Also, it is artificial to suggest the choice is between supporting The Nation on their war stance or defending civil liberties. The two are not necessarily related. (Chip Berlet)
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Take it further.
The only reason that there are civil liberities and civil rights is because some group of people in the past refused to support the State without these guarantees. The arguement you make above assumes that rights issue from the State. But rights are unalienable do not issue from the state and exist independent of the state. This sets up a cycle of endless civil unrest, resistance and war against the suppression, oppression, and aggession by the state against its people.
This in my view is the proper relationship between the people and the state. It is the reciprocal to the State's view of the people as a stiff necked and recluctant animal that needs be steered and cajoled, alternating between sticks and carrots.
Niether side owes alligence to the other, rather they are always in conflict.
Chuck Grimes