Quote:
Originally Posted by UtahDan
Look Arch, every government including ours deprives its citizens of any number of liberties. That is the nature of social contract. We give over many of our individual rights to the collective, even in a liberal republic. Our government is the best because it deprives us of the fewest, I agree. But to say that any deprivation of liberty puts us on the road to oppression just overstates the case, in my opinion. I agree fully with the impulse to worry about it; we should. But isn't it more useful to look at what we specifically gave up (which I find people have a very hard time articulating) as contrasted to what we got in the bargain, rather than just saying that in no case should any liberty no matter how small be sacrificed for security no matter how great?
For example, when you commit a crime that I am the victim of, I don't get to arrest you, try you, sentence you or punish you. I have given those rights over to the collective. I have done it because we have a safer society when the government enforces the law than when every one is a law unto themselves. In the absence of the social contract I AM at liberty to do those things. Yet I give over these liberties in favor of a safer, more orderly society. The maximum you are asserting isn't an argument for the elimination of the police and the judiciary. Obviously you are not saying that. But do you see my point what we are really talking about is not giving up liberty for security, but giving up TOO MUCH liberty for security? The conversation, then, and this is all my point ever was, is not whether we should ever give up liberty for security, but whether we have given up too much. That is a conversation we must do with reference to the specifics.
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I have been involved in witnessing the abuses of easy wiretaps. At one time the standard was meaningful. Now a prosecutor need find only a friendly judge and basically you can wiretap anybody you wish. This is a liberty we don't need.
We had county commissioners investigated for going to a strip joint using the provisions of the Patriot Act. I find that appalling.