I favor violating the rights of right-winger because nothing else will make right wingers sit up and pay attention to the danger of the government's daddy functions. And when right wingers become concerned about government in its daddy functions, they manage to get things done.
When Bill Clinton was President, Timothy McVeigh blew up the Oklahoma City Federal Building killing 168 people. His actions drew attention to the militia or Patriot movement -- private armies stockpiling arsenals and training in the woods to offer armed resistance to the federal government. The argument had been going around for some time that the Second Amendment allows any law-abiding citizen who feels wronged by government to offer armed resistance, and some people were taking that right seriously. One killed 168 people. Clinton asked Congress for an expansion in his powers to deal with armed militias.
This led to a great cry of alarm among conservatives that honest citizens might be persecuted just for training private armies to engage in violent revolution when a Democrat was in the White House. They resisted the proposal. The ACLU and other left-wing civil libertarians also came out against the proposals, not because they supported the right of armed resistance to a Democratic President, but because they believed that people who did so still deserved to have their civil rights respected. The alliance was powerful and the measures were defeated.
Under the Bush II Presidency, Mideastern terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center. Bush asked Congress for increased powers to spy on Muslims. There was some resistance from the ACLU and company, but the right wing all lined up behind Bush and impugned the patriotism of anyone who questioned his actions. The measure passed.
Under the Obama Presidency, even the suggestion that there might be right-wing terrorists led to a great outcry and any further action ended before it started.
I am not a big fan of anti-government militias or right-wing terrorists, but I do believe that their civil rights should be respected. And when conservatives rushed to champion militias and white supremacists, they were at least defending the civil rights of regular guys on the street.
This time is different, though. It doesn't surprise me that with Donald Trump as President the NRA no longer I thinks that armed resistance to the federal government is patriotic and scarcely even seems sure that criticism is allowed anymore.
No, what I find disturbing is the reaction to finding out that members of the Trump campaign (or administration) were targets of investigation for ties to Russia. Revelations that Carter Page was wiretapped, or that Trump was investigated as counter-intelligence threat, or that Paul Manafort had his bail revoked for witness tampering, or that lower level officials are "flipping" on higher level ones.
This has led to an outcry, a denunciation of these violations of Team Trump's rights. But not to any sort of general civil libertarian uproar, any overall cry that could protect the rights of regular guys on the street. No, it has been a fairly open pronouncement that running for President, let along being elected, exempts the candidate, or the office-holder and anyone he chooses to protect from any sort of legal scrutiny, no matter what he does.
So long, of course, as the candidate in question is a Republican.
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