[WS:] I do not think I am missing that connection. My understanding, however, is that the struggle of the working people was under the banner of solidarity and collective security and representation, not liberty. If anything, the notion of solidarity often trumped liberty e.g. striking workers vs. scabs.
Political rights come in many varieties, even those that have something to do with liberty. The right of association or the right to collective representation is certainly different than the individual "right to work."
The way I see it, the US businessmen want liberty from any regulations for themselves, and that trope trickles down and it is parroted by cocky males who do not want anyone to tell them where to shoot their guns or park their cars. You do not hear many women kvetching about loss of liberty - it is mostly males. It is that kind of discourse that rubs me the wrong way.
At this point, the concept of liberty is used to silence opposing points of view and end any meaningful discussion. If you are branded an enemy of freedom you have no right to speak or even be here. There is no discussion about reasonable balance between freedom and responsibility, freedom and solidarity, freedom and the environment and so on. We are supped to be "free" to do whatever "we" want - as long as 'we" make money of it, and opposing that freedom is un-American. Any government attempt to regulate activities, protect the common good or the environment, or provide public services is seen as infringements on individual liberty and cursed.
This is not about civil rights in any meaningful sense but toeing the line of the political ideology of the business class. I am pretty certain that a great majority of people would benefit from more reasonable regulation and surveillance programs as long as there are safeguards against arbitrary use of that information and regulatory power.
I also understand that banksters, tax dodgers, and business shysters stand to lose from such expanded regulatory and surveillance capacity of government, but they cannot openly say "hey, this infringes on our while collar criminal activities". Instead they put forward useful idiots with libertarian ideas who shed crocodile tears about ordinary people supposedly being targeted. This is the classic business propaganda trick - frame the interests of businessmen as those of common folk. Patients' interests are better served by inscos and doctors that milk them than by government bureaucracy. Employees' interests are better served by their bosses than by the unions. You get the drift. This outcry over 'government spying" is the same kind of tripe.
-- Wojtek
"An anarchist is a neoliberal without money."