Civil Liberties: To Hell in a Basket?

Are the rights and liberties of the American people being sent to hell in a basket? Or do they stand relatively secure, unaffected by “law and order” counter-pressures?

Social and political tensions have been mounting through the late ’60s. For Americans to the left of an imaginary center line, the political atmosphere has become smoggier since the assassination of John Kennedy, with only a slight relief during the McCarthy-Robert Kennedy campaign. After the fall of Joe McCarthy, the left-of-center felt the exhilaration of troops on the offensive. The freedom rides moved into the victory symbolized by the “Little Rock Nine” and then to the Mississippi summer, and through the early civil rights victor...