Like many people who have written about Ron Paul's presidential candidacy over the past two election cycles, I've been so impressed with the consistency and uniqueness of his paleoconservative philosophy that I've often overlooked the fact that, if he became president, his policy agenda would actually be pretty horrifying. I explore this in my new feature on 6 rights a President Ron Paul would take away. I know the Ron Paul movement is very net-savvy, so please do post any corrections that you feel are warranted under "Comments" below.

The increasing complexity of the conservative movement in the Tea Party era means that I need to look more carefully at where the contemporary Republican Party came from. Expect a series of biographies of early figures in the Religious Right, beginning with my short pieces on Paul Weyrich and Jerry Falwell.

I hope all of you have a wonderful 2012.

Benjamin Wittes' excellent article "NDAA: A Guide for the Perplexed" begins: "The volume of sheer, unadulterated nonsense zipping around the internet about the NDAA boggles the mind." It does. (Wittes' article is, I think, a necessary antidote.) But the question of why it's so hard for the blogosphere to get the basic details right cuts to the heart of why civil liberties is becoming an issue in the 2012 election, and in several distinct ways:

1. It reveals Obama's betrayal of his original platform. Barack Obama ran for president in 2008 as somebody who was going to end extraordinary rendition and indefinite detention, shut down the gulag at Guantanamo Bay, reduce immigrant deportations, end raids on medical marijuana dispensaries, and limit the power of the executive branch. He has done none of these things, and it's understandable for some of his supporters to become angry enough about this betrayal that they're likely to read things into the NDAA that aren't actually there. (Glenn Greenwald, who has his own take on NDAA, seems to be reframing his entire career around this.)
2. It provides an opportunity for Republicans. While the Bush administration pioneered unconstitutional post-9/11 antiterrorism policy, GOP candidates can now cite Obama's unwillingness to reverse them as a campaign issue. So far, only Ron Paul has done so--though, as I'll explain in tomorrow's blog entry, Rep. Paul has problems of his own--but the more Obama is associated with post-9/11 indefinite detention policies, the easier it is to present "big government" as an all-encompassing issue involving both fiscal policy and civil liberties.
3. It allows Occupy supporters, and others on the left who are apprehensive about Obama, to clearly distance themselves from the political establishment. This is necessary in order for a broader, independent progressive policy agenda to emerge as a force in 2012--and Obama does need to encounter resistance from within his own party, or NDAA-style concessions will become more frequent and more severe. That's not a slam on Obama in particular; it would be foolish to expect more from a politician.

Some of the best coverage of NDAA has come from Amnesty International's blog, which is well worth bookmarking. They've dealt with these issues globally for decades, and this is a case where the international human rights community can probably bring meaningful pressure to bear on the U.S. government.

Related: A Documentary History of Human Rights

I've added six new historical timelines exploring the history of specific civil liberties issues:

• The Death Penalty
• Freedom of Speech
• Indecency and the FCC
• Marijuana Laws
• Obscenity>
• Sodomy Laws

For more timelines, check out my timelines update from last month.

October 25, 2011 marks 40 years since Philip Zimbardo reported the results of his Stanford Prison Experiment to the U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary. While the ethical and scientific validity of the experiment has been and should be called into question, it does illustrate how power differentials can corrupt human behavior and suppress empathy. As About.com: Psychology Guide Kendra Cherry explains:

While the prisoners and guards were allowed to interact in any way they wanted, the interactions were generally hostile or even dehumanizing ...

Even the researchers themselves began to lose sight of the reality of the situation. Zimbardo, who acted as the prison warden, overlooked the abusive behavior of the prison guards until graduate student Christina Maslach voiced objections to the conditions in the simulated prison and the morality of continuing the experiment.

"Only a few people were able to resist the situational temptations to yield to power and dominance while maintaining some semblance of morality and decency; obviously I was not among that noble class," Zimbardo later wrote in his book The Lucifer Effect.

Even if the Stanford Prison Experiment had never taken place, we can see its findings replicated - in less controlled settings - wherever one group of human beings is given unchecked power over others. The recent suspension of two police officers at the University of California - Davis, who assaulted a group of seated nonviolent protesters with pepper spray, proves Zimbardo's point better than his own research did.

Related: Where Do We Get Our Rights?