Would you accept 1,000 dead each year for civil liberties?

[Robb]

First of all, if you're not watching the "America at a Crossroads" series on PBS, you're missing out.

Would you accept deaths from terrorist activity, in exchange for the erosion of civil liberties being halted?

That's the question. The assumption is the government can prevent some attack or other with these sweeping changes to privacy law. It might be a bad assumption.

BUT. If it were so, if this administration's (to me) whacked-out foreign and domestic policies prevent "another 9/11" every few years, is it worth it? It might be bad math, checking the casualty figures from Iraq of late.

So take a random figure, 1,000 dead each year. Good deal for civil liberties?

[Fovea]

1. we accept 42K dead on the highway each year

for a lot weaker reason.

[Leopolds Ghost]

3. Many of those people were pedestrians

They are lesser citizens.

Especially the ones without the mark of full citizenship (a car).

[Fovea]

10. as a disabled cyclist

I resemble that remark.

[havocmom]

8. BINGO!

:applause:

[Leopolds Ghost]

2. False dichotomy. Would you accept 1 million abortions every year for an open border policy?

Some Republicans claim the two are linked.

[msongs]

4. tobacco kills 400,000+ EVERY year ...... and that's just in the USA nt

[Leopolds Ghost]

6. What about the heartbreak of psoriasis?

[LoZoccolo]

5. I would think civil liberties actually save more people than that.

Look at the countries that suppress civil liberties and think of how many people die at the hands of the governments there. Or even just by virtue of being somewhat backward. I think there is almost certainly a net gain in lives saved by having them.

[meldroc]

7. Yes, but...

Most of the really egregious encroachments upon our liberties are "security theater". In other words, they provide the appearance of security (say by paying poorly-trained minimum-wage rentacops to confiscate your drink bottles as you go through the security checkpoints at the airport, for example.)

The warrantless wiretaps deluge the NSA with so many recorded conversations that they're unable to sort out the terrorists from those calling their wives to find out what to pick up at the grocery store on the way home.

Waterboarding, beating, sleep-depriving, otherwise torturing terror suspects? They'll tell the interrogators what they want to hear, leaving any actual intelligence mixed with nonsense.

The take-off-your-shoes ritual at the airports? Useless.

Building walls on our border? Useless at stopping the flow of illegal immigrants. (And the contractors building the wall all employ illegal immigrants.)

See? Security theater.

[piedmont]

9. We've accepted much higher than that before, and we'll do it again.

And we currently accept TONS of deaths that would have been prevented by curbs on our civil liberties. Those who would trade liberty for security deserve neither. A paraphrasing of what Ben said, I know, but a good one.

[murloc]

11. take away all civil liberties...and 100,000 will die each year

or 1,000,000 or 10 million.

facist governments are frequently murderous governments.

[Skip Intro]

12. Give a fascist an inch and he'll think he's a ruler. The question is bulls**t.

I mean, really.

on edit: We could have saved millions of people had we just not fought WW2. Just accept the inevitable death of your personal freedom, in exchange for an obedient, subservient, meaningless life. Wasn't the right answer then, not the right answer now.

Wow, that kinda turns the bush's WOT=WW2 meme on its head, don't it?


I love the third vote option: "Don't' give me liberty but don't give me death" - LOL!

[genie_weenie]

13. No Government can not ensure Civil Liberties

Human Rights are only won by individuals after some event becomes a catalyst and leads to a fundamental shift. It is only improper historical thinking and the desire to structure past events into a coherent picture that we see History as a steady drive towards civil rights.

[Unvanguard]

14. Depends on the civil liberties at stake.

If you mean giving the state the capability to arrest whoever it wants without charge and torture them, of course not.

If you mean a weakening of, say, privacy rights to allow more liberal search and seizure procedures, then yes. But I'm skeptical that any such thing would be the result.

[Skip Intro]

15. Governments are not static - you give in to those who tell you they need to take your freedom,

A little at first, and its for your own protection, they'll be back over and over again until you have no freedom left. The people after your freedom, in the name of protecting your freedom, only want to kill your freedom.

I say no. No breach of civil liberties for the illusion of safety. Hell no.

[Vidar]

16. Revolution every thirty years might actually give us representative

government.