Re: Katrina Timeline and Libertarian issues

[Travis Pahl]

On 9/15/05, Lowell C. Savage <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

Greetings again, Travis.

 

Insisting on preserving rights like the right to privacy at all costs and in all situations is suicide, politically and societally.  It is societal because any society that held privacy rights inviolate in all circumstances would be destroyed by criminals, terrorists and thugs. 

That is what you claim.  Yet the real world shows us that the more rights governments respect the safer its people are.   Do you have any evidence to suggest otherwise?

The police and courts would be unable to complete investigations and so the guilty would go free—to continue looting, robbing, killing and terrorizing until the society fell apart or changed. 

Or until they gathered enough evidence to convict.  You do understand that a right to privacy does not mean that people will not talk to others especially when it is to help get a killer off the street.  It does not mean that people will not live a large portion of their lives in the public where police and others would observe things. 

You are also ignoring the fact that as government begins to ignore peoples right to privacy you also will see more looting robbinb killing and terrorizing from the government.  power corrupts.

And it's suicide politically, because the vast majority of people understand that and aren't going anywhere near it.  That's the sort of thing that makes libertarians appear to be the "kook fringe." 

If the vast majority of people realize that their letting the government in on their personal lives makes them safer then there is no need to grant the government the right to invade your privacy. 
 

And a support of individual rights does not make libertarians appear to be the 'kook fringe'.  It is what makes them different from all other political parties.

I don't know what part (if any) Franklin played in writing or supporting the Bill of Rights.  I could be wrong, but I somehow doubt that he thought that the 4^th Amendments exceptions to the prohibitions on searches and seizures were infringements of "essential liberties" that we wouldn't deserve if we gave them up for safety. 

Actually that is exactly what he meant.  He did not think that giving up personal liberty made people safer.

(Note by the way, ol' Ben's original statement "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."  Some people don't seem to notice that "essential" part—an acknowledgement that there are some liberties that may not be "essential".  (Also, I think he was actually quoting someone else.)  See: "http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/quotable/quote04.htm")

You are correct that it is the Government's job to protect our liberties.  That would seem to include the liberties of ALL—including the innocent.  That's why I said that I thought the folks who worte the 4^th Amendment did a pretty good job of coming up with a balance.

You do not protect something by violating it. 

Travis Pahl

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