On october 17, 2006, President Bush signed into law a bill that will selectively lift the Writ of Habeas Corpus for "detainees", who once would have been prosecuted as either prisoners of war or as terrorists under US criminal code.

This is a very troubling development. Americans can be categorized as "Enemy Combatants" and held as "detainees", questioned without access to attorneys and without the protections of the Geneva Conventions. Not since FDR imprisoned Japanese Americans has such a breach of civil liberties been witnessed in the US. At least FDR had the guts to ask for a declaration of War after he goaded the Japanese into the "surprise" attack on Pearl Harbor.

In addition, there is legislation moving through the NH House which would expropriate $400,000 or more from taxpayers to "save" Temple Mountain from "devlopment". Gardner Goldsmith invited the prime sponsor of the bill onto "Against the Grain", and their debate is a classic one -- a prime example of the differences in ethics and philosophy between those who support individual liberty and those who support socialism in the popular Rousseauian mode.