WSJ on Safety Before Liberty
Continuing to beat the drum, today's Wall Street Journal offers two essays on how much liberty to give up for safety. One, an Op-Ed by a historian, recounts how in the past the United States Presidents have imposed draconian wartime draconian security measures and trashed civil liberties far more than anything currently contemplated, naming Adams, Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, among others. But claims that after the crises passed civil liberties were restored "stronger than ever." So fear not what is in the offing. The second, by a WSJ columnist, argues that enough is too much, that the Bush Administration halt curtailment of civil liberties, and that the sunset provisions of current anti-terrorism proposals are a good thing. These wafflings are diabolical apologies for what Bush coupers are up to, offerings of amelioration to disarm critics. Woolsey, Stew Baker, Bork, the WSJ, the host of oilers and greasers of anti-terrorist power grabbing through crisis-mongering need -- how to say it in safety without sacrificing liberty -- need typhoid mary cigarring, oops, need fifi's homestead featherdusting.
Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, among others. But claims that after the crises passed civil liberties were restored "stronger than ever." So fear not what is in the offing.
Post-war US liberties were usually restored after apalling abuses by the mendacious followed by intensive lobbing by civil rights activists. It'd be nice to cut the former phase short. Although, perhaps the better tactic is to let them run-amok. It certainly worked for the Netherlands. -- Julian Assange |If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people |together to collect wood or assign them tasks and proff@iq.org |work, but rather teach them to long for the endless proff@gnu.ai.mit.edu |immensity of the sea. -- Antoine de Saint Exupery
participants (2)
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John Young
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proff@iq.org