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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!!
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To: Michael M who wrote (64577)12/1/1999 8:26:00 PM
From: The Philosopher  Read Replies (4) of 108807
 
I am neither a legal or constitutional scholar, but, I believe public safety is the highest
responsibility of public officials.

Hmmm. That sounds good on the surface, but if you take it to your natural conclusion, a police state is better than a democracy. Our constitution tends to prefer a messy trade off between public safety and personal rights. The line isn't easy to draw, but on the fringes it's pretty easy to say when it's been overstepped. And banning ALL demonstrations, the peaceful and the nonviolent as well as the violent, in 50 blocks of a major city, is IMO far over the line.

Also, the police confiscated the radios (walkie-talkies) of the organizers. Huh? That sounds a lot like theft to me. They wanted to prevent the organizers from being able to communicate effectively with each other and with their "home office." But I bet they didn't confsicate the cell phones of the WTO delegates!

It's too easy to use "public safety" as an excuse for denying all sorts of personal rights. If we don't stand up and say NO, eventually more and more rights will be eroded until we are all safe but we all have no rights left at all. (Do you REALLY want to live in Singapore? Very safe. Very clean. But don't even think about protesting anything the government does.)

Personally, I would say that guaranteeing basic constitutional freedoms and public safety are parallel responsibilities of public officials. I'm not willing to sacrifice either one for the sake of the other.
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