Civil liberties we are losing?

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Tex

Oh come on, Arch. You don't really find this persuasive, do you? How many silently oppressed are there? Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of Thousands?

Sounds like paranoia to me.



That's just wrong. There is ALWAYS a balance between liberty and security. No system is perfect, and there will always be someone, somewhere who overstepped bounds and violated someone's civil rights.

The question is, do we have good laws that are generally enforced, and are the rights of the average American generally uninfringed upon?

If the best you can do for the past 6 years is scare tactics, than I think my point is made.

You have never, gratefully, experienced abuse. I have seen abuses, gratefully not as frequent as it might be in another country.

You live in a bubble. In a way, I am grateful, you're not subject to the abuses, but trusting government not to abuse you is extremely naive.

[MikeWaters]

The path to totalitarianism is much easier and quicker than the path to freedom and liberty.

This is what Tex doesn't get.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Archaea

You have never, gratefully, experienced abuse. I have seen abuses, gratefully not as frequent as it might be in another country.

You live in a bubble. In a way, I am grateful, you're not subject to the abuses, but trusting government not to abuse you is extremely naive.

And we're back to "If you only knew what I knew, you'd agree that I'm right."

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

The path to totalitarianism is much easier and quicker than the path to freedom and liberty.

This is what Tex doesn't get.

The path from sanity to paranoia is shorter than them all.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Tex

And we're back to "If you only knew what I knew, you'd agree that I'm right."

The path from sanity to paranoia is shorter than them all.

So differences in experience are of no moment?

Your defense mechanixms are amazingly simple and naive.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Archaea

So differences in experience are of no moment?

Your defense mechanixms are amazingly simple and naive.

Rely on anecdotes to give quality to your points--to put a human face on what you're trying to say. Don't substitute them for empirical evidence.

[MikeWaters]

Tex would rely on empirical evidence provided by Stalin.

Ignore him.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Tex

Rely on anecdotes to give quality to your points--to put a human face on what you're trying to say. Don't substitute them for empirical evidence.

This is true, and do you wish for me to show you briefs of cases where civil liberties have been abridged?

Why are you not concerned with even one case of civil liberty abuse?

Do you not recognize the iceberg principle?

Why are you fully invested in accepting the representations of law enforcement?

And finally, how do you, as authoritarian suggest to keep adequate checks and balances on police power of the state?

Please answer those five questions directly, not dodgingly as is your M.O.

My purpose in this, is I've never read any information who so readily accepted the polic position on issues. Now, if you had lived, worked or identified with any Russian or many other foreign nationals, you might appreciate that police power is subject to abuse. It is an inherent quality and risk of police power.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Archaea

This is true, and do you wish for me to show you briefs of cases where civil liberties have been abridged?

I'm aware of some cases already. Feel free to add more, if you wish, but I've already stated that infractions happen.

Originally Posted by Archaea

Why are you not concerned with even one case of civil liberty abuse?

All miscarriages of justice concern me, and they ought to be rectified and/or prevented as possible. But I don't believe that they can be eliminated entirely, and I don't think they are always the overriding concern.

Originally Posted by Archaea

Do you not recognize the iceberg principle?

The "iceberg principle" is not a proof.

Originally Posted by Archaea

Why are you fully invested in accepting the representations of law enforcement?

I don't know what this is asking.

Originally Posted by Archaea

And finally, how do you, as authoritarian suggest to keep adequate checks and balances on police power of the state?

How are they checked and balanced today?

Originally Posted by Archaea

Please answer those five questions directly, not dodgingly as is your M.O.

Rejecting the false dichotomies, leading questions, and straw men you folks constantly present is not dodging.

Originally Posted by Archaea

My purpose in this, is I've never read any information who so readily accepted the polic position on issues. Now, if you had lived, worked or identified with any Russian or many other foreign nationals, you might appreciate that police power is subject to abuse. It is an inherent quality and risk of police power.

Obviously.

[BlueK]

Originally Posted by Tex

Taking one (or a few) anecdotes and extrapolating that onto the entire country is a very poor course of logic.

who said anything about extapolating it to the entire country? I know it's not a common incident, thank God. The point is that it did happen because our attitude has changed because of the war on terror. It's ok to deny American civilians their rights now in situations like the one that happened in Iraq. It's not like they just locked him up and forgot about him. They actually made the point to him that he had no Constitutional rights. According to his captors those rights didn't apply to him because that was how they interpreted the law now. It's just shocking to me that so-called conservatives don't have a problem with that. I really think the fact that it's republicans in charge right now instead of democrats is why they're not saying more about it.

[BlueK]

Originally Posted by Tex

In addition, you'd think after nearly six years, if there were going to be widespread civil rights abuses, they'd be happening. How many years of onesies and twosies do we have to wait before we acknowledge, yeah, civil liberties weren't really curtailed all that much?

Widespread is irrelevant. It's the direction we're going. It will become more widespread. It has to because it's simply the path of least resistance for all government unless we nip it in the bud. Re-read D&C 121 about unrighteous dominion. It's a true principle and the authors of the Constitution wrote that document with the same idea in mind.