>>Thinking back, I almost totally stopped posting stuff around the time they did because the site just began to feel creepy (foto tagging, etc) and started feeling like a mostly empty room at the end of a party.
I can almost picture your friends snickering at you saying thinks like "Boy, look at vabmit, still has not realized that Facebook is so yesterday"
>>You have to defend even terrorists' rights if you want yours to stand.
Completely agree with this. Unfortunately most people are too stupid to realize that in order to protect your constitutionals rights you must also protect the rights of people you do not like, i.e. hate spouting religious extremists, of any religion. Even the rights of killers like the Boston bombers must be protected if we want ours to be protected.
I'm with you as far as suspects. Suspects should have their rights protected. Convicted felons, however, we already deny a number of constitutional rights de-facto. E.g., right to bear arms and freedom of travel.
I do not know if you were simply clarifying the parent post or actually referring to the Boston bomber, but the fact of the matter is, you become a "convicted felon" when you've found guilty in the court of law.
Folks, if you are going to downvote me, please explain why. I don't believe I have stated an opinion; I tried to stick to facts. If you think my facts are wrong, please actually correct me.
So far as I can tell, no liberty has been given up.
The point of the Miranda warning is to make it crystal-clear that a suspect is aware that he doesn't have to speak to police without a lawyer, and is aware that if he does speak to police, what he says can be used against him. The Miranda warning is not a right; it's literally a warning, meant to save people from their own ignorance of their actual rights.
It also does not mean police can't question someone, just that if they do, and don't observe certain forms, a court may not allow the resulting evidence to be admitted at trial.
In this case, the police are basically going to go ahead with questioning, and let the courts sort out later what's admissible and what's not. Courts have been known to allow non-Mirandized statements obtained in circumstances where some immediate risk made it impractical to give the warning before asking a question.
1) In this particular case, the public safety exception to Miranda has been around since 1984 (cue Orwellian conspiracy theories). So, for almost 30 years (longer than my existence), Americans have been "deprived" of this "liberty". Suddenly it becomes an issue in 2013 for armchair devil's advocates in a pretty much open-shut case of domestic terrorism.
Furthermore, the Miranda warning never existed in Ben Franklin's time -- it's a "right" given to us purely via judicial policy. Given that not even Ben Franklin thought that an explicit reading of one's Constitutional rights was worthy of inclusion in the amendments, one could argue that the Miranda warning is a "nonessential liberty," in which case Franklin's quote wouldn't even apply.
2) The same people who spew out this quote give up liberty for safety every day as a convenience. Our purchases, thoughts, questions, conversations, and movements are all monitored on a daily basis. Ironically, the people who frequent HN are actually the ones responsible for not only implementing these monitoring technologies, but also monetizing them--figuring out how to use all of this data collected on you to squeeze extra nickels and dimes out of you. In these cases, we give up liberty for...what, exactly? "Free" products? Certainly not safety. This "it's only wrong if the government does it" BS doesn't fly with me. We ARE the government.
3) The quote itself doesn't explain why those who choose to give up liberty for safety deserve neither--in fact, the only thing going for this quote at all was that Ben Franklin said it. Take away the attribution and you're left with an empty sound bite.
"The quote itself doesn't explain why those who choose to give up liberty for safety deserve neither--in fact, the only thing going for this quote at all was that Ben Franklin said it. Take away the attribution and you're left with an empty sound bite."
Good point. I think of Maslovs hierarchy and decisions rational people take almost every time they are in danger.
The quote doesn't give brilliant insight into a complicated problem. It just states an opinion and ties a bow on it. There are swathes of such quotes, and you can find one to support nearly any viewpoint. Of the swathes, however, this particular quote has been beaten to a veritable pulp through (mis)use. It is second in prevalence only to invocation of Godwin's law in discussions of this topic (incidentally, there's a nice example of that below).
Because it's lazy. Using quotes like that demonstrates absolutely zero understanding of the topic at hand, just that <notable person> said X, and you are attempting to bring their authority to the current situation, despite the fact that he was clearly not talking about the current situation.
No they are not, but they sure are important. Anybody who says otherwise is lying or being naive. We all want to find a mate, is in our genes. Those that profess not to want sex are either lying or are sick.
Hark! Unfortunately girls are just as shallow as guys, for the most part. Most want to date the cool guy, who cares if he is a looser in hindsight. Guys are just as shallow, to be fair.
Consider Maslow's hierarchy: money solves physiological needs, helps with safety needs, may ease but cannot really solve love/belonging needs, helps a little with esteem needs, and does almost nothing for self-actualization needs.
Money is important - you have to solve your basic needs - but money is not everything, because it cannot solve your most sophisticated needs.
News used to be bad for me when I was a young kid in my teens. It used to depress me. Now that I'm in my thirties I've become desensitized and pretty much nothing bothers me. News is only bad for you if you let it affect you.
I can almost picture your friends snickering at you saying thinks like "Boy, look at vabmit, still has not realized that Facebook is so yesterday"