ciroccoj | "Just Watch Me"

I'm an incurable history geek, I know, but one of the things that's keeping me going writing this Civil Liberties article is that I keep running across things like this partial transcript of the impromptu interview between Tim Ralfe of the CBC and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, during the FLQ Crisis in Quebec, October 1970, three days before Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act:

Tim Ralfe: I explained it badly I think, but what you're talking about to me is choices, and my choice is to live in a society that is free and democratic, which means that you don't have people with guns running around in it.
Pierre Trudeau: Correct.
Ralfe: And one of the things I have to give up for that choice is the fact that people like you may be kidnapped.
Trudeau: Sure, but this isn't my choice, obviously. You know, I think it is more important to get rid of those who are committing violence against the total society and those who are trying to run the government through a parallel power by establishing their authority by kidnapping and blackmail. And I think it is our duty as a government to protect government officials and important people in our society against being used as tools in this blackmail. Now, you don't agree to this but I am sure that once again with hindsight, you would probably have found it preferable if Mr Cross and Mr Laporte had been protected from kidnapping, which they weren't because these steps we're taking now weren't taken. But even with your hindsight I don't see how you can deny that.
Ralfe: No, I still go back to the choice that you have to make in the kind of society that you live in.
Trudeau: Yes, well there are a lot of bleeding hearts around who just don't like to see people with helmets and guns. All I can say is, go on and bleed, but it is more important to keep law and order in the society than to be worried about weak-kneed people who don't like the looks of ...
Ralfe: At any cost? How far would you go with that? How far would you extend that?
Trudeau: Well, just watch me.
Ralfe: At reducing civil liberties? To what extent?
Trudeau: To what extent?
Ralfe: Well, if you extend this and you say, ok, you're going to do anything to protect them, does this include wire-tapping, reducing other civil liberties in some way?
Trudeau: Yes, I think the society must take every means at its disposal to defend itself against the emergence of a parallel power which defies the elected power in this country and I think that goes to any distance. So long as there is a power in here which is challenging the elected representative of the people I think that power must be stopped and I think it's only, I repeat, weak-kneed bleeding hearts who are afraid to take these measures.

Link to the interview (the part quoted above starts about 5 minutes into the 6-minute interview)

ETA: Wow, I haven't seen this one in years: Armed Forces, machine guns and jeeps on the streets of Montreal.