JustAsking
Sexy Member
I have hesitated to even read this thread for quite a while, since I was afraid I would be too insensed about what I read here. I now realize that my concern comes more from instincts I have built up since living in Ohio, which are to expect rampant conservatism everywhere I look.
I should have already learned my lesson, though. These are the most intelligent conversations I have found on the Internet in public forums.
Anyway, I just read the first half of this thread and have concluded that GBO has said it all. G, you should write for the Washington Post. On this matter, you are cogent, precise, and just plain right.
This might be just rehashing what has already been said, but my feeling is that whenever the rights of American citizens are balanced against national security, its an extremely important mattter. As Patrick Henry, said, "Give me Liberty, or give me Death." So we know how that founding father arranged his priorities between rights and safety. Anyway, its due to the importance of any threat to civil liberties that we should be all the more following due process and either declaring war or not declaring war. This is true in all situations, not just with Iraq.
This is why our criminal justice system has a very strong formal notion about what the executive branch can do to detain you or search you based on whether or not you have been formally charged or not. Police just can't go around detaining and searching people without due cause with only their "good intentions to protect you" as justification. Just shouting, "BUT WE ARE FIGHTING CRIME!" is not sufficient to justify an unfettered police force. Neither is invoking the "war on terror" slogan justification for the executive branch to trample all over civil rights whenever it thinks it needs to.
The fact that most people don't understand how important it is to be constantly vigilant about how the executive branch of a government is behaving is an indictment of our educational system.
We should be teaching things like:
"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." -Thomas Jefferson.
"All tyrrany needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin (although the authorship is disputed).
"Given a choice between government without newspapers, or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter."
- Thomas Jefferson
and so on. These guys got it. Why are we so bad at teaching it in our schools?
So my point here is .... ummm what was my point ... Oh yeah, war is the last thing we should be informal about because it has just as many implications for our domestic freedoms as it does for anything else.
JustAsking
I should have already learned my lesson, though. These are the most intelligent conversations I have found on the Internet in public forums.
Anyway, I just read the first half of this thread and have concluded that GBO has said it all. G, you should write for the Washington Post. On this matter, you are cogent, precise, and just plain right.
This might be just rehashing what has already been said, but my feeling is that whenever the rights of American citizens are balanced against national security, its an extremely important mattter. As Patrick Henry, said, "Give me Liberty, or give me Death." So we know how that founding father arranged his priorities between rights and safety. Anyway, its due to the importance of any threat to civil liberties that we should be all the more following due process and either declaring war or not declaring war. This is true in all situations, not just with Iraq.
This is why our criminal justice system has a very strong formal notion about what the executive branch can do to detain you or search you based on whether or not you have been formally charged or not. Police just can't go around detaining and searching people without due cause with only their "good intentions to protect you" as justification. Just shouting, "BUT WE ARE FIGHTING CRIME!" is not sufficient to justify an unfettered police force. Neither is invoking the "war on terror" slogan justification for the executive branch to trample all over civil rights whenever it thinks it needs to.
The fact that most people don't understand how important it is to be constantly vigilant about how the executive branch of a government is behaving is an indictment of our educational system.
We should be teaching things like:
"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism." -Thomas Jefferson.
"All tyrrany needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin (although the authorship is disputed).
"Given a choice between government without newspapers, or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter."
- Thomas Jefferson
and so on. These guys got it. Why are we so bad at teaching it in our schools?
So my point here is .... ummm what was my point ... Oh yeah, war is the last thing we should be informal about because it has just as many implications for our domestic freedoms as it does for anything else.
JustAsking