Fair enough...

I'm not picking a fight... so keep you panties on and stop blaspheming.

Let's say you're right, and we did sacrifice self-reliance and national strength on furthering our nation's "sensibilities" (your term, not mine) on topics we routinely refer to today as "politically correct". Is this something you feel is justified? Are we (as a nation) better off today for the mistakes we have made in the past? In other words, have we learned from those mistakes?

I say we have not.

I am utterly convinced that the Founding Fathers, and especially Washington, knew to the core of their beings that if the US couldn't accomplish what needed to be done within the framework of the Constitution and without sacrificing individual freedoms and liberties, then it didn't deserve to survive past the trials that they knew would come. Washington is renowned for having quoted his favorite play, Cato, time and time again throughout his military and political career, and there is no more quoted phrase from that play than that from Act I, Scene ii "Tis not in mortals to command success; but we'll do more, Sempronius, we'll deserve it."

What is done is done, and we cannot change what has past before whether it is for good or bad... but if we know that the end does NOT justify the means, then questionable actions or policies by any Administration or President (if understood at the time they occur) are fundamentally WRONG.

Let me use your examples... had Lincoln NOT suspended habeus corpus, and incarcerated the entire legislature of the State of Maryland to deny them the ability to secede from the Union, could the Union have still won the War? I'm utterly convinced of it. Had FDR NOT incarcerated the Japanese-Americans in camps, could we still have beaten Imperial Japan? Absolutely. Would America have continued to expand westward towards the Mississippi, had Jackson NOT forced the removal of those sovereign and recognized Indian Nations? Without question, it would have. Thus, I do not feel the ends (in these cases) justify the negation of individual or State rights as defined by the Constitution.

On the other hand, I CANNOT say that the US would have had nearly ten years without a major terrorist attack since 9/11 had Bush NOT signed the Homeland Security Act into law and nearly doubled the size of the Executive Branch of the Federal government. So, the temporary or superficial loss of privacy that the law brought to the American people could very well have contributed to the safety of untold thousands of people and uncounted millions of dollars in property... and thus is justifiable.

Do you see the difference? Is my point clearer now? I'm asking in all earnestness... this is an important topic, and I want there to be no misunderstanding.