The basic notion seems to be that these two are opposites, when it comes to their application in a society. For example, if you live in a country where it's legal to carry guns, you have to accept that there is a risk that someone else will use a gun to shoot you. If you live a country where no one carries guns, the danger is substantially less.
And if you live in a country where you're free to bring shampoo in your carry-on luggage when you board a plane, you have to accept that someone might decide to put explosives in a shampoo bottle and carry it onto a plane that you're on.
If you live in a country where the government and law enforcement can't just tap into your phone conversations without a warrant, then you have to accept that someone might have a phone conversation full of plans to kill and hurt others, and it will go unheard by law enforcement.
I'm saying that before 9/11 and all the other tragic events that have unfolded during the last 10 years or so, things were a lot more free. I traveled on planes a lot, and security wasn't nearly as much of a hassle as it is now. I also knew that I had certain rights in any given situation, such as knowing when police officers could search something, or even detain a person.
Today, I'm not sure where these boundaries are anymore. I'm not sure what a police officer needs to legally search my car/house. I know that it used to require a warrant, or probable cause and a warrant secured later (when time and opportunity prevented the cop from leaving to get a warrant right then). And I know that if the cop failed to obtain a warrant after the search, then all the evidence that he found while searching would have to be disregarded during court proceedings.
No one wants to see another 9/11 take place. But I feel like a country that prides itself on being free should accept the risk that we may see another attack like that at some point. The only way to totally eliminate such a risk would be to totally strip all people in this country of all forms of social freedom, and then no one could conceivably pull off a serious attack from within our country.
If you look at other countries that we label "terrorist states", it seems like those countries don't have much internal struggle because they take all the freedoms away from the people living there.
Look at Iraq. Those people were oppressed by Saddam Hussein for so long, and when we give them freedom, look what they choose to do with it. They get all violent and crazy. If they had no freedom, they wouldn't be able to blow up cars and so forth.
So is that where we are headed in the USA? Will our government just continue to pass laws that take away our freedoms in exchange for making things safer? I'd be willing to take the risk of flying on a plane with people carrying their shampoo rather than lose my right to bring any kind of bottles on the plane. It's part of living in a free country.
[IMG]http://freespace.virgin.net/flyfishing.flies/scotland-wallace4.gif[/IMG]
As VGC's token Scottish poster, my feelings should be clear on this.
Well said.
Canada's both secure and free! So I'll take both.
and we're only secure because we're canada, not because we have any defense whatsoever.
Secure in the fact that no one wants to steal your maple.
Anyway - I disagree with society's notions of freedom and security. They have all the wrong reasons, if you ask me. People seem to forget that the original derivation of society is protection from those who would seek to force their will upon yours. Whether this be predator or metaphorical predator doesn't matter. At the same time though, I find no solace in the notion that my life is a value to society, and an equal one to that of a moron - thus I am expendable to some degree. Really, this entire thing is a cluster-**** attempt to survive, and people just get caught too far up into their own delusions to realize it. What is security; less chance of losing one's life on a probability scale? And furthermore, what is freedom? The ability to speak without being struck down by the imaginary force created to protect you? Or simply to do as you please? /rant
You cannot wage war on an ideal. Terrorism will always exist, and the fact of the matter, is that America is one of the main perpetrators. Guerrilla warfare is almost impossible to prevent, period. If you want people to believe you, alter definitions.
solrok, is that related to my post?
It's a statement, it can be related.
[color=black]Touch
We already have Athabasca Oil Sands :)
... We're so ****ed...
Okay, I read the thread post, but didn't read the topic, so... eh.
I have to say, that I very much agree with you, Castor. I would rather live free and not so safe than live secure and without simple rights, like- as you said- taking a bottle of shampoo on an airplane. As far as tapping phone lines go, I think that is total bull crap. If someone REALLY wanted to bomb a national monument, or whatever, then they would work around such simple security measures, so why bother?
I don't know, maybe none of what i said makes sense... That's just what I've got to say. :)
Americans may be lazy... but it is oil. They'll want it, eventually.
[QUOTE=S
Gollum the Philosopher with a question ending post to make us think ^
I for one personally believe that some government agent can listen to all of my sex talk over the phone at nights (lol), check my luggage and find condoms, and/or anything else that may embarass me just for my protection. If it means saving my life or not even necessarily my life, but someone elses, then I find it quite necessary.
I can see where people get upset, but are you really hiding personal things that is so horribly wrong that you must defend the purpose of having freedom over security? We're talking about possible lives.
Sure on 9/11 only a thousand or so died. But what about next time? What if a terrorist were to carry such a powerful weapon with bad intentions? We'd only been thrown back into security mode anyways. We simply must not give up having the security.
Besides.. Your complaining about freedom. Why don't you go live Iran or something?? Then go complain... STFU. Oh i'm sorry you don't have freedom. Go live in Iran where you truley have little freedom. I don't even understand why we have this topic. Lives should outweigh silly personal embarassment.
Well, being as liberal as i am, i naturally choose freedom over security , and just tell everyone to be carefull. Besides, if you die ina terrorist atack, you one of the lucky ones IMHO, you no longer have to deal with the bul**** of life. Were all gonna die eventually, and when life is over, whats the point of all the **** youve done? unless there is an afterlife which i seriously doubt, thats why i choose to live my life always faaded.
In before "Off yourself."
Seriously though, liberal vs. conservatism in itself is bull****. They're both old, and irrelevant terms. They've lost their original purposes, and should really be discarded. Reactionary and Radical are the only two that have kept their original meaning. Don't identify yourself with such a stupid term.
