Rights, Freedoms and Safety in today's United States

[Flintlockecole]

My two cents.

 

Governments are people who we put into place to serve us. They can pass all the bills that they want but none of them will truly keep us safe, just take our rights away. There is risk in everything oneself does, going to the market in Boston is less of a risk than Baghdad for example. Risk is something a good majority of people have forgotten if I can say so myself.

 

P.S. No one should ever give up rights for a slight bit of perceived safety, those that would willingly do so are no better than cattle.

[SilverDNA]

It is a manipulation of the public after a bigger violent crime has taken place the totalitarian politician comes up and requests more security and more money for it!
Camera's in public don't make it saver, they only make it easier to get a criminal after wards. Does this help prevent to be a victim of a violent hate crime or does this help only to identify the criminal? Think for yourself.

In case of the security against privacy here in my country, last week due to the Boston bombing. a case surfaced here from a Hessian principal of a school implemented because to too much graffiti in the toilets, cameras. In this school now you are being recorded on DVD when you go to toilet how long you are on the toilet and how long it takes the female pupils to take on makeup. Is the reason to implement cameras on those toilets correct? I say No, since the reason not involves the protection to be unharmed and alive but only property, aside from the protection of the German basic Law §2 who has set in the protection of the privacy of people. (The highest Court in Germany in Karlsruhe has confirmed in similar cases that protection of the privacy is legit over the protection of property and can only be ruled out if there are physical infirmity or life(s) is/are at stake and even this is violated by police here sometimes with the later point of this.)

The thin balance has to be kept of liberty of the citizens with their rights intact and security measures of a state and his right to punish criminals, that violate the laws. It is this thin balance that keeps a country a free state with laws that the citizens abide too. If this balance is overused from the citizens side in favor of their liberty and continues, you get sooner or later a state in civil war or anarchy were only the strongest has rights. In the opposite case where a government overuses its rights to establish laws that violate the liberty's of citizens and their rights, you get a totalitarian state sooner or later, where only those are having rights, who are in the sympathy of the government.
This balance has to be kept.

Edit: Some typos.

Edited April 23, 2013 by SilverDNA

[TRoaches]

There are plenty of safe countries in the world, but none of them are places that I would want to live. You are very unlikely to be assaulted, murdered, or robbed in a place like North Korea or Saudi Arabia but that security comes at a huge price. I know a man who immigrated from Italy after WWII. He speaks admirably of Mussolini's reign. He said that his village had a problem with livestock thieves, but when Mussolini came to power they had a few public executions of chicken thieves and suddenly the the thefts stopped. I fought the urge to debate the merits of fascist government with him out of respect for his age. I have another friend who is from Syria and has no admiration for the government there. He moved to the US and never looked back. He comes from a wealthy family and lived in relative comfort in Syria, was going to inherit a family business and basically would not have to do much work for the rest of his life if he had stayed. He said trading that easy life for the one he has here (owns a small business, works long hours selling gyros to drunks on the street) was an easy choice when he wanted to start a family because he did not want his children to grow in a place where they would be afraid of imprisonment and torture for reading the wrong book or saying the wrong thing.

If you really want to know the answer to the question of trading liberty for security just ask people who come from a place that has already made that trade. It has benefits, like lower crime, but comes at a great cost. It should be noted that the Italian came from a very remote village, and perhaps did not feel the effect of the regime to the same extent that those closer to the cities may have. His experience with Mussolini's regime was brief and limited to his childhood, so that may have something to do with his rosey recollection. The Syrian was born and raised to adulthood near Damascus, is by any measure more educated and analytical than the Italian, and has nothing good to say about the Syrian government. He is also quite critical of the US government because he sees disturbing similarities between our current policy trends and those he grew up under in Syria.

Edited April 22, 2013 by TRoaches

[JimboUK]

If you want to live in a police state then yes the state can offer some extra protection from terrorists but who's going to protect you from the state? You're only exchanging one set of terrorists for another, freedom comes at a price, a price that I think is well worth paying.

[Nintii]

No legislation is going to be able to stop these kinds of incidents ... If someone wants to build a bomb, you simply cannot stop them.

More security cameras won't stop them either.

Banning various weapons/large capacity magazines/etc. aren't going to make a significant difference either.

In my view, the government simply cannot effectively prevent these types of incidents, therefore, passing laws, giving up liberties, in order to 'feel' safer, is pretty much useless.

 

Correct, because firstly ... you are fighting an ideology, which is an enemy intangible ... an illusive enemy,

with no fixed address, who enters your realm of existence through every known channel ... radio,

television, theatre, film, books, magazines, the internet etc. ... every common channel of communication.

And to directly suppress this enemy you are going to strangle civil liberty and freedom.

Besides, your approach is wrong ... you're attacking the fruit and not the root.

 

This is a war for hearts and minds.

 

To beat this enemy, or at very least slow this enemy down - without treading on the rights and

freedoms of people - you have to go to the fields where this insidious fruit is planted.

And wherever the "infectors" are found ... burn out the roaches ... where you can, by inflicting fines,

jail sentences, or deportation ... threaten the death penalty if you have to, to all those who spread

their DOCTRINES OF VIOLENCE.

If you don't do this in your own backyard then you will eventually be faced with a growing mass of

disillusioned people who will ultimately compromise to keep what they hold dear but will lose it in the

process.

 

 

I close with a quote from Ron Paul ...

 

“Liberty is lost through complacency and a subservient mindset. When we accept or even welcome

automobile checkpoints, random searches, mandatory identification cards, and paramilitary police in

our streets, we have lost a vital part of our American heritage. America was born of protest, revolution,

and mistrust of government. Subservient societies neither maintain nor deserve freedom for long.”

[Lisnpuppy]

To beat this enemy, or at very least slow this enemy down - without treading on the rights and

freedoms of people - you have to go to the fields where this insidious fruit is planted.

And wherever the "infectors" are found ... burn out the roaches ... where you can, by inflicting fines,

jail sentences, or deportation ... threaten the death penalty if you have to, to all those who spread

their DOCTRINES OF VIOLENCE.

If you don't do this in your own backyard then you will eventually be faced with a growing mass of

disillusioned people who will ultimately compromise to keep what they hold dear but will lose it in the

process.

 

I am curious, Nintii. I don't necessarily disagree that changing how the U.S. is viewed is helpful. But how do you imagine these things to work. You have a theory here but what about its practical application?

[imperistan]

To be quite honest, this whole incident in Boston has been overblown dramatically. Compared to the bombing in Oklahoma City back in '95 (another bombing committed by a citizen), this wasn't really that much of an attack. Only 3 people died, and 282 injured, compared to the 168 dead and over 600 injured in Oklahoma.

 

Despite the fact that Oklahoma was a far worse incident, it never generated the amount of backlash that Boston is. The fact that this topic exists right now when back in '95 this wouldn't have been a thought on anyone's mind is evidence enough that few are looking at this bombing objectively. Seems to me that people are still riding the wake of fear following 9/11 as if it wasn't just a matter of bad luck (I'll leave the political issues out of it for now) that the US is only now having to deal with this kind of thing when most other countries have had to deal with it for years now.

[SilverDNA]

I begin with a quote that seams to strike true on this topic :

http://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/p480x480/531488_524364574288572_1481092495_n.jpg
And I continue with Dwight D. Eisenhower with a speech from the 16th of April 1953 to the American Society of Newspaper Editors.

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. … Is there no other way the world may live?”

 

Now where to look and where to point the finger to solve a part of it ? You may find your anser here:
"Temperatus enim timor cohibet animos, adsiduus vero et acer et extrema admovens in audaciam iacentes excitat et omnia experiri suadet."

"For a moderate amount of fear restrains men, but a constant and keen apprehension of the worst tortures rouses up even the most grovelling spirits to deeds of reckless courage, and causes them to hesitate at nothing. "
L. Annaeus Seneca, Of Clemency (De Clementia), book 1, XII
(translation from Latin to English taken from Wiki source. The translation could be disputed a bit due to differences in translation I would agree on this. (In German we translate this sentence a bit differently, but in context of what is here is implied are same.)

