Civil Liberties are so Extreme.

From Comments from Left Field, a perspective on the framing lines that are drawn between and within the parties by who else but the media, even the so-called liberal media like the NY Times:

According to the New York Times, an American is on the “far left” if they are angry over Obama’s support for the FISA bill. Or, in other words, if an American is vocal about defending their civil liberties, that puts them in the fringes of politics — the outcasts wandering around the hinterlands, forgotten and ignored because of their extreme views.
Nice.
Why don’t we see extreme activities which receive Republican support as being considered “far right”? Why isn’t the anti-immigration group the Minutemen ever considered far right? How come wanting to destroy social security isn’t from the far right? How come wanting to enforce religion by law (for example, by making gay marriage illegal) isn’t on the far right? How come using tax cuts to distribute more wealth to the greedy isn’t coming from the far right? I could go on — and I’m sure you could, too. Suffice to say, in today’s political discourse “far right” is defined as either God Hates Fags or Adolf Hitler; yet the “far left” consists of activists who dare to defend the Constitution.
Insert some witty cliche about the “liberal media” here. When this is the starting point defined by the mainstream, no wonder political discourse in this country is a joke.