Should the goverments act? (page 2)

hawkaw

Seeker,

please

Sooner or later they will wake up and see what has happened, and I hope that they will have the strength to rise up and restore those checks and balances (in fact, I suspect it will happen, so you see I'm not a prophet of doom or anything).

I never said you were "you know" or a prophet if doom. All I said was don't "strawman" me just like you (of all people) have taught me. What you are saying is absolute crap and you know it.

I don't know if you have noticed but over the last couple of thousand years or so there were no real checks and balances until the French and then a few other countries came up with this thing called "democracy". The ends justify the means approach was definitely at the head of government over the early centuries. Why the hell do you think JC was so popular? Everybody was poor and under control and they were looking for someone to save them - hope is so powerful.

People are becoming freer and freer all the time. Notice there are democratic governments through out North America and S. America where as before it was all dictators. Yes there still is Cuba and some of the countries like Haitti ain't so great. But it is wild when you compare it historically how far we have come my friend. You are living in a time where it is the norm to critize governments and others who break human rights laws. Its never happened before on such a large scale in human history.

You stated, "I do not wish the government to make a value judgement on my behalf". Oh please, so your kid gets murdered - who do you call upon to find out who did it and serve justice - the government!! But with your line of thinking there would be no one to do a independent investigation and it would be a witch hunt!! I think you meant to say the following - "you will not stand for the government to make value judgments on your behalf unless they are something you need or want and then you will gladly accept it!!! You forget that you have to live with 281 million other people some how in a "republic" that has a consititution.

Just look what you went through last November. Whether you liked it or not the supremes by a 7-2 margin told the 4 of the 7 members of the Florida supreme court they were wrong and weren't treating all the votes in the same way - like a major violation of the consitution). Go back and do it again said the SCOTUS. Then 5 of the 7 said, oh by the way our constitiution says you only have one day to fix it if you want a recount and after that day the election results stand as per the lower court's "democratic" judge decision.

Well the "Vice Genious" or "Tree" had a choice and what did you see before your very eyes - a quite transfer of power of the most powerful country in the world from "IPOTUS" to "Mr. Mispeak" without a War!!! Whether you agree with that decision or not (& oh by the way I agree with the supremes on the consitutionality issue but am not sure over remedy - technically they were right but ...) it is in human history a moment where peace and the law were the option and war was not.

There are check and balances and it is the consititution of the USA that offers you the protection. Sounds to me you just have to know how to use it.

Finally what court cases are you talking about? Did you actually read the decisions? Did they go to apeal? Geeze if you are upset with some decision or something - tell me. Did someone jerk you around recently? Tell me.

hawk

Seeker

I can understand your frustration with me, for I've not defended my statement. It's not like me to do that, but that's because I wasn't trying to prove something, but merely explaining why I felt a certain way as a side thought.

As for what you are saying, it's clear that we don't see eye-to-eye on this subject, for I do not necessarily agree with all that you say. However, this is not a subject I am willing to publicly discuss, and I will not do so.

Despite our disagreement, I hope you will understand that absolutely nothing has happened to me, I am doing fine (in fact, I'm doing very well), my mood is as it ever was, and this particular belief that I hold is one that I have held for years, and not something I've only just recently come to. It's just never come up before here, so you've never seen this side of me.

I will ask you to trust my past reputation that I have applied my usual scrutiny to this issue, and done my usual critical thinking, even if I'm not willing to provide evidence here. I'm still me, this has always been me, and nothing has changed.

Thanks for caring, though. And you are right to call me on it, even if I'm not willing to get into detail.

hawkaw

Point 1 - no frustration

Point 2 - I will trust you

Point 3 - I am glad you are okay but you need something I am around.

Point 4 - I think we both can agree that even though humans have come a long way there is much more work to be done

hawk

Seeker

Thanks very much for such a kind response! I agree with everything you said in that message. :)

Loki

What a topic PerFect!

I guess I’m not really adding much to the topic, but it is an issue which concerns me.

Seeker said “Don't depend on the government to tell you right from wrong, for that way lies danger.” Good point – isn’t that what the WTS does anyway?

Having said that, however, there is a place for law and government intervention, else we would have anarchy. The trouble is, where do you draw the line on that one? At what point does protection become control? I agree Seeker, that education is necessary. But how can you educate a group of people who are taught with what “perspective” to see issues which relate to the Borg.
Hawkaw, there are quite a few more places than Cuba and Haiti who do not have US style democracy, look at Asia. There are places where you can be thrown into jail if you publicly voice an opinion against the government, beaten up for protesting. I guess you can easily live with decisions made by the government, if you happen to agree for the most part with the ideology of that government. But what if you don’t? As you said, “there is much more work to be done”.
Do I sound confused? I am!
Loki

hawkaw

Hi Loki,

Yes I know but I was talking the Americas and not Asia.

You are not confusing

hawk

Francois

I yield to no one in despising the Borg. Especially hiding behind the first amendment as they do. But I'm not in favor of government action in this country to subdue them, or to limit their activities.

If we open a crack in the constitutional protections we are afforded from the government, that crack could will be opened wider later; and wider even later; and even wider later still until relatively soon, we would have no freedoms left at all.

I was raised in the 1950s, and in the short span of my lifetime, the government has become more and more intrusive, and more violative of citizen's rights. It's the nature of things. And I'm glad I'm living in this time. It could well be that even the limited freedoms we now have will not be accessible for very much longer.

Name me one, ONE, power the people have given to the government that it hasn't abused. ONE.

So - no, I'm not willing for the government to be given the power to reel in the JWs. Cause next that power would be perverted by the government to reel in something that was not even contemplated in the original power grant.

Let's get the Borg some other way. Like helping NBC Dateline rip the cover off how it protects pedophiles.

Francois

hawkaw

Francoise,

In the 1950s the africans were being persecuted and women were expected to be good housewives.

That all changed & they are a lot freer. It took the gov. plus a lot of the public to do it.

Want human rights violations go back and look what happened during the 1950s in Alabama. Geeze and you liked that???

Yes I can show you gov. goof ups etc. but I can also show you a lot of good too.

hawk (who says checks and balances are the key & quit strawmaning me!!!)

esther

hawkaw, it is my belief that government action could lead to claims of persecution. There are many civil rights movements which would agree, so the result could do more harm than good. So I tend to agree with Francoise that publicity is the best way to handle the situation.

esther

Francois

Hawkaw, I fail to see how replacing one evil with another, more widespread and meanacing evil could comfort you.

People willing to give up freedom for security will soon have neither. And so I am unwilling to cede to the government one more particle of power.

Government "goof ups" isn't what we're discussing here.

Should the goverments act?

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