Your post made lest sense then the sect I identify myself as, i only say im liberal cuz my beliefs towards imigration, gay mariage, marijauna legalization, and many other things that liberals are fighting for.
freedom over security imo, i see no point in living your life in fear
what i mean is, id rather have more freedom because the world is a dangerous place regardless, and im not going to spend my time, however long that is, being paranoid over a terrorist attack.
[quote=fates warning;755974]what i mean is, id rather have more freedom because the world is a dangerous place regardless, and im not going to spend my time, however long that is, being paranoid over a terrorist attack.
Still doesn't make sense. Choosing security would invariably make you less likely to be killed.
i dont worry about being killed; id rather live riskier if it means more freedoms.
Are we talking about complete security? Or, like, the kind of security the US has right now, where you're basically secure, but you could still be blown up?
I'm not sure you could attain complete security, unless we all lived in our own Bubble shields.
Isn't this a hypothetical question anyways?
Its unfortunate that only half of the people in this thread make even slight common sense, even if defending what I believe is wrong, meanwhile there are complete idiots who don't deserve to defend their beliefs.
Good topic.
First off, I think I should blame people over the government when it comes to safety/freedom issues. Think about it. After 9/11 happened, the people of this country all of a sudden grew paranoid of every danger on this planet. Safe this safe that. Everyone wanted to be safe, so new laws were passed and the Homeland Security was set up. People were willing to trade off vital rights to be safe.
People got their security now they ***** about how their freedoms are being taken away.
As for me, I'd rather not have gov't agents listening to me while I'm on the phone. It's disturbing. I never had a problem with the safety in this country before September 11th.
[quote=Ch
it's a "basic notion" that I believe is too black and white for me to say either over the other. The "freedoms" issue changes too rapidly. Right to bear arms? That's a "freedom" that was concocted before "arms" included assault rifles, submachine guns, and the like. So that "freedom" has to be broken down and restricted.
I see the shampoo issue as the same thing. People find newer, crazier ways to kill eachother. Times change. Breaking things down into such terms of black and white is naive and silly, and I refuse to entertain such thoughts. Therefore, if I must choose between "freedom" and "Security" as quoted by ol Benny Franklin in his archaic, unapplicabletomoderntimes quote, I choose option C, which is "get real".
Bj brings up a good point about dichotomic arguments; that we should consider many views, and not just assume there's only two positions. The thread title Security vs. Freedom over simplifies the issue, making a stance on one side seem directly opposing the other.
I see the War in Iraq as doing damage to our security. Our ties with the rest of the world have weakened ever since we invaded Iraq. There is also no clear response to the effectivness of the surge. Our National Guard are over seas, leaving us with less men in the homeland. Less men are re-enlisting in the military; and mercenarie contractors are being confused with US soliders amoung the Iraqies, creating more hostility when black water ****s up.
So my objection to the increased security policy is that our occupation in Iraq supposedly did that for us since we didn't want to give up our freedoms. That was the whole point of being there I thought, let's not change our ways, "let's just take over them terrorists".
This isn't about condoms at the air port, it's about wire tapping without warrents, being on a no fly list, possibly bringing back the draft, when the war in the middle East is was suppose to protect us from having to change. I don't see this as increased security so much as disrupting the innocent to creat an illusion of security, just like the War in Iraq is an illusion for fighting terrorism.
Of course there are other options besides security and freedom, but generally, on a national level, you have to realize that as one increases, the other directly decreases.
There may be an option C, but I'd be willing to bet it's just a variation of some middle ground between options A and B.
A good democratic society should be balanced between freedom and restrictions on freedom which provide security. It's the old saying "The right to swing my fist ends where the other man's nose begins.", meaning that you can do anything you want, as long as you're not infringing on the rights of others to do whatever they want. It's up to the legislature to work on defining that point.
The point that they're making is as such: Our security has increased nihl, and our freedom dropped drastically. No correlation here besides fear tactics being to blame. Maybe in a normal democracy, where the nation and media don't take advantage of the more idiotic, that notion would be feasible. Currently, however, its far from that.
The fact is that if you remove enough freedom and add some fear, you'll end up with a fairly secure country. Look at any dictatorship. The dictator rules with an iron fist, and anyone who opposes him will die, and it's likely that their family will too. Therefore, you don't see many car-bombings or a great deal of crime because the people know what will happen to them if they step out of line.
You just have to ask if it's worth it. In response to a question about America's consistently diminishing freedoms, Mitt Romney said that it's being done to protect our most sacred right, that being the right not to die.
But the people who founded this country did so under slogans such as "Live Free or Die" and "Give me Liberty or give me death", so obviously they felt that it was worth being put at risk from other people just to enjoy basic freedoms.
I'd bet that many of America's founders would rather take a chance of a terrorist hijacking their plane rather than giving up the right to bring shampoo in their carry-on, if you take my meaning.
I believe anything goes nowdays
[quote=mis0;756933]I'd say "getting real" is sorting out the way we handle the intelligence we gather, not spying on 300 million people to try to find that needle in a haystack. I don't just oppose it for privacy reasons; I think wasting resources in such a manner doesn't contribute anything to making us more secure, and we can use more effective means that don't encroach on rights.
The RFID chip is implanted into your right hand, as soon as this is implanted the government can track your every movement. Don't believe me? If you have a passport in the top left corner is an RFID chip.
Except those chips have a range of, what, an inch? lol
To scan it, not to track it.
Don't need a chip, they'll just scan your retinas.