“It is possible to read the history of this country as one long struggle to extend the liberties established in our Constitution to everyone in America.”

... unfortunately, our country's leadership has at times been on the wrong side of that struggle... Impeach Jester Cheney and King George W (in that order)!

dittos A from Reston

Since before 1900 American history has become one long struggle to remove the liberties in our Constitution from everyone but the elite. My favorite example is gun control, limiting my ability to own guns, the opposite of Second Amendment. If the rich and powerful have the right to the protection of machineguns ... so do I.

Reston got it right.

As most of Molly Ivins writings, this quote is "right on" for the benefit of EVERYONE. I am already missing her powerful voice.

Do you mean extending those rights to everyong in America or to those citizens protected by the Constitution?

Not quite true. It has been more a struggle between some interest groups to gain an advantage over all the others. Those groups with power care very little for those that don't. For example, today's race warlords have no interest in gaining equal treatment under the law for those they purport to represent. They simply want to perpetuate the special privileges they've extorted over the years.

Excellent point. Liberty is still an ideal America strives to reach. Better we remind ourselves what Liberty means lest we trade it for an imposter.

If Ivins said it, she was probably thinking of the freedom to have a crappy government apartment and cheese. Of course, in the Liberal's America, that's all anybody would have.