“The first duty of government is to protect the citizen from assault. Unless it does this, all the civil rights and civil liberties in the world aren't worth a dime.”

When you take my civil rights and civil liberties, you take something from me that is far more precious than the insult of any physical assault... you take my dignity... Down with King George W... impeach he and his jester, Tricky Dicky II.

Couldn't be said better. It is unfortunate that defending the country is so unimportant to some people. To think that in the past people were rounded up and put in concentration camps because they looked like the enemy while today we can’t do any thing that would be considered profiling is a shame. We are becoming so soft that we could go by way of Rome. Death from within. They can only defeat us if we are not willing to defend ourselves.

I suppose it matters how one defines 'assault'. Even in communist countries the government protects its citizens from assault. But what good is life without liberty? The duty of government is to protect citizens' rights from assault -- it is the right of citizens to protect themselves from assault, too -- including assault from their own government.

Not well thought out. The only way government can protect us from assault is to lock everybody up. In the U.S., our own governments only retaliate against those who assault us, after the fact. As a free person I can at least defend myself. As a slave of the State I am helpless. Liberty trumps imaginary safety.

Most sovereign's freedoms have been taken away under the auspices of protecting 'We The People' from assault (from domestic and foreign actors). By way of extremely terse example: how did arresting (under the Patriot Act / without charge) my attorney friend, transporting his dead mother's household away from her old home protect me from assault? I didn't, it only violated my friend and We The People. I will protect myself from assault, and the government's duty is to prosecute anyone that assaults me.

He has been dubbed the "funding father" of modern conservative strategy.[2][3] Viguerie worked for the Christian evangelist Billy James Hargis in his early career. In an autobiographical note, Viguerie wrote that in 1961 he became executive secretary of the conservative youth group, Young Americans for Freedom. "Since 1965, owner of direct marketing/advertising companies such as American Target Advertising. Political/campaign strategist, activist and conservative spokesman and writer," he wrote.[1] Viguerie founded Conservative Digest magazine in 1975 and served as its publisher for ten years. Opposing President Gerald Ford's election, Viguerie in 1976 unsuccessfully sought the presidential nomination of the American Independent Party (that had been formed eight years earlier by George Wallace). [1] In 1977 he worked on a project to raise money for Sun Myung Moon's Children's Relief Fund, which reportedly only received 6.3% of the $1,508,256 raised. $920,000 went to Viguerie according to New York State charity auditors.[4][5] Viguerie sought the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor of Virginia in 1985, but did not receive the nomination at the GOP state convention. Asked by Campaigns and Elections in May 2000 what his immediate goals were Viguerie answered "To use the Internet to involve Americans in the political process, to help conservatives gain an advantage over the left. To fight against government's use of power, to fight for individual rights and responsibilities, and to fight to extend the blessings of liberty throughout the world."[1] THIS NUT DOESN'T BELONG ON PAGE WITH T. J. OR DOUGLAS Writing in The Nation, David Corn noted that Viguerie "raised money for Judicial Watch" and is associated with Larry Klayman, conservative lawyer and activist and Republican candidate for the US Senate from Florida in 2004.[6] Viguerie has long been associated with conservative activist Howard Phillips through creation of the Moral Majority in 1979.

Noncur as written, respectfully. The government's job is not to protect me from assault as an individual, but to protect the country from assault collectively. And it must perforfce do this without infringing upon the liberties we have and may not be taken away or usurped by the government. Nobody said it was easy, but folks who work in the government (like me)volunteered, hopefully with the knowledge that well-educated or not - John Q Public is the real boss. Anyone in government that loses sight of that needs to resign. That includes the leadership of all 3 branches of the government.

Why isn't A. Reston in this decade?

The FIRST duty of government is to protect LIBERTY of the INDIVIDUAL.

It depends on the definition of assault. People are being assaulted when cops steal property under civil forfeiture laws. Citizens are assaulted when government steals money from one person and gives it to another for welfare, corporate or otherwise.