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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GROUND ZERO™ who wrote (755188)	11/28/2006 6:28:08 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Re: "Let's make it simple... what rights, if any, would you be willing to give up in order to be safe from terrorism? TIA" Right to free speech - No. Right to Democracy - No. Any of the Bill of Rights - No. 'Right' to Middle Eastern oil - Maybe. (It's gonna run out anyway one day... so that might be a good trade.) 'Right' to import Middle Eastern dates - absolutely. So, like I already answered (in an answer I thought you'd previously found sufficient).... In reply to your posted question: "If so, which ones would you be willing to give up?" I answered: None, unless I could gain more then I would be losing. Message 23043451 ... For the LIFE of me though... I fail to see where any trade ('freedom' for 'security') is actually on the table anywhere.... Though, of course, it's obvious that everything we are discussing is measured in degrees (DEGREES of freedom, DEGREES of security... there being no such thing as absolute freedom or total security), and that there are no absolutes in life... and that it is not uncommon at all (see President Lincoln's, or F.D.R.'s, or Wildon's, or Truman's actions, or even Justice Scalia's recent comments) for freedoms to be restricted or scaled back in times of war or crisis to try to achieve some temporary measure of improved public security. The 'trick', I guess, is to try to make sure that the 'scaling back' of freedom is only TEMPORARY, and that REAL IMPROVEMENTS (not illusory ones) to SECURITY are obtained thereby... and that the state of emergency CAN ultimately be ended (and not left open-ended as a cynical ploy to permanently increase the power of government --- a ploy our founding Fathers - and some later luminaries - were very much aware of as a risk that is always with any society): "Perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad...." --- James Madison to Thomas Jefferson, May 13, 1798. "Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes... known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." ---James Madison, 4th U.S. President, Political Observations, 1795 “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” --- Thomas Jefferson "They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." --- Benjamin Franklin "The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts." --- Edmund Burke "The greatest threats to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." --- Justice Louis Brandeis, 1928 "Of all the enemies of public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, and the executive is the branch most favored by it of all the branches..." --- James Madison "Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction." --- Ronald Reagan "The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors; they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us without a struggle, or be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men." --- Samuel Adams