Most of You Won't Even Notice
It is inescapable that if we are to have security we must sacrifice some degree of our freedom. All the Ben Franklin cliches about if you sacrifice one or the other you deserve neither are hyerbole. When you join society you are going to have to put the lid down when finished and drive on the same side of the road as everyone else, regardless of your personal preference.
But where on the spectrum of total security versus total freedom we draw the line for our society makes a huge difference. Total security is prison. Total freedom is anarchy. We've always drawn the American line on the more freedom end of the spectrum.
"The First Amendment protects radical opinions, but we need the legal tools to do things like monitor the recruitment of terrorists via the Internet," Napolitano told a gathering of the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy.
You will be able to have your radical opinion unless Big Sis decides it doesn't fit her mold. That seems clear.
"Her speech is sign of the maturing of the administration on this issue," said Stewart Baker, former undersecretary for policy with the Department of Homeland Security. "They now appreciate the risks and the trade-offs much more clearly than when they first arrived, and to their credit, they've adjusted their preconceptions."
Beyond the admission that the administration was immature when elected, the chilling aspect of that statement is that it means the Messiah has realized that his opportunity to seize control is waning. The sheeple are getting restless and if he doesn't tighten the screws while he can, he won't be able to later.
Jan the Terrible goes on to tell us not to worry:
She added, "We can significantly advance security without having a deleterious impact on individual rights in most instances. At the same time, there are situations where trade-offs are inevitable."
Isn't that reassuring? It won't have a "deleterious impact" on your rights "in most instances". In other words, you will be hauled off in the night by jack-booted members of the Homeland Security Enforcement SWAT team only occasionally.
There is definitely a threat of terrorists in this nation today. Yet we repeatedly see evidence of political correctness trumping common sense in responding to the obvious. We see ample evidence as well of bureaucratic incompetence in management of existing tools such as terrorist watch lists and no-fly rosters.
My feeling is that in-place tools are adequate and we don't need Big Sis watching and controlling our free expression of political ideas in America.
1 comment:
"The cost of freedom." Something most people give little thought to, or really try to understand. At one point it was simple common sense, now, not so much. Most people hear that phrase and think it means simply that we have to have an army, and that once upon a time we had to fight a war to be free from the nazis. They don't understand that there is a cost to each and every one of us every day, and that we'll only have as much freedom as we're willing to pay for. If we want to be free from strip searches at the airport, we accept the risk that somebody might be able to to take over or destroy the plane. If we want to have a manned space program, we have to accept the occasional crash or failure as part of the process. If we want real freedom to keep and bear arms, we accept that occasionally some idiot is going to shoot somebody. And there are always going to be idiots. If you want to drive an automobile, you accept that you might one day be killed in a crash. If we want to have sufficient energy to power an industrial society, we have to accept that we might have an oil spill, and that if it happens, we should shut up and deal with it the best we can and go on. All anybody is concerned about is to completely eliminate risk from our lives, but they never consider the cost...
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