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Originally Posted by JohnnyD
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Johnny, I see you as one of the more thoughtful and reasonable folks here, and I always consider what you say, especially in cases where we disagree..
I agree with you, in that I don't like it when the federal government ignores parts of the constitution that it happens to not like at that time. I just don't feel that's what's happening with anti-terror security. Bush implemented these policies, and Obama has kept all of them in place (except waterboarding, I believe)? So if those 2 guys, who are as far apart as you can get on the political spectrum, both agree that these protections are legal, I sleep OK at night.
The author of that piece starts to lose me when he said "The American people...bought the Bush-era argument that by surrendering liberty they could buy safety. But that type of pact has never enhanced either liberty or safety"
So the author seriously doesn't think we are safer now than we were on September 10, 2001? Ridiculous. We can disagree over whether or not Bush over-reacted. But if someone says we are not safer today that 12 years ago, I assume that person is blinded by political ideology, because you must admit that is an absurd statement.
"the Bush-inspired new FISA statutes permit search warrants of some Americans' phone calls without a showing of probable cause as the Constitution requires"
I'm sorry, where in the Constitution does it say that you need probable cause for wiretaps? I have read the Constitution, and I don't recall that. Because it's not there. Which means that's something that's open to interpretation.
If the Supreme Court rules that these measures are unconstitutional, and the feds continue anyway, THAT would be scary.
Cameras on the corner? I just don't see why I should be concerned. If the cops want to watch me walking down the street with my kids, who cares? Those cameras helped catch the Boston terrorists. How is society better served if those cameras didn't exist, and maybe he gets away to bomb Times Square as he planned?
I'm pretty conservative as you know. That doesn't mean I view the feds as the enemy every time they try to do something. If the feds want to watch me for some reason, I assume they have probbale cause, and they will very quickly determine that I'm not doing anything wrong, and since they have limited resources, they will move on to someone else.
If the feds overstep their bounds, there are still all kinds of mechanisms there to protect me.
Tens of thousands (at least) of Muslim whack-jobs want to kill our kids. We can ignore that, or we can deal with it.
I don't think the feds are going to watch my house just because they want to get a glimpse of my wife naked (and I know for sure they aren't going to do it to see me naked). I trust that they act on reasonable, probable cause. I have seen zero evidence to indicate that there is widespread abuse. Of course, honest mistakes will be made, and those can be tragic.
The alternative to being diligent, is to make it easier for the jihadists to bomb your house or my kids' school. If we're going to err, I want us to err on the side of public safety. I'm not willing to sacrifice large numbers of innocent lives to appease the ACLU.
You can't have it both ways. In the world we live in, we have to choose between increased safety and decreased liberty. That's the unfortunate reality.
When I hear people bemoaning lost liberty, I rarely hear them discuss the consequences.
As always, you bring up tough, probing points, and as always, you do it respectfully. As you said, we'll agree to disagree.