Civil liberties advocates lost a Senate stalwart Tuesday night when Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin) was defeated by Ron Johnson, a little-known plastics manufacturer whose shibboleths against health care reform and government spending tapped into populist anger.

This is very bad. Feingold's voice has been repeatedly important in the defense of individual rights and civil liberties. No one could replace it. It doesn't matter who Johnson is. It doesn't help that he appears to be a vampid hack, but it doesn't matter. Feingold loosing is another major blow to individual rights and civil liberties in this country, and that would be the case no matter who replaced him.

Incidentally, the "libertarians" are out showing their true colors on the Reason blog, talking about how it's "almost" a shame and ignorantly overemphasizing Citizen's United in favor of the countless times Feingold has stood for individual rights - likely because none of those people actually cares about individual rights enough to have ever followed a Congressional debate on that subject closely enough to recognize his name or understand his actual position.

No one in the modern "libertarian" movement gives a damn about individual rights and freedoms. They are all died in the wool Republican partisans who think "Libertarian" sounds cooler - more oppositional - less mainstream.

The political influence of people who actually believe in real individual rights and freedoms in this country is rapidly dissolving.