Demands. Rights. Etc.
I can't exist for 30 seconds without getting force fed the opinion that somehow the government must expiate itself by providing for its people things I am unclear they deserve or have the right to ask for. I haven't lived long, but I can't help but feel a growing trend (especially in my age bracket) that people yearn for the unearned. Somehow, people have got it in their heads that certain inalienable rights now extend to social security, health care, privacy, money money money.
At what cost, and to whom?
Our Constitution protects its citizens so that they may have life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Happiness in not guaranteed. If you are unable to support yourself, it is not the government (or its citizens) obligation to support you. If you seek to infringe upon the freedom of others (terrorists) your liberty, privacy, rights, and property are void.
Our Constitution set forth to hammer forth the principle that all men are entitled to their life. Freedom to pursue and achieve success is promised without fear of oppression so long as you do not violate the liberty of others. The second you choose to invalidate the freedom of another individual, you invalidate your own right to liberty. Perhaps this is the maxim that people seem so willing to ignore. If a private citizen decides to willingly plot against others in an effort to hurt or kill them or carries forth plans to further this goal, they have forfeited their right to their own person. There is no such thing as a right to harm others. One who harms others has no moral base to justify their actions. This is why the Patriot Act, and all the wire-tapping and torture that it precludes, is fully justifiable by our Constitution.
People disagree not because they find it morally unpalatable to torture a terrorist, they disagree because mob mentality has forced them to feel bad for thinking otherwise. There are few people in America today who are willing to stand on their own moral ground, their reasons for decrying torture and wiretapping is not an argument founded on objective principles, rather it is based in subjective sycophancy.
Ask yourself, what rights does a man who kills innocents have? Does he have a right to his own life once he takes others?
The Shogun of Sorrow
- Zoidberg
- bloodbarn, VA
- Now open your mouth and lets have a look at that brain.
2 comments:
I agree that the Constitution is not a suicide pact but what of your torturee's right to a presumption of innocence? What of his right to non-self-incrimination? I think you put too much faith in our enforcement institutions.
This system, like all systems, breaks down if the individuals do not embrace rationality and come to conclusions about a person's guilt that are based on objective thought.
It is easy to condemn our government because their track record has been marred with several embarrassing instances where judgment has been completely abandoned. However, if we always withhold action on the premise that this action may be unpalatable to the masses, or because the sins of the past have led us to be overcautious, that will be the moral injustice.
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