This is why libertarians can’t expect to make any headway until after the crash:
Crime-fighting beats privacy in public places: Americans, by nearly a 3-to-1 margin, support the increased use of surveillance cameras — a measure decried by some civil libertarians, but credited in London with helping to catch a variety of perpetrators since the early 1990s.
Given the chief arguments, pro and con — a way to help solve crimes vs. too much of a government intrusion on privacy — it isn’t close: 71 percent of Americans favor the increased use of surveillance cameras, while 25 percent oppose it….
Seniors are most apt to support the increased use of these cameras, with under-30s, least so; Republicans more than Democrats; women more than men; higher educated people more than the less educated; and whites more than African-Americans.
In the same way that a rich kid growing up amid great wealth doesn’t value money, Americans no longer value freedom. Rags to riches to rags again is a common generational theme, servitude to freedom to servitude is a much longer cycle but apparently one that is just as probable, if not inevitable.
Don’t count on the Republicans, most of them are just as freedom-hating as the Democrats these days.