WilliamBlue

I think this is a very dangerous way to think, there are many (abusive?) scenarios that I can believe you would be very unhappy with, after all they are already indicating that they can do this without a court order. Yes you may feel comfortable with this now, but things can change and I highly suggest you re-think this.

This is not the point, first you need to get people use to the fact that they have to sacrifice their rights to be safe and then you keep moving the line. Moving the line is easy, people just have to be scared.

Yep, this scares me the most, as I see it, it is coming from ignorance of what kind of abuses that can be perpetrated and may lead us to a place you would not believe.

__________________
When you dance with an elephant it's up to you to not get stepped on.
How can we be so arrogant and egotistical to believe that the whole Universe was created just for us?

Aaron

I didn't say we are at zero tolerance everywhere - we are on a steady path in that direction. I don't know the last time you flew, but they search any bag with contents they can't make out on the x-ray (actually, for the record, I do agree with airport security protocol - except for banning all liquids and nail clippers).

I'm still not clear what you mean by "we had things way to good".

As for the press jumping on the government - GREAT example of my statement about not playing to the idiots. The press needs to be told to flat out "F" off sometimes. The misconception that the represents the majority opinion of the people scares the hell out of me too - that's a whole different issue.

__________________
"The pump don't work cause' the vandals took the handle" - Bob Dylan

NotConvinced

I mean that on a spectrum of having every freedom you can think of, to martial law or totalitarian regime, 1 being every freedom and 10 being the other.......that though some people think we moved from a 4 to a 7, but overall I think we may have been at a 2 to begin with. I like to visualize things mathematically, lemme know if you still need clarification. It's possible in 50 years from now we'll look back on the pre-9/11 days and wonder how the hell we got away with the Low level of security everywhere. Though some may see it as a move from normal to too much security, I see it as a move from too little to a moderate amount.


And William....I believe you might fall into this other group that disagrees with me. I think if they always needed court orders to do phone taps it would drastically cut back on the amount of intelligence we can get. The only reason I don't really care if mine was tapped, is overall, this issue on it's own, isolated, doesn't mean anything to me at all. The only reason that I, personally, could see it as being a problem for me is if I was into something illegal, or was actually planning some kind of terrorism. What do I have to fear if I'm living my life almost totally by the law?

You're right when you say fearmongering is dangerous. Some could say that the Bush administration is very skilled at such a tactic, however I argue that Al Gore has become a master of it. You might be scared of thinking you personally, might die, but how about....every you know and everyone on earth dying. That's a feat unparalleled.

The best argument I see from you guys is...."we're on this path, and where it leads is to hell." I think this is hardly a slippery slope, and I have yet to see evidence that our path is Set in Stone and can't be changed down the road no matter what.

Aaron

Yes, NotConvinced, I think I still need clarification: Are you saying that we, as a FREE country, where too FREE?? You can't use ratio and proportion to justify controling people. I love mathematics, but the human equasion isn't mathematical. Take a course in psychology and get back to me.

__________________
"The pump don't work cause' the vandals took the handle" - Bob Dylan

NotConvinced

When judging something you must always do it in a relative manner, everything is relative. So rather than say "Things were ok pre 9/11, and the security changes harshly impede on my personal freedom and liberty;" I'm saying "Things were very unsecure pre 9/11, and they've gotten more secure now." Rather than say "Things were ok then, and bad now," I'm saying "Things are ok now, and were bad then." Now if you equate both the freedom spectrum and the security spectrum......meaning, we are more secure now but we lost some of our freedoms, to relate to the past.....we were less secure then but had more freedoms. Now if you equate having freedom as "having it good," then my opinion formulates to "We probably had it too good in the past," because our level of freedom was much higher then.


Another less confusing way of explaining it, would be by saying that in all the pre 9/11 era, with the many security concerns that went unheard, un-acted upon, unimproved, we were LUCKY to Not have had a lot more incidents of violence and suffering and death. Thus we had it too good, we Got Away with have very low security.

NotConvinced

Yes, we could have been too free, in a sense. I can use ratio and proportion to put Into Context, why the security we have now should be more acceptable to the fringe who oppose it. And you can use "controlling people" all you want, hell I can use it about the post office.....if someone doesn't decide to show up for work, and the lines get longer during the day, they controlled 5 more minutes of my life. Overall the only math I brought into the conversation was to show the spectrum, show the relativity, no equations necessary.

