Carnival of the Liberals, Independence Day edition

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Okay, so Independence Day was yesterday, but it's close enough. If we can have fireworks on the 2nd of July, we can have a carnival on the 5th. It's also a fitting theme, since so many of the posts in this edition deal with the subject of liberty, and recent assults on it.

First, from Perceiving Wholes, we have an entry on freedom from narrow political lables. Jane gives the example of the Green Party, who are in most ways left wing, but do have some vaules generally considered conservative, such as decentralization.

In "The thing a symbol stands for," The Ridger talks about the proposed anti-flag burning amendment that, thankfully, failed by one vote. He asks, "Isn't our embrace of liberties as important as our preaching of Liberty, of democratic laws as of Democracy?" Amen to that, brother. In a post related to a different proposed constitutional amendment, Greesmile looks at homophobic attempts to pretend that gays don't exist. Then, touching on both of these subjects, Enceladus wonders why constitutional amendments no longer expand our liberties.

ChemJerk reports on a local example of attempts to push evolution out of the classrooms. This is a useful reminder that having won Dover isn't everything.

Joerg at The Atlantic Review explains why Bush botched an opportunity to "win hearts and minds."

"What is a Libertarian Democrat?" That's the question asked by Eteraz, who outlines a more moderate libertarianism.

Is the space age tied to environmentalism? The Naked Gaze examines the question, drawing on Al Gore's recent movie.

Getting back to the subject of liberty, The Atheist Ethicist has a post on accusations of treason that speaks for itself:

Those who wish to charge individuals at the New York Times with treason for revealing the fact that Bush is spying on Americans without a warrant prove by their words that they are fonder of tyranny than they are of liberty.

Similar, but darker, is worries that we've passed theo point of no return from The Neural Gourmet.

Our final entry for this edition talks about Democratic moves to make more clear what they stand for. Included are things like the minimum wage and oil/gas subsidies, but I have another proposal: Fighting for constitutioan rights, against those who would place symbols above rights and try reporters for treason. That's patriotism, not what many right wingers seem to think patriotism is.

That's all for this edition. The next edition will be held at Brainshrub, in the 19th. Hope we'll see entries as good as the ones on this week's lineup.