Liberal will rail against the the enrons of the world or corporate polluters, but have nothing to say about gang violence or organized crime or drug trafficking or illegal drug use.

Maybe you perceive it that way because the popular notion of being "tough on crime" has more to do with punishment than with prevention.

Liberals have plenty to say about gang violence and organized crime and drug trafficking and illegal drug use -- but curtailing any of these problems is a longterm (even generational) process; it should be obvious to everyone, no matter what their stance, that long prison terms and the death penalty do nothing to lower the crime rate, except for the criminal who's been locked up or put to death.

The answer lies not in such "quick fixes" as imprisonment and execution, but in investing in courses which break the cycle of violence in our culture, education -- early, continuous, and quality -- being the number-one method. You pull people out of the cycle of violence and crime by giving them a better way to live, and then you keep giving them every opportunity to have the fullest, richest life possible. (I don't want to start in on the whole class-war issue here, but that's what's at the heart of the problem.)

It's poverty and hopelessness that creates criminals -- and terrorists. Unfortunately, our society takes the same approach to domestic crime as it does international terrorism: Forget about addressing the causes -- just punish the perps, fast and hard. And what does that get us in the longterm? More criminals -- and more terrorists.

You may as well beat a child black and blue for hitting his little sister, all the while screaming, "You NEVER" - whack! - "NEVER" - whack! - "EVER" - whack! - "HIT anyone else!"

Lot of good that does.

The problem is that too many people believe in revenge over prevention.

Side note: As for the "traditional" methods of preventing crime, never forget: Liberals are not the ones to blame for cutting funding to the nation's first responders. And when it comes time to bulk up our police and firefighting forces, who is it that balks at forking out their precious tax dollars at every turn? Not liberals, but the "fiscal conservatives."

Re drugs: Decriminalize marijuana, and you'll empty half the prisons in the nation. How does that fight crime? Easy: Prison is Crime University. If you don't want a lot of otherwise nonviolent people to become graduates, then stop throwing pot smokers and growers into prison.

(Another effect of unreasonable drug laws: Take a look at just how well California's misguided Three-Strikes law has worked out; our prisons are overflowing with minor offenders to the point that we are now sending inmates to serve their terms in other states!)

Re guns: It's a myth, all right. I don't hunt, I don't sit up nights with a shotgun on my lap waiting for the terra-ists to invade, and I believe the NRA has devolved from RKBA defender into a bunch of paranoid lunatics -- but when you want to take my gun, you will have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.

The answer to soothing the NRA's hysteria is not a lot of lame-sounding promises that we'll never take away their guns -- that's a defensive position. The answer is to point out that it's not liberals who have been gutting the Constitution, but are the ones fighting to the death to preserve it -- especially the Bill of Rights (can you say "habeas corpus"?) which includes the Second Amendment, as it stands.

In the end, liberals are not silent on any of these issues -- it's that our solutions are not what the "revenge is sweet" crowd wants to hear.