What Do We Care About Most?

What is it that Americans care about most? One answer is that they care about their privacy most, and they expect govt., no matter which one, to protect that privacy. It seems that they don't even care much what the govt. does to protect privacy, trusting that the "experts" in the govt. will do their job, because that's what we pay them to do. ...

You have to wonder how many people are even aware that their "civil liberties" are in jeopardy by recent activities of the govt. Indeed, how many people really know what a civil liberty is? Recent polls of college students show that they'd restrict press freedom because the press is "too" free and jeopardizes the nation's security, ie, the govt.'s ability to protect their privacy.

I wonder how much of the recent disapproval of the Pres.'s policies in foreign policy are motivated as much by moral and ethical concerns over those policies. Instead, the concern by the public is about how well the admin. is protecting that private world of consumer fantasy we value so much.

Protecting privacy in this context means that the death and destruction in Iraq are getting too real and upsetting the warm cocoon of fantasy that the private world of consumerism promises.

Perhaps the nerve that Senator Russ Feingold and others have hit with the concern over NSA spying is this very special attack that this program poses to our privacy. The more this point can be emphasized, perhaps, the more successful their campaign against this abuse of executive power (which the public doesn't care about much) will succeed.