Showing posts with label liberty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label liberty. Show all posts
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Edward Snowden Is No Hero 2
Please correct me if I am wrong.
1. I thought these things that the NSA is doing (collecting phone calls etc, but normally only examining data about phone calls etc) were authorized by the Patriot Act, reauthorized under Obama, and had passed the constitutionality test by the Supreme Court some time ago.
2. (Completely independent of 1.) A Fourth Amendment search warrant requires the specification of items to be searched for.
3. If the govt wants to examine the content of the phone calls themselves, then they must get a 4th amendment warrant.
Like Michael I am a bit uneasy with the govt doing 1 even if they are also bound by 3. If they are not bound by 3, then I am very concerned.
Serious Congressional oversight of 1 should do two things:
a) make the program more acceptable, and
b) give a whistleblower a place to go.
There are a sufficient number of people in Congress that are opposed to this kind of thing and to this president, so that, if it were the country that Snowden cared about he could have gone to one of them and gotten a hearing. By running to China, our primary competitor in the world, I would say he marks himself as closer to a traitor than a hero.
On a more personal note what exactly are we protecting here. Suppose you were wanting to talk to someone about something that you didn't want the world to know about (either criminal or just personal). How many of you would do it over the phone or by email?
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Athenian Decline
(from the) KEYNOTE ADDRESS OF DR. CONSTANTINE W. CURRIS
PRESIDENT, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF STATE COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
to the
Benchmark 3 Conference on Nonprofit and Philanthropic Studies
Arizona State University
March 17, 2006
[In connection with the Universities obligation to teach social responsibility.]
...
I recall the great historian Edward Gibbon’s observations on the demise of Athenian Democracy:
...
I recall the great historian Edward Gibbon’s observations on the demise of Athenian Democracy:
“In the end,” Gibbon wrote, “the Athenians more than
they wanted freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and
they lost it all – security, comfort, freedom.”
“When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to
society, but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was
freedom from responsibility –
then Athens ceased to be free.”
...
Friday, February 10, 2012
Birth control mandate
.
I'm really having a hard time following the birth control mandate question.
A friend told me that she had read some of the comments on a blog and that it was depressing how simplistic the writers (on both sides I think) were about the topic and that none of them thought that it was complicated at all.
Well that's the way blogs are I thought, but then I listened to Senator Boxer and pro and con views on PBS last night and they took the same view.
"This is not a religious issue it is a health care issue," Boxer said.
Then on PBS:
"Of course it is a religious freedom issue since the government is forcing the Catholic Church to do something that is contrary to its fundamental beliefs."
The other side says, "I see it as a health care issue. I don't see it as a freedom of religion issue." Poof. (She was Methodist.) She showed no sign of ever having contemplated any religious aspect of it. She apparently believed that the freedom of religion argument was sufficiently dealt with by saying: I don't see it that way.
It reminds me a bit of the water boarding question. Some were horrified that the Government would water board a known terrorist for information. It was clearly a civil liberties issue they said. [later that day: I am told-not civil liberties rather international law. The point is the same] The other side took the view: I see it as a national security issue. I don't see it as a civil liberties issue. Poof.
Same song, second verse. Strange thing though there has (I think) been a bit of a role reversal. Those who worried over the water boarded terrorists are not the same group as the folks who are now decrying the coercion of the Catholic Church. In fact ...
.
I'm really having a hard time following the birth control mandate question.
A friend told me that she had read some of the comments on a blog and that it was depressing how simplistic the writers (on both sides I think) were about the topic and that none of them thought that it was complicated at all.
Well that's the way blogs are I thought, but then I listened to Senator Boxer and pro and con views on PBS last night and they took the same view.
"This is not a religious issue it is a health care issue," Boxer said.
Then on PBS:
"Of course it is a religious freedom issue since the government is forcing the Catholic Church to do something that is contrary to its fundamental beliefs."
The other side says, "I see it as a health care issue. I don't see it as a freedom of religion issue." Poof. (She was Methodist.) She showed no sign of ever having contemplated any religious aspect of it. She apparently believed that the freedom of religion argument was sufficiently dealt with by saying: I don't see it that way.
It reminds me a bit of the water boarding question. Some were horrified that the Government would water board a known terrorist for information. It was clearly a civil liberties issue they said. [later that day: I am told-not civil liberties rather international law. The point is the same] The other side took the view: I see it as a national security issue. I don't see it as a civil liberties issue. Poof.
Same song, second verse. Strange thing though there has (I think) been a bit of a role reversal. Those who worried over the water boarded terrorists are not the same group as the folks who are now decrying the coercion of the Catholic Church. In fact ...
.
Monday, August 1, 2011
A revolutionary's view
.
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
Samuel Adams, in a speech at the Philadelphia State House (1 August 1776)
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.
Samuel Adams, in a speech at the Philadelphia State House (1 August 1776)
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
On Jefferson's birthday
.
Thomas Jefferson was perhaps the only president who did not consider his presidency one of his major achievements.
His epitaph, written by him, reads:
"HERE WAS BURIED THOMAS JEFFERSON
AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE
OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA." And below it:
BORN APRIL 2. 1743. O.S.
DIED JULY 4. 1826.
Thomas Jefferson was perhaps the only president who did not consider his presidency one of his major achievements.
His epitaph, written by him, reads:
"HERE WAS BURIED THOMAS JEFFERSON
AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE
OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
AND FATHER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA." And below it:
BORN APRIL 2. 1743. O.S.
DIED JULY 4. 1826.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Human love of freedom
President Bush said (January 18, 2005(corrected 11:30 AM))
'The Desire for Freedom Is Written In Every Human Heart'
He was ridiculed by the left for this.
President Obama said (Feb. 11, 2011)
As Martin Luther King said in celebrating the birth of a new nation in Ghana, while trying to perfect his own “There is something in the soul that cries out for freedom.”
I wonder if the left will ridicule Obama for that.
I believe that there is a broad inclination by our species toward freedom.
But I believe that the love of freedom is most emphatically not universal. I will begin with those in European history who burned people at the stake for not seeing God in the right way and move forward. You can start with Osama bin Laden and work backwards. We will meet somewhere between the early Americans who fought a civil war over whether they could own their own workforce and the 20th century communists who murdered their own people by the tens of millions.
There have been a lot of folks who were not yearning for freedom.
PS In the interviews that I saw on TV with the Egyptians who had rid themselves of Mubarak, the word that was used most frequently was "dignity" not "freedom".
.
'The Desire for Freedom Is Written In Every Human Heart'
He was ridiculed by the left for this.
President Obama said (Feb. 11, 2011)
As Martin Luther King said in celebrating the birth of a new nation in Ghana, while trying to perfect his own “There is something in the soul that cries out for freedom.”
I wonder if the left will ridicule Obama for that.
I believe that there is a broad inclination by our species toward freedom.
But I believe that the love of freedom is most emphatically not universal. I will begin with those in European history who burned people at the stake for not seeing God in the right way and move forward. You can start with Osama bin Laden and work backwards. We will meet somewhere between the early Americans who fought a civil war over whether they could own their own workforce and the 20th century communists who murdered their own people by the tens of millions.
There have been a lot of folks who were not yearning for freedom.
PS In the interviews that I saw on TV with the Egyptians who had rid themselves of Mubarak, the word that was used most frequently was "dignity" not "freedom".
.
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