If injustice because taking permanently the rights of people from, them by privileges and maintained ( by force) a hegemonic structure that leaves people in despair and hopelessness by injustice due to the established hegemony. You get people that contribute less and less to society and get outcasts who feel treated by overpowering injustice are feeling hopeless, because everything they do is legislated in a way by forced socialization, (Galtung and Focault could explain it better than I) If this continues so that despair gets to a point where they have nothing else to lose because thy don't get any chance or opportunity that is legit to get a foot into because over above hegemonic structures. how free would you feel if you see no hope no chance and feel only desperation and oppression? What has this to do with security? in a state where corruption and the establishing of privileges is maintained through a legislated hegemonic structure you get people that do go to schools with a gun and shoot children, build bombs and place them at a Marthon. Don't let it come to this far.
First: Why politics don't want this they live by power and maintain such structures of verbal used violence? Second this can't be archived in a single legislature period. They fear that they could push the other party(s) with what they have started. Third: To take off such privileges, that come with a hegemonic structure, you always need either force from outside or below or by insight by those within or above this structure. Now guess why insight is failing in a society that where individuals with value their power more than the lives of those that are below their class by maintaining oppression through corruption of laws and legislative measures in the government, as well as those people that try to give their little ego an short lived thrill by mobbing a person that is by their own view in the hegemonic structure below them.
Since this will never come from those with power it needs wrested from them but if the laws are made by them They can easily maintain, with minimal effort, their power the higher you go up in this hegemonic structure. thats why they never of theire own free will will uses insight so this insight must coem from thoses that are in beween who have the ability to help and are insightful enough to do this.
Nowadays politics try when ever such terrible crimes surface pick the 1st easiest measure of blaming and forget about it till the next.happens ( there is a pattern to this they tend follow.) and this makes me sad since simplyfication is the doom of society itself and the dance to the grave spins faster and faster,
The insight where all this is wrong isn't sought, but denied because either the measures that are needed to take this down, is for them a too big Boss Monster they dare not in their cowardly mind to fight, out of fear it takes of their powers or they are denning the fact this even exists or try to bully every one down who points this little sociological truth to them out and turn again to the same old crap the used before ( Namely the "Nash Equilibrium" (link to Wikipedia topic) and the "Game Theory" ( link to Wikipedia topic) and similar mathematical equitations of the human behavior, just to predict what peoples do, how to forces others to do what the ones in control think is right to think and to manipulate the minds of citizens just like an orchestra playing some classical music opera in nearly perfect unison. )
If you don't think this all has to do with liberty and security think again why they uses their wordings as they do could this be that they want you to focus on such things for a reason or is this? Is this is a conspiracy theory? You can check this out for your own is you see somebody question the misuses or of power of a goverment official or a party. How will they react if you lay this out openly ? perhaps they will say the one laying this out is unpatriotic or has to be ( with force) socialized or they ignore the ones who put this ion hteire desk or in worst case tell the public this is a conspiracy humbug but it isn't . funny when the power and money of all big parties is at stake they are either tend to pick only side issues of financing or they haggle it out in a backroom away from the citizens and later make it a big voting show for the public. When ever the political system or the right use of governmental power is questioned how do they react ? Do they look into the facts right or are they picking only what is their favor or ignore the opposition 1st and later force it down?
There is a rift between government and citizens going through our society that prevents measures that take real effort to bring down injustice and violence by laws that are relay put through in corruption and misuses of power on one side and hate crimes due to establishing a hegemonic hierarchy against people that are in more danger of being a victim of a hate crime. The next would be if people would try to uses social networking not against other people, but instead of helping them not to despair and be hopeless (Example: There was not long a go a female mobbing victim in school that committed suicide that lived in Canada. Similar (i call it now) forced suicides through separation and segregation have been reported also form the Netherlands and many other country's not only from pupils but from others as well. I think we should start looking more in this direction of crimes and on victimology because the victims of yesterday might be, due to despair and hopelessness a criminal of tomorrow. This is the hard way there are no easy simplified measures to get a less violent society that is more secure than now and has liberty and freedom not reduces to lip services of political whores that spot a chance to gain attention by simplified measures.
I regret and sadly confess this will only happen if we are on the border of destruction by our own systems. That think about what is necessary to ensure safety and security for all people within the laws without destroying liberty and freedom.

Sorry I can't gurantee for no typos at all this has taken me very long to write and think up. I apologize and hope i had not hiccups in thinking and writing.)

[Lisnpuppy]

I really enjoyed your quote and the part of the paper article. It shows how little actions and reactions have changed. During WWII America, to its shame, put many many Japanese-Americans into camps as they found it hard to believe even second generation Japanese could not be sympathetic toward their ancestral nation.

 

To me, it is these reactions. The fear and hate and prejudice that grip our hearts that is the most damning of all things. You can fight against government control and legislation. You an fight against the restriction of rights and the ignoring of the law as it currently stands. How do you fight the dark things in men's hearts?

 

Now though we have talked around it a bit. Federal charges have been filed in the Boston Bombing case and more are likely to come once a grand jury convenes on the matter. I never have seen that he was read his Miranda Rights though I would like to comb over some reports and see the actual complaint (which I have not) before I go further but it appears that at least initially the Miranda Rights were not read saying there was still a clear and present danger of other explosives. I find this problematic as the scope of their questioning could have been limited to this then the right given to the suspect.

[Nintii]

@ Lisn ...

 

To be sure, this is no easy task and I don't claim to have the answers but I can say this ...

 

Well seeing that this is a war for hearts and minds, you as an individual, an American ... do

what you do best, where you can and when you can.

By this I mean WIN OVER in your daily life within your sphere of influence, the hearts and minds

of the "people" who are most likely to become tomorrow's aggressors.

 

Secondly, these mullahs etc., in the mosques across the US need to realise that if they are

going to spread their "jihad" then they are going to spend the rest of their jihad life behind bars.

Arrest them for inciting violence, arrest them, fine them, and jail them if they're spouting outright

hatred.

I ask you do you not think it is Un-American to want to kill Americans in a time of war and it is

such a time ... damn right it is, it's treasonous !

 

Betraying the trust of your nation is treason.

The Boston bombers didn't live in a vacuum they were influenced and according to their uncle

that influence came about in the city of Boston.

Now who was filling their minds with that junk ?

A traitor.

Arresting someone under the Laws that deal with treason is no violation whatsoever.

I have a cousin living in Boston, they're fine but might not have been, it could have been personal.