According to a June 7, 2004 Reuters article, experts in social history and political behavior say that Americans throughout history, don't mind if their rights are infringed if it's for a good reason.
This is how much most Americans paid attention in history class. The Founding Fathers make this big deal about liberty and freedoms over all else and the minute we're in danger nobody cares about civil rights anymore. And history can prove it. The following is from the article:
Historians cite the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, when a threat of war with France led to the law making it illegal to speak critically of the United States. Editors were arrested, and newspapers closed down.I was more than surprised upon reading that these laws were actually on the books.
In the U.S. Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus writs, which protect against unlawful imprisonment.
During World War One, fear of rising communism led to anti-immigrant sentiment, deportations and a violent crackdown on the labor movement. The 1917 Espionage Act prohibited anti-war activity and under the 1918 Sedition Act no one could "utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the government.
Cold War fears of communist infiltration helped fuel the powerful House Un-American Activities Committee and a "Red Scare" led to discrimination and detention. Under the Smith Act, one could not advocate overthrow of the U.S. government.
So, our rights are inalienable, except in times of war? Our rights are inalienable except when the guy in the White House says we are at war?
Frankly, that's bullshit.
Our rights are our rights and time of war, or no, they stay our rights. Our rights are not to be given or taken away by another man. If you're a believer in a higher power you know that only God gives rights and takes them away.
The article goes on to quote these experts as explaining that we're far from a fascist dictatorship. One expert is quoted in the article as saying "Were the denials of civil liberties to really spread to the mainstream population and outside aspects of terrorism, then I think there would be a hue and cry which you do not hear now."
Do we really want to wait that long? Isn't it enough that some people's rights are already being actively infringed upon? Do we really need to wait until the USGov commits furhter illegal acts before there is an outcry?
If you're an American reading this, the answer is probably yes.
NIMBY. Not In My Back Yard. Everything's fine until it happens to you or a neigbor.
THEN, you'll care. THEN you'lll give a crap.
The thing is if we'd stop trying to label people as liberals, activists, conspiracy theorists, foreigners, savages, and barbarians, we'd realize we're all each other's neighbors. If it weren't for our country's borders and the power of religion over all of us, all humans would probably get along just fine.
We are all in this together and the sooner we realize that when something bad happens to one of us it means it can happen to any of us. One human's rights being infringed upon anywhere in the world means that we are all at risk. If any American's rights are infringed upon it harms every American for a number of reasons.
1) Obviously, it means any of our rights can be infringed upon.
2) Don't think that being a law abiding citizen makes a difference. Mistakes and abuse of the law happen all the time.
3) When we, as a people, allow our own rights to be infringed upon we look like hipocrites to the rest of the world.
America is the torch bearer for freedom, human rights and equality. When any of those things are compromised, even slightly, you run into the fourth way it harms every American.
4) History will look poorly on us.
Does America stand for something? Or not?
Read more about these experts' comments at Netscape News.
Read about a 2002 USAToday poll that suggests four in five Americans would be willing to give up some freedoms to imrpove security.
From Netscape News, CNN.com and Reuters.com:
Americans would trade rights for security -experts
NEW YORK, June 7 (Reuters) - In today's America, prisoners are held incommunicado for years, newspapers can't photograph soldiers' coffins returned from Iraq and the government can secretly track the books citizens read and the movies they watch.
But civil liberties can erode much further before Americans will say enough is enough, say experts in social history and political behavior.
Fear struck by the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks helped launch the curtailment of civil liberties in the name of national security, and that fear keeps Americans willing to trade away rights for safety, they say.
"We're at war," said Ken Weinstein of the Hudson Institute, a policy think tank. "That's why it doesn't bother us."
Nor is there a clear "tipping point" to swing opinion the other way, added Karlyn Bowman, a polling expert at the American Enterprise Institute. "We don't seem to be anywhere near it at this time."
Just after Sept. 11, 2001, polls showed two-thirds of Americans felt it would be necessary to give up some civil liberties to protect the nation. A year later, that number still stood at about half, Bowman said.
"Most people don't see a broader threat," she said. "People seem to be pretty comfortable with the general state of affairs regarding civil liberties."
'A FAIRLY STANDARD PROCESS'
Historically, losing civil liberties in a time of fear is nothing new in America.
