Kickstart70  12-01-2002
03:03 PM ET (US)
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The 'average joe' will be fine under the changes that are happening in the US. Teens will still be going to school under mostly safe conditions, there isn't going to be a full-blown american Gestapo (did I just run smack into Godwin's Law?) patrolling the streets and detaining citizens for not having their papers handy after dark.
But this definitely doesn't mean that americans can allow the current of american politics to flow in that direction, for to do so means that you turn a blind eye to injustice affecting other people (anywhere, not just in the USA).
I'm in Canada, and see every day the ways that US policies are affecting the world in ways that the 'average joe' doesn't know about because the american media doesn't care or Joe doesn't bother looking outside his city, nevermind his state or country. Even the allies of the US are being stretched by the protectionist and aggressive policies of the US, and what you are seeing inside your borders are only reflections of what the same governments have been doing outside of them for 30+ years.
For those who care to research further, check into:
- US subs patrolling northern Canadian waters within sovereign limits without permission
- Countervailing duties on Canadian softwood lumber
- Breeches of NAFTA by the US (which has repeatedly lost legal challenges to these breeches in internation courts)
...If you can't treat your friends fairly, then you won't have any friends. If your government doesn't treat its own citizens fairly, then its own citizens will become its enemies. If your gov't creates enemies inside and outside your borders, then it's going to cause wars from all sides.
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gorgar 12-01-2002
02:46 PM ET (US)
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There are just too many people out there who are afraid of what liberty really means. Before we had terrorist attacks on U.S. soil, these people were already frustrated with the fact that we had to put up with anarchists, punks, gangbangers, dykes, logging protesters, and anybody else that doesn't fit neatly into their picture of America. There will be a silent ratification of this totalitarian style abomination because in their hearts, the masses know that this is the answer to those domestic issues that they don't have the stomach for.
One need only look to our present industrialized prison system for a precedent.
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Patrick Nielsen Hayden 12-01-2002
10:25 AM ET (US)
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"Those who sacrifice liberty in the service of security deserve neither."
Actually, I think even people who make grave political mistakes deserve both liberty and security anyway.
I'm actually beginning to believe this slogan (attributed to Benjamin Franklin) is popular among modern people like us, not because it challenges us, but because it comforts us. See those bad things happening to civil liberties? Well (it says), they're happening because those bad, foolish people deserve to have them happen. There's some kind of justice, after all.
In fact, the real fact is that if you sacrifice liberty for security, you don't get either. But that's a practical point, rather than an assertion about who does and doesn't "deserve" certain things. Put like that, it doesn't scratch our need to feel like we, personally, are better-than-average human beings.
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