Giving up Freedom without a fight

[Basementdweller 608]

Not to trash up the other thread.

 

 

I was curious as to what those freedoms might be?????? and who is to blame for it???

[Sentinel947 1205]

I don't understand your questions?

[Eagle732 27]

Study the writings of the founding fathers and you will find the answer. We now live under the government that they warned us about.(This message has been edited by Eagle732)

[packsaddle 753]

Sentinel947, I think Papadaddy is who stimulated those questions so he's the one who can best answer them. From the other thread: "It sickens me that he [Papadaddy's father] fought and so many died to preserve the freedoms that we are now giving away without a fight."

 

Me, I see that we have gained some freedoms since that time. We've all lost some as well. On balance, I'd have to think about it before I went back to the times prior to WWII. OK, that didn't take long...I'd just as soon stay in this time.

[Basementdweller 608]

So Pack

 

What freedoms have we lost???? Be specific please

[perdidochas 658]

We are quickly losing our Fourth amendment rights, which are basically privacy rights. The amount of things law enforcement can do to nose in your business without a warrant is becoming very bad. In addition, we are losing our First Amendment rights to freedom of religious expression. When religious based organizations can be forced to pay private industry for procedures that they find to be wrong, our religious freedoms are in danger.

 

To blame--politicians over the past 100 yrs or so, and those of us who have elected them. Basically, we are choosing security over liberty.

[Woapalanne 11]

"Basically, we are choosing security over liberty."

 

Correct. And we even have a national political party that claims that the government owns us. (The scary thing is, they are not completely wrong.)

[Merlyn_LeRoy 72]

That would be the party that tries to regulate what people can do with their own bodies, correct?

[Sentinel947 1205]

Unless Merlyn, one views that action as murder. Republicans believe Abortion to be murder, to them regulating who can kill whom is obvious.

 

Democrats by and large do not believe Abortion to be Murder, and therefore view it about as bad and morally corrupt as clipping your toenails in the morning.

 

The argument that Republicans hate regulation except telling woman what they can do with their bodies is an absurd MSNBC talking point. To Republicans Abortion is murder, and as a society we "regulate", ie ban (I hate using that term regulate) murder.

 

Now if you were to argue that Republicans hate regulations except what one does in their bedroom, that would have been a perfectly valid point.

 

I believe we've traded alot of our privacy freedoms for temporary security. I believe we've lost some other freedoms as well. We've lost a property freedoms as the Government has boosted it's eminent domain laws.

 

By and large I agree with Packsaddle, I'd still prefer living in today's society over 1939.

[SR540Beaver 116]

This should give everyone pause.

 

http://rt.com/usa/news/surveillance-spying-e-mail-citizens-178/

 

'Everyone in US under virtual surveillance' - NSA whistleblower'

 

The FBI records the emails of nearly all US citizens, including members of congress, according to NSA whistleblower William Binney. In an interview with RT, he warned that the government can use this information against anyone.

Binney, one of the best mathematicians and code breakers in the history of the National Security Agency, resigned in 2001. He claimed he no longer wanted to be associated with alleged violations of the Constitution, such as how the FBI engages in widespread and pervasive surveillance through powerful devices called 'Naris.'

 

This year, Binney received the Callaway award, an annual prize that recognizes those who champion constitutional rights and American values at great risk to their personal or professional lives.

 

RT: In light of the Petraeus/Allen scandal while the public is so focused on the details of their family drama, one may argue that the real scandal in this whole story is the power, the reach of the surveillance state. I mean if we take General Allen thousands of his personal e-mails have been sifted through private correspondence. Its not like any of those men was planning an attack on America. Does the scandal prove the notion that there is no such thing as privacy in a surveillance state?

 

William Binney: Yes, thats what Ive been basically saying for quite some time, is that the FBI has access to the data collected, which is basically the emails of virtually everybody in the country. And the FBI has access to it. All the congressional members are on the surveillance too, no one is excluded. They are all included. So, yes, this can happen to anyone. If they become a target for whatever reason they are targeted by the government, the government can go in, or the FBI, or other agencies of the government, they can go into their database, pull all that data collected on them over the years, and we analyze it all. So, we have to actively analyze everything theyve done for the last 10 years at least........

