Westneat and Seattle Totalitarianism

Danny Westneat complains of others spinning Cpl. Jeffrey Starr’s letter home to his girlfriend, while he spins it himself.

This is so typical of the mindset of Seattle. People will decry something like the Patriot Act, because it stomps on our civil liberties. But, at the same time, they will promote a whole variety of laws that limit those very same freedoms. Mayor Nickels’ obsession with strip clubs, driven in large part by his alignment with Seattle’s hegemonic feminism (dressed in right wing moralist virtue in this case), is a case in point.

Westneat can’t spin Jeffrey Star’s letter by accusing others of spinning it only because he thinks the point he wants to make is more righteous than the point others want to make. Well, he can’t do it without transparently being a hypocrite.

Similarly, politicians can’t pick and choose among which civil rights and freedoms to limit because they think their reasons for limiting our freedom are “righteous enough.” Every inch of rationalization for freedom taken by government, regardless of the reason, opens a miles wide opportunity based on precedent for more restriction.