances. in other words, it is better to have waxes and wanes to the freedoms available to a society, than to be rigid in a set of beliefs and watch the society be lost to history.