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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.
How are "freedom of speech" as mentioned in the first amendment and the neo-liberal concept of "freedom of expression" remotely related? I support the freedom of speech unconditionally - I do not support the "freedom of expression" - first of all, there's no such thing. Second of all, it's ridiculous to consider phyical actions as speech.
When was the first time "freedom of speech" got misconstrued into "freedom of expression"? Where did that term come from, the same place as "underprivileged"?
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
The electoral college system was supposed to ensure just that. Landowners (the people smart enough to do well for themselves) would vote on the electoral college members, and the electoral college members would vote on the President, deemed the most powerful man of the nation.
Not trying to write a flamebait or anything, but here goes: We defaced the electoral college system by allowing non-landowners to vote, and now we're looking at getting rid of it entirely.
Most people would consider allowing non-landowners to vote a good thing, since it allowed people less likely to own land at the time (people of nonstandard religion, race and ethnicity) to vote.
I'm not against that, but it did lead to where we are today.
Unless you're a complete lunatic, there's no way you can avoid sitting on two sides of some fence, somewhere.
What's this Submit thingy do?