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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.
Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar. - Julius Caesar
You're using her as bait, Master!
Trade freedom for security, and you'll get neither. If only people would understand.
Bumper sticker suggested by a friend of mine. Says it all, really.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.
- Martin Niemöller
Let me say this clearly: Bush sucks. He's a dangerous, arrogant man who's brother stole the election for him, and who's flushing our democracy down the toilet as fast as we will let him.
Unanswered Questions about 9/11
Hexayurt - open source refugee shelter,
We interupt your surfing session with a special bulletin:
The Internet is now under martial law. All constitutional rights have been suspended. Stay in your homes! Do not attempt to contact loved ones, science fiction authors, or software developers.
SHUT UP!
Do not attempt to think, or depresion may occur. Stay in your homes. Curfew is at 7 pm sharp after work. Anyone transferring content on ports other than those allowed by their subdivision router - will - be - shot.
(Remain calm.)
Do not panic. Your neighborhood Digital Rights Inspector will be around to collect access logs in the morning. Anyone caught interfering with the collection of access logs - will - be - shot.
Stay in your homes! Remain calm! The number one enemy of progress is questions! The security of Hollywood's business model is more important that individual will!
(All sports broadcasts will proceed as normal.)
No more than two people may discuss programming techniques without permission! Write only the code prescribed by your boss or supervisor!
SHUT UP!
BE HAPPY!
Obey all orders without question!
The comfort you've demanded is now mandatory!
BE HAPPY!
At last, everything is done for you...
And we are becoming more and more an information based economy.
True Capitalism couldnt work in the real world just like true Socialism cant work. Theres a reason we are a mixture of both, because this is the only thing that could work.
Without public schools, police, government, etc we'd have complete chaos because the people in this country arent intelligent enough, arent responsible enough, and they arent mature enough to successfully govern themselves.
Greed helps everyone? Thats not even logical, Greed only helps you, it doesnt always have to harm everyone else, but it only helps YOU.
Greed helps you. Depending on how you make your money decides how many people you help or harm.
I could say Socialism helps everyone too, you go to the police when you need them, you depend on the military to defend you from al qaeda, without socialism you wouldnt even have the internet, we would have never gone to the moon, we wouldnt have big industries.
Look, pure capitlaism can never work, its a pipe dream, pure socialism most likely can never work either, the best we can do is have a mixture of both, as the economy becomes less labor based and more information based, and we dont have to work as hard, we'll become more socialist, progression forces socialism because you cant sell something when theres unlimited amounts of it.
Capitalism if it was pure, it could work if it were 100 percent fair capitalism, this means capitalism without globalism, this means forcing companies to raise the minimum wage they pay their workers along with the amount of money the company brings in, meaning dynamic salary which increases when companies do good and decreases when they do bad, equal salary for everyone in the company this means the CEO shouldnt make billions and everyone else thousands unless the CEO actually is working the hardest and has been working there the longest.
Enron and Worldcom situations should not be tolerated at all, a person should go to jail for life and their assets removed from them.
Globalism cannot work in pure Capitalism because Capitalism is all about small businesses not big businesses, big businesses are like governments and we dont need this.
No tax? Theres always going to be a tax because people always have to pool their money together to pay for say military forces or hospitals, however by making paying the tax a choice such as a donation you could still have pure capitalism while increasing freedom.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
From the above, it has been inferred that any kind of prayer in public schools is unconstitutional, that putting the 10 Commandments on public property is unconstitutional, that pr0n is legal, that a woman has the right to privacy and, consequently, the right to terminate pregnancy, that public libraries may not filter web sites, and so on and so forth.
The point I'm making is that we have become accustomed to reading an awful lot into that one small amendment. As a student of political science, however, I find it both amusing and disturbing that the first five words of the amendment are the ones most frequently ignored: "Congress shall pass no law..."
Taken literally (and as the Founding Fathers intended!) this means that most of these freedoms we take for granted were never intended to be freedoms at the level they are, but rather issues left to the individual states!
I don't know exactly what that means for us today, but it is food for thought.
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Something cleverThat on average, citizens of countries with more freedom tend to be much safer than citizens of countries with less?
Think of the world's non-democratic countries, like Iraq, or Argentina under the fascists. Are the people there safe? NO! People are taken from their homes in the middle of the night, imprisoned, tortured, and killed. Why? Because people arent' free to question and criticise the government. Because people either believe that their government cannot be opposed, or that opposing it would weaken their country.
Your freedom doesn't harm your safety. It guarantees it. Freedom exists to protect the individual's right to life, liberty, and security of person.
And as soon as you try to trade your freedom for safety, you will find that you've lost them both.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
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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- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
These are inalienable rights, not privileges. The question is whether you choose to excercise them.
The state can't give you free speech, and the state can't take it away. You're born with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Like old Campbell said, 'Freedom is something you assume. Then you wait for someone to try to take it away from you. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free.' - Utah Phillips
If this is not a skewed servey, as some might suggest, it is very scary. It would be scary to me if 1/10 or 2/10 would support any restriction to the first ammendment.
It is very scary to me that even more people in this survey think that government criticism should be prohibited.
It also sickens me that there are plenty of people who think that the government should be able to spy on religious practices. People think that their religion will be safe because they aren't muslim. They think: "Only muslims are terrorists, after all."
I have news for these ignorant people. Every major religion has terrorist groups associated with it. This includes ultra-right-wing psuedo-christian groups who think it is okay blow up abortion clinics. This includes the IRA. This even includes some fringe Jewish groups who plan mosque bombings.
The government WILL eventually use groups like these as an excuse to spy on everybody's church if given the opportunity.
You have to stand up for our rights, period. When the government starts raiding mosques routinely, don't just think "Oh, they're just going after the muslims. Everyone knows that only muslims are terrorists, so won't affect me." It will.
It would also help to get your ass up on election day and go vote.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah