We live in a free society. Tragedies are going to happen. Those of you willing to lose freedom to stop what can not be stopped are either to emotional or to stupid to understand what you are proposing.
Unbelievable the things people will support because of a tragedy that probably could not be stopped no matter what we do.
You would lock people up because the behave different then you, you would strip protections promised in the Constitution to prevent the unpreventable.
Step back and LOOK at what you are willing to sacrifice because of a tragedy that will happen again at some point no matter what steps you take.
Agreed. I'm on the Left and I agree that freedom is more valuable than safety.
We would all like to get rid of evil doers, but not at the cost of living in a police state. When I go on a plane or in a NY skyscraper, I might be the victim of terrorist attack. I will take that risk, but most Conservatives would rather empower Big Government to protect them. They believe that Big Government is competent enough to fight evil and improve the world. I believe in the law of unintended consequences; meaning: if you give government more power to protect you, they will mismanage that power and make things worse.
My Republican friends disagree with me. They trust government to protect us. Study the War on Terrorism and the Power Bush Gave to Big Government.
After 9/11 George Bush created the Patriot Act and the Department of Homeland Security. Both these things gave Big Government sweeping new powers to invade the privacy of American citizens based on the promise of keeping them safe from evil doers. Prior to the Bush Surveillance State, citizens were legally protected from the prying eyes of incompetent, unelected bureaucrats. In order to listen to phone calls, track internet use, or track financial behavior the Government had to go through a rigorous warrant process (which process was designed to protect free citizens from the incompetence of Big Government). Bush dismantled these protections by successfully convincing people that Big Government was competent enough to handle the increased power. The result is that we now have a government which has greater power to watch and jail free citizens based solely on the discretion of government bureaucrats (without judicial oversight, which Bush removed). The Bush legal team actually broke down the legal distinction between citizen and enemy combatant. By making it easier to prove someone might be an enemy combatant, he made it easier for government to obtain warrants to surveil anyone the administration didn't like, including political enemies and war protesters.
This is EXACTLY what happened in the Soviet Union. They used
legitimate national security threats to grow the power of the State. Then, corrupt politicians used this expanded power to surveil the political opposition until they caught them in a trap. You remember the famous phrase: "Show me the man and I'll show you the crime".
This is how Bush got Eliot Spitzer, the most vocal critic of the
Bush administration's roll in the housing meltdown. The Bush Fed used the Patriot Act to track Spitzer's financial activity. The minute he withdrew over 10K, they set up surveillance over his entire life until the caught him in a web. The Patriot Act was supposed to help protect us against terrorism not prostitution, but the Patriot Act was used by government to hunt the political opposition - ala Soviet Union. [They weren't worried about keeping us safer; they were worried about consolidating their own power by eliminating opponents of their policies. This is why you don't give more power to Government: because the people wielding that power are only human, and humans are imperfect and prone to corruption and incompetence.
This is why Libertarians don't like concentrated power by definition because they don't think such concentrated power can be effectively used by flawed humans, even if well meaning. I wish the GOP understood this]
Governments always use national security to grow the power of the state - and they always depend on scared citizens to go along with it. And, typically, Republican voters tend to be more scared than other voting blocks. This is why they gave Bush so much power to grow Big Government - because they were so scared that they believed it was worth giving government more power to protect them. And this is why I am so afraid of the Republicans regaining power. Consider what they've done (not what they say). They strategically used the Cold War and War on Terrorism to give greater amounts of power to Washington than LBJ could have ever dreamed. Same thing with the Reagan War on Drugs. It gave Washington vast new powers over the states. This is why the Bush Fed raided
legally sanctioned medicinal marijuana facilities in California. The Bush Fed had contempt for the freedom and power of the states. They had contempt for the fact the Californians freely voted for medical marijuana. The Bush Fed erected an iron curtain over the states and ignored their right to control their own destiny through freedom. This is what Republicans do: they grow government while professing to be against Big Government. And the only people who buy into their bullshit are trapped inside the information bubble of Big Government (otherwise known as Movement Conservatism, which is an overlapping set of institutions that funnel the money of big business into elections, lobbying and media in order to shape laws and opinion).
Anyway, I agree with the original poster. Creating a police state will not stop evil, it will only increase the likelihood that free citizens will be victimized by the law of unintended consequences AKA giving government too much power.
I wish I could get more Republicans to stop trading freedom for the illusion of safety. It is more likely that you will die in a lightening strike than a terrorist attack, so I ask you RetiredGySgt (with whom I agree): why did the GOP party create this. Click here: A hidden world, growing beyond control | washingtonpost.com
Silly Republicans. You can't defeat evil by growing Government. You can only make the world worse for free citizens. Man-up and learn how to protect your own family. Be your own first responder. Stop growing government based on the illusion of total safety. Stop your color coded fear games on FOX News and realize that "Fear over Terrorism" is a Republican tool for growing Big Government. Yes, terrorism is real, but you sissies need to heed the slightly modified words of a great man.
"Hi, I'm from the Government and I'm here to Protect You"
(God Help Us. What if the GOP comes back in 2016 and re-kindles the War on Terrorism so that they can keep growing the Bush Surveillance State. God Help Us.)