WilliamBlue

Ok, I see what your problem is, you completely trust the people that run this thing to do the right thing all of the time. No way to argue with you if that is the case. Our gov was built with checks and balances for a reason. What if someone wishes to abuse this for whatever (stupid?)reason, with no court order there is no way of knowing. What about your close family, your distant family, your friends, are they all living such a pristine life? Do you know for sure? Do they deserve to have their phones tapped? What if one of them has a little secret(gay, etc.) that might affect their job? Of course that would never happen here, right? Absolute power cor...

And yes I think we are closer to 4 than 2, but like I said thats not the point.

Also, Al Gore never said we were all going to die tomorrow thus his fear mongering lacks bite, most people do not quite grasp what global warming is all about, much less when it will affect their lives. As an example, I know a fairly intelligent person who thought oil was a renewable resource(which it is, but it takes millions of years) Maybe we should get a thread going on global warming?

__________________
When you dance with an elephant it's up to you to not get stepped on.
How can we be so arrogant and egotistical to believe that the whole Universe was created just for us?

NotConvinced

A thread on global warming I'd be up for more than anything.

Overall I do put more trust than doubt in my government, and there's always the potential for abuse, but even utilitarian wise the benefits almost certainly outweigh the negatives. Anyone these days with the right equipment or expertise can listen in on my cell phone calls, email, or instant messages; infact I could argue that someone else is More likely to do it to you than the goverment.

But back to the global warming...for someone who cares about science so much, Gore seems to not base much of his argument on it. It's not like this whole issue is a Yes or No question, it's more like a how much question. Most of us can agree that humans have had an affect on the environment, but how much so? Does anyone truly know? How bad are things gonna get even if we are on a negative path? Does anyone even know if our changed actions can truly have that much of an impact? How do we know if we're past the "tipping point" of no return? and more basically, Do we even know we're on a negative trend outside of the earth's normal cycle?

Sometimes it's just the small things that really tick me off, and make me side one way or the other on an issue. Like back in 2004 when Kerry said he could do something about outsourcing jobs to foreign markets, he lied, blatantly, and I was in a rare situation to know that he lied, and it ticked me off. With Gore, it's just all the small arguments. Like he tries to point to almighty global warming when mentioning Mt. Kilimanjaro's snow cap recession, that link has been proven false. He lied about one of the islands in the pacific going under sea level forcing a native tribe to leave to new zealand. But more importantly, the environment and Global Warming is a very important issue....and I hate to see, someone like Al Gore, be the person to try to bring it to the public stage, when he's lying about many of it's aspects. When more and more people reject his claims for how wrong they are, they'll be turned off of the whole global warming issue altogether, which is bad, we need more people to be mindful of the environment.

So many people are getting the wrong idea about many things, and they could effectively vote us away from good environmental policy. We need more nuclear energy, and we need it now, but the fearmongers won't have any of that. They'll scare you off with their ignorance of nuclear power. They'll try to convince you that there's many alternatives out there that could replace oil instead....and there isn't currently enough. Bio mass isn't gonna work out on a mass production level, ethanol has already shown to be more harmful to the environment than good, with the slash and burn farming methods of developing countries trying to produce more corn, and more nitrous oxide being released into the atmosphere from fertilizers. Wind energy is overall too inefficient for large scale, and currently so is solar still has a bit of technological progression to go. Even though Geothermal isn't technically renewable, it looks promising, but on a massive level it doesn't currently fit our needs. A hydrogen economy has a variety of different problems.

so yeah anyway, guess a new thread would be nice

Aaron

Yes, agreement - Gore is a meat puppet.

Now take what you said about the small things that tick you off about the grand picture that is being painted by A-holes like him and apply it to the debate we are having.

__________________
"The pump don't work cause' the vandals took the handle" - Bob Dylan

NotConvinced

as in...what are the small things ticking me off about national security?

I hate that it takes big mistakes to get big change most of the time, like the changes to security made after 9/11. And I hate that relatively little time has passed since then, and it seems like many people, to some degree, are wanting to revert our country to that which it was before the attack.

There was a question on one of the latest democratic debates that went something like "Which issue matters more, individual liberties and rights or national security?" I think only Chris Dodd said national security. I don't think it's a fair question at all. You can't pit them up against each other like one has to come out on top. I believe we agree it has to be a compromise. I believe we agree that we're currently within reasonably acceptable standards of both. We disagree on "where we're headed," thus we disagree on our telling the future, but I think we agree on how far we shouldn't go. I do think though, that overall, the upgrade in security on the national level, has had the time needed to iron out a lot of the kinks, and hopefully the current actions you'd most likely take issue with, will be among those ironed out.