On Tue, 24 Aug 2004 23:57:18 -0600, "P.H. Thorsted" wrote:


Any time that you give up liberties, freedom or anything else to
government control, you are saying that the government has the right to
control anything in your life. How long will it be until you will need a
government permit to travel from city to city? All in the name of ensuring
the security of the country. Of course, the favorite saying is, "its for
your safety". That is a statement that the public will always fall prey
to. A completely false sense of security.

Paul T.

A little google time yielded the quote as:

"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety."

Methinks old Ben would have the attitude that the USA public of 2004 is
seriously non-deserving. If so, I'm not at all sure I would disagree with him.

Why do you think it is that "the public will always fall prey" to the "its for
your safety" line of BS?

Maybe because somewhere during the last century or so we (John Q. Public)
developed an attitude that "the government is responsible for doing (..)", and
you can pick a value, any value, for "(..)"? The politicians don't seem to be
doing much to refute that attitude.

Tom Veatch
Wichita, KS USA