|
RapierFugue -> RE: Don't bloody well touch me!!! (11/27/2010 3:32:00 AM)
|
quote:
ORIGINAL: takemeforyourown
I'm glad I'm not the only one who seems to give a shit that our most basic rights are being violated. Seriously, can you imagine one of the founding fathers at the TSA checkpoint. "Mr. Adams, I will have to feel your breeches for weapons now". "I beg your Pardon, Sir?".
I was about to say I'd said that self-same thing, then looked back and realised I'd removed it in an edit, as it didn't sit in the context of the post I was making at the time.
But yes - that was part of my thrust* on this subject; the steady erosion of a people's rights under what I consider to be a very fine Constitution, even if it's not mine (as I'm a Brit and we sadly don't go in for such things). Yes, it' not "the government" at 1st hand; they've palmed off the responsibility onto businesses making a mint out of people's paranoia - a paranoia they (the government) helped stoke in the first place, but the buck stops with them, in terms of protecting the rights of their citizenry.
Security is a balance; if you want "total security" then what you end up with is a police state. I don't think many Americans would vote for that, or support it (and rightly so), but that's what they're sliding towards. It's like the sea battering down a stone wall; it doesn't all come crashing down in one go. There's a pebble of rights abuse here, a grain of personal freedom there ... and then one day you wake up, look around, and you're stood on bare rock, with nothing between you and the cruel sea but your dreams.
Taking reasonable precautions is one thing, but what's being done in this case is neither effective (as witnessed by the opinions of many security commentators) nor is it a fair and proper way to treat ordinary citizens.
*what a great word that is [;)]
|
|
|
|
