Politics & Power Quote by Larry Craig

A defensive mantra disguised as reassurance, Larry Craig's line is built to calm the public while quietly moving the goalposts on what government should be allowed to do. The repetition of "We do not take away" reads like a preemptive rebuttal to a criticism he can already hear: that surveillance powers, once expanded, rarely shrink back. By framing the issue as something being "taken away", Craig flips the burden of proof. Restraint becomes a loss, and anyone asking for limits is cast as naive about danger.

The key maneuver is in the phrase "those who would do us wrong". It's emotionally potent and strategically vague. It invites the listener to picture a terrorist, a predator, an anonymous enemy, without specifying the legal thresholds that separate targeted investigation from broad monitoring. That ambiguity is the point: it lets extraordinary tools be defended as ordinary common sense. "Right and the power" doubles down on legitimacy, collapsing moral authority ("right") into institutional capability ("power") so the government sounds not just able, but entitled.

The context is the post-9/11 political environment, when elected officials competed to signal toughness and to inoculate themselves against the charge of being "soft" on security. Craig isn't arguing for a specific policy detail; he's policing the boundaries of acceptable debate. The subtext is blunt: whatever reforms you propose, don't touch the machinery. Only adjust the rhetoric around it.