Both sides are hypocrytical. The reason some people are inclined to support the Left is simply that they feel the overall policies of the Right are more damaging. It is certainly not because hypocrisy is found only on the Right. :-)

When Americans agree strenuously with a policy they often call it "un-American", because it's not what they figure THEY would do. That's typical thinking, isn't it?

For instance, opponents of the Patriot Act consider it un-American. People in support of the Patriot Act consider opposition to the Patriot Act to be un-American. Ho hum. (I laugh at the collective folly of partisan opinions.)

The key thing about the Patriot Act, in my opinion, is that it's un-democratic. That's more important than whether it's un-American, because nobody can really define what "American" means in that context with any final authority, and nobody outside the borders of the USA gives a damn whether or not anything is "un-American"! But they do give a damn whether or not it's un-democratic (and I ain't talkin' about the Democratic Party when I use that word).