"The question is how tolerant can a tolerant society be to the intolerant who may seek to destroy it?" said Weinstein. "This is a fairly standard process in American history."
Historians cite the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, when a threat of war with France led to the law making it illegal to speak critically of the United States. Editors were arrested, and newspapers closed down.
In the U.S. Civil War, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus writs, which protect against unlawful imprisonment.
During World War One, fear of rising communism led to anti-immigrant sentiment, deportations and a violent crackdown on the labor movement. The 1917 Espionage Act prohibited anti-war activity and under the 1918 Sedition Act no one could "utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the government.
Cold War fears of communist infiltration helped fuel the powerful House Un-American Activities Committee and a "Red Scare" led to discrimination and detention. Under the Smith Act, one could not advocate overthrow of the U.S. government.
But, said Isaac Kramnick, professor of government at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, "all of those moments of fear pale in significance to 9/11 in reality and also in the way it's being exploited and manipulated by the Bush regime."
"Holding prisoners without charge and things of that sort are being justified in terms of the old argument of national security," he said.
But civil liberty issues such as prisoners rights do not trouble the average American, experts say. People look the other way when their own personal life is not at stake.
Polls proposing telephone taps and e-mail monitoring evoke far more resistance from Americans, Bowman said.
For Americans to speak out about their civil liberties, she said, "They would have to see some widespread, wide-scale abuses in what they think are private and personal areas. Then again, they're not particularly attentive."
'HEADED FOR A FASCIST DICTATORSHIP?'
But things may not be as insidious as they sound.
"Are we headed for a fascist dictatorship or a fascist regime with fascistic denials of civil liberties? I doubt it," said Kramnick. "Were the denials of civil liberties to really spread to the mainstream population and outside aspects of terrorism, then I think there would be a hue and cry which you do not hear now."
The question of how far is too far may be like pornography. Maybe you can't define it, but you know it when you see it.
"Americans react pretty quickly when they think their liberties are being curtailed to any serious degree," said Weinstein. "The policies of the Bush administration have been fairly well accepted because I don't think they've crossed that barrier where people say, 'Wait a second."'
© Copyright Reuters Ltd. All rights reserved. The information contained In this news report may not be published, broadcast or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of Reuters Ltd.
06/07/2004 10:36
RTR
From USAToday.com:
Poll: Americans willing to trade rights for security
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Four in five Americans would give up some freedoms to gain security, and four in 10 worry terrorists will harm them or their family, a new Gallup poll shows.
About one-third of those polled favor making it easier for authorities to access private e-mail and telephone conversations. More than 70% are in favor of requiring U.S. citizens to carry identification cards with fingerprints, and 77% believe all Americans should have smallpox vaccinations.
"It was amazing the percentage of people who are willing to give up freedom to get back some sense of personal security," said Elaine Christiansen, senior research director for The Gallup Organization. "These aren't people who were necessarily near the twin towers, near the Pentagon, near the Murrah building. These are average people."
The telephone survey, conducted in March, included 934 people across the country. Researchers also polled about 500 people in each of three cities where terrorist attacks occurred — New York City, Washington, D.C., and Oklahoma City — to compare results with the general population survey.
The poll showed 8% of Americans are very worried and 31% are somewhat worried that they or someone in their family will become victims of a terrorist attack in the United States. In New York City, the level of worry is higher — 19% said they are very worried and 34% said they are somewhat worried.
Washington, D.C, and Oklahoma City reported levels of fear close to the national average.
Scientists involved in the poll said they were not surprised many Americans remain fearful after Sept. 11.
"The magnitude of the event was just so profound," said Carol North, a psychiatry professor at Washington University in St. Louis, who said talk of the war in Afghanistan, airline security and terrorist threats is propelling the fear.
The study was co-sponsored by The University of Oklahoma psychiatry department through a grant from the Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism. The main survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, while the margin of error for the survey in the three cities is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Meanwhile, a New York Times/CBS News poll found that 60% of New York City residents think the threat of a terrorist attack in their city is greater than it is in any other big city.
Barely 40% of respondents believe the city is safer than it had been four years ago, a decrease of 20% from those polled in August. Even so, nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said that given a choice, they would prefer to be living in the city four years from now than any other place.
The poll, conducted by telephone in English or Spanish June 4 through Sunday, surveyed 940 adults. It has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.
Copyright 2002 The Associated Press.
No comments:
Post a Comment