Personal Liberty v. Safety

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it is no coincidence that government is pushing so hard to disarm and enslave the American people. They know we're nearing the edge of something big and they've been preparing.

Don't you think that's a little paranoid?

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Think about where we are as a country. We go to war simply by the decree of the president, the 4th amendment is gone, the 5th amendment is gone, there is no habeas corpus, it is now US policy to to assassinate American citizens without any due process. There are essentially no restrictions on government. Now they want to crack down on guns, they have an "internet killswitch", police have been militarizing at an alarming rate. Why would anybody be worried about martial law being declared?

I doubt that the most liberal Democrat or the most conservative Republican serving in government want to see the Republic die.
And who says habeas corpus is gone in most cases?
Those Americans who have been assassinated were without question enemies who wanted the worst for their home country.
And seriously, guns are not going to be rounded up by the government. That's just a wet dream of the NRA and the GOA. It's just a matter that when high powered fire arms are so readily available, lunatics figure it's open season on the rest of us, and so conscientious leaders are only interested in tempering gun rights with responsibility.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I am just wondering, how this should work, if this is really reality in the USA. I mean "the elite" normally dont become police officer themselfs. So most police men should be normal people. So why should normal people be interested in expanding the power os some elite? Its not, that i dont believe you, i am just interested how this can work.

For example in spain the policemen are normal people. So there was an article lately where some bank companies were angry, that more and more the police refused "to do their work as they should." So the finance and immobilia crisis is also in spain and many people were thrown out of their house the last years, because of their debts. But because noone has money the houses couldnt be sold again and are just empty without any use to anyone. So in some regions, where there is no chance that empty houses will find a buyer again, the police refuses to throw the people out of the house by telling that they have emergencies on the day, where they should come and throw the people out the house.

So the bank company was mocking around, about the police not willing to do their job for more then one year now, always telling they couldnt come on that day because of emergencies. But these policemen are just normal men and say themself that it is useless to make neighbors homeless to have an empty house more in town for years, until you must wreck it anyway, because noone cared for it. If the bank company could sell it again, ok, so there would be sense behind it. But without any buyers there is no sense at all, and the bank company has a useless house they cannot sell anyway.

So I am whondering how it can be, that the policemen in the US "changed sides" and would help other people robbing their own people? What use do they have from doing so?

Not when measures taken in the name of "safety" are statistically unlikely to help (that's any realistic setting).

I'm not dismissing safety itself, rather things that don't actually provide tangible safety.

Exactly. If you want things to be safe, you want measures that are effective and that work without encumbering on freedom too much.

For instance (and I'm using this as a nebulous example), but there would be no point in banning alcoholic beverages on health grounds if it led to a massive rise in alcohol-related illness and death through bootlegged alcohol.

I take personal responsibility to walk on the pavement. I know the green cross code and take care at all times. My risk assessment should be sound, but it's impossible to take into account the actions of others. I could never know that a driver might drive on the pavement and hit me or my daughter. I've no way of stopping him/her either. I think it's right that we've decided as a society to create a law to try to deter the idiot from drinking so much that he can't tell the difference between a road and a pavement. He/she might not be deterred anyway, but the possibility of being prosecuted for drink driving has got to be better than the alternative. In my opinion, that driver should be free take risks that affect them (and them alone) and I won't stop them. But, when other people are potentially negatively affected by their actions, then personal freedom has to be limited.

Police like the military follow orders, they are no different. You used Spain as an example but it wasn't even 40 years ago that Spain was a fascist dictatorship.

I hope when the time comes that there are enough good cops and military men that honor the oath they took to uphold the constitution. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be working with the suits in Washington who take that same oath.

The problem with drink-driving laws is that they've had the side effect of killing off many, many rural pubs, as most drivers won't drink at all if driving, so it kills off the motivation to go out and eat and take friends (who can drink) if they can't drink any alcohol. They think that even a pint and a half of fairly weak bitter is too much, so pubs lose trade and no-one goes out.

Also, did Alvin Stardust teach you the Green Cross Code?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiKQO6BVzyA[/youtube]

A pint and a half of fairly weak bitter would be more than enough for me and many small people, like me, or who don't process alcohol quickly. I visit rural pubs, have a meal and a drink of Appletise. My husband's the driver, he has a cola. BTW My cousin's an orphan because of someone who thought he was sober enough to drive, so obviously I won't be budged on the issue.

I was referring to the legal alcohol limit. The most common definition of it in the blood stream is considered to be something like a pint and a half of 3.5% bitter or something like that for most people. I wouldn't get drunk off that, but they say that there is no foolproof way of drinking and staying within the legal limit (unless you carry a small breathalyser with you). I know people who drank (or used to) about four or five pints and then got into the car to drive home. I used to think they were insane, and that it was only a matter of time before they got pulled over by the police, or they ran someone over. If they were involved in an accident, and even it was absolutely not their fault and the same thing would have happened sober, they would still be held to blame because they had been drinking.

So, like I said, pubs simply disappear because, historically, they had the coaching trade. Then they had people turning up in their cars for a few pints and something to eat. With all that trade gone, unless it's an absolutely exceptional destination pub, it will fail and close. Which sometimes means more people being out of work.

^ What I'm saying is that I would get drunk on much less than the amount you stated. Just the half pint would leave me tipsy and I would consider myself unfit to do anything like driving. At least I can recognise it and I don't drive anyway. But, others don't recognise it in themselves and drink much more than that. Being unfit to drive happens long before you'd consider yourself to be drunk, in most cases, especially in those who are accustomed to heavy drinking. No matter what anyone says, a few pints before driving is irresponsible. They might think they're OK, but they've just been lucky.

Anyway, I can't get emotional about a pub closing, if their main trade was from people who drink and drive.

When you express yourself in absolutes, then you are almost always in the wrong. In the real world, there are very, very few absolutes. Exceptions abound, and I believe that it is important to develop our theories of civilization and society around the idea that one size does not fit all.

For my part, I believe that neither public good, nor freedom of choice prevail over each other. Both are fundamentally necessary to a civilized society. The issue is not whether one is more important than the other, but rather to establish a framework within which we can agree when one or the other must prevail.

There are circumstances in which society imposes restrictions on freedom for demonstrable reasons of public safety. From things as simple as stop signs and traffic lights, through things as coercive as the Riot Act, to the use of armed force to suppress violence, there are circumstances in which we willingly agree that restrictions on an absolute freedom of choice are necessary and proper to well ordering a society.

But that cannot be equated to a view that restrictions on freedom of choice are always justifiable on that basis. It is possible to overstep the mark. But it is wrong, I suggest, to take government excesses as proof of the proposition that all restrictions on personal freedom are necessarily unjustifiable.

If we can't examine these things critically, on a case by case basis, then we are necessarily going to fall into the trap of absolutes--and ensure that we get it wrong.