 

[packsaddle 753]

Basementdweller, as others have implied, we all lost some freedoms with passage of the Patriot Act, things like that. But long before that, I always wanted to just visit Cuba and see the sights...without having to justify it on some cockamamie deception to get past the State Department ban. Hopefully that is close to being over and I may yet live to freely travel to that country. Just saying.

Also, there was a time when there was nothing whatsoever illegal about marijuana. But that's never been a big issue with me, just another example.

 

Edit: I almost missed this. Perdidochas, security is and always has been..an illusion.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[Brewmeister 132]

>>That would be the party that tries to regulate what people can do with their own bodies, correct?

 

Do whatever you want to do with your own body, but as soon as what you do with your body impacts another body, then it no longer becomes solely your business.

[WasE61 23]

I beg to differ on the "without a fight".

 

They fought in Minnesota last year, they fought in Michigan last night ... business won out over the people. They fought on Wall Street too ... haven't seen much change there.

 

I believe the document should be written, "By the business, for the business..."

[Beavah 205]

Yah, hmmmm....

 

I didn't look at da other thread yet. I'm not sure what da apocalyptic tone is all about.

 

Let's leave off abortion for da moment, because like euthanasia or racial apartheid or whatnot that's more a deeply ethical issue for folks.

 

I'm not quite sure what freedoms we've lost either.

 

Yep, I said from da start that da Patriot Act was a dumb-ass thing. So was a lot of da rest of our domestic Security Theater after 9/11. It should be completely repealed. Da problem with repealin' it is all the nutter Republicans. I'd be in favor of goin' further with a constitutional amendment addressin' privacy, and some hard-nosed laws with severe criminal penalties for government and corporate employees who violate it. At da same time, we haven't seen that much encroachment as yet. Yeh can do warrantless stuff until yeh actually have to go pick someone up, eh? At that point your behavior's likely to come out and rebound on you.

 

Yep, da eminent domain decision by SCOTUS was foolish. That happens sometimes. I think at this point more than half of da states have adopted state constitutional amendments to reverse that decision, so to my mind da system is workin' as it should. If your state hasn't yet adopted one, then stop whining about da federal government and you know... use federalism!

 

Some of da worst encroachments have been in da expansion of copyright and patent monopoly grants and powers. Those are really out of control. As close as I can tell, we're up to a point where 10% of da cost of any technology is goin' directly or indirectly into copyright/patent litigation and other nonsense instead of into innovation. Both Democrats and Republicans have been complicit in that, eh? The Dems protectin' Hollywood and da Republicans never saw a rent-seeking corporation that they didn't like. It was interestin' that da youngsters in da Republican caucus came up with a position paper to try to fix that mess last month. It was immediately pulled by da big-shots.

 

That's about it, eh? A stupid act passed after being attacked, and a bunch of corporate welfare stuff. It's stuff that should be fixed, but it ain't the end of the world.

 

Then there's da Catholic Church whining about havin' to behave like every other employer with respect to their non-Catholic employees. Yah, yah, I agree with 'em that it's a bit too much encroachment. They have a long-time, principled religious stance on da matter that everyone knows about, includin' da people who work for 'em. At the same time, tryin' to cast da thing as an all-out attack on religious freedom is just bein' dishonest (not to mention makin' their leadership look like a bunch of Tea Party nutters). It's a minor dispute about technical details of health care coverage, not Armageddon. Besides, they've been among da folks arguin' for government coverage for many years, so "be careful what yeh wish for" comes to mind.

 

So despite a few flaky policy choices, which have been goin' on my whole life, I'm not really seein' any big loss of freedom. Even for da flaky policy choices, it seems like da ones complainin' about loss of freedom are da ones votin' for da fellows makin' the flaky choices!

 

Beavah

 

 

 

[qwazse 4342]

In addition to the teacher who didn't want a "rap" for arranging baccalaureate service in accordance with the law, I have one other experience of someone wanting to give up without a fight.

 

On a family weekend, some of us, instead of going to church, opted to just gather the kids and lawn-chairs and have a little prayer service on the beach. This really wrankled the home-owners because their association by-laws prohibited the use of the property for the establishment of a church. I made it clear that I was not about to trade the Constitution in for anybody's set of by-laws, which, for he record, can't be enforced on Commonwealth waters.

 

What's become of us?