Want Freedom?

Xenopax writes "According to this story on the Sacramento Bee Americans are now more willing to throw away their first amendment rights for the false feeling of security than ever before. In fact many believe that the First amendment goes too far with its protection and think we should allow monitoring of religious groups for national security. Also many people believe the media shouldn't be allowed to question the government in times of war. One has to wonder if anyone cares about their constitutional rights any more, or if everyone would be happier living in 1984." The study is conducted by the Freedom Forum every year and is available for download.

Comments

"I wasn't using my civil liberties, anyway"

[pivo]

Bumper sticker suggested by a friend of mine. Says it all, really.

Re:Freedom and the USA

[sacrilicious]

It's not that we *invented* freedom, it's just that we were first to the patent office with it. Now, a la Fraunhofer, we're just waiting for the democracy standard to catch on; once it's really rolling, we're going to spring MAJOR licensing fees on all countries that want to continue being democratic.

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Re:How would the world react. . .

[teamhasnoi]

Dear Dan,

Congratulations! You're on our new list!

Love,
The FBI

Re:One of my favourite quotes...

[Zordak]

what's more important the quote? or whether it's attibuted properly?

Well, if we are working off of the premise that the quote is important because it is a statement of how Caesar, ruler of basically the known world at the time, subjugated his people, I'd say it's pretty important who said it. If Caesar had actually said that a couple of thousand years ago, then it would be a first hand account of how he gained power. If some anti-war fanatic made it up in 1968 to justify attacking an ROTC building on a university campus and spitting on anybody in uniform, then I'd say there is quite a difference.

By the way, I came across this quote recently:
The very stability of a free nation is based almost entirely upon the ability of the distributors of artistic works to carefully and tightly control the distribution of those works, charging whatever price they deem reasonable and fair, and acting with swift impunity in punishing, with our without the official sanction of the government, those who infringe on their rights to control those works. It is the essence of democracy that both the artists and the distributors of artistic works be paid substantially for each copy of a work, lest we fall into tyrrany. I know this, because I am George Washington, and that is how we founded this great and noble nation.
--George Washington.

I'm not entirely sure if George Washington said that, but hey, somebody said it, and it is applicable to an issue currently being discussed, so it must be important.