[excon]

Hello again,

Boy, oh boy... Although I'm having trouble figuring out what liberty IS, I'm finding LOTS of examples of what liberty ISN'T. This latest example comes from Texas, the state that wants to secede because there's TOO many rules coming out of Washington. Bwa, ha ha ha..

A request for a temporary restraining order was granted to prevent Northside Independent School District from removing a San Antonio high school student from John Jay High School’s Science and Engineering Academy because she objected to wearing a name badge signifying participation in the school district’s new “Student Locator Project.” The badges include tiny Radio Frequency Identification (“RFID”) chips that produce a radio signal, enabling school officials to track students’ precise location on school property.

excon

[cdad]

. Did they envisage the situation where armed gangs roam the streets because of these rights?

Id like to address this part. Yes they did envision such a situation when they created the Second Amendment. Without it all other rights can go by the wayside.

The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the right of the individual to keep and bear firearms.

The right to arm oneself is viewed as a personal liberty to deter undemocratic or oppressive governing bodies from forming and to repel impending invasions. Furthermore, the right to bear arms was instituted within the Bill of Rights to suppress insurrection, participate and uphold the law, enable the citizens of the United States to organize a militia, and to facilitate the natural right to self-defense.



2nd Amendment

[cdad]

Hello again,

Boy, oh boy... Although I'm having trouble figuring out what liberty IS, I'm finding LOTS of examples of what liberty ISN'T. This latest example comes from Texas, the state that wants to secede because there's TOO many rules coming out of Washington. Bwa, ha ha ha..

A request for a temporary restraining order was granted to prevent Northside Independent School District from removing a San Antonio high school student from John Jay High School’s Science and Engineering Academy because she objected to wearing a name badge signifying participation in the school district’s new “Student Locator Project.” The badges include tiny Radio Frequency Identification (“RFID”) chips that produce a radio signal, enabling school officials to track students’ precise location on school property.

excon

And your point is? Sounds to me like they got it right. Furthermore it looks like the law worked in this situation as it should. Im glad they issued a restraining order. In today's world we have far too many helicopter moms and dads that are ruining the whole barrel of apples. When children play they may get hurt. Its part of life. There is no reason to ban everything and try to wrap them in a cacoon then later to send them off into the real world. This line of thinking needs to stop somewhere and this is a perfect example of holding the line.

[paraclete]

Next step is to inject the chip in preschool

[speechlesstx]

Their liberty is to stay in this country and be part of the tribe or to leave and go to a country that thinks like they do.

I'm only free if you take from me to give to someone else?

[speechlesstx]

Hello again,

Boy, oh boy... Although I'm having trouble figuring out what liberty IS, I'm finding LOTS of examples of what liberty ISN'T. This latest example comes from Texas, the state that wants to secede because there's TOO many rules coming out of Washington. Bwa, ha ha ha..

A request for a temporary restraining order was granted to prevent Northside Independent School District from removing a San Antonio high school student from John Jay High School's Science and Engineering Academy because she objected to wearing a name badge signifying participation in the school district's new “Student Locator Project.” The badges include tiny Radio Frequency Identification (“RFID”) chips that produce a radio signal, enabling school officials to track students' precise location on school property.

excon

Again with the secession myth.

I'll tell you what's not liberty, a woman losing her job for (stupidly) exercising the rights that our honored dead fought to protect. How's that?

P.S. Should people be free to protest naked in a Congressman's office? Some things are best left covered up.

[TUT317]

Hi Ex,


This may help to answer your original question. At least I hope so.

Basically we never find liberty as something that exists alone. In a democratic society liberty exists in a positive and negative form. If negative liberty means freedom to do as we like then this has to be balanced out against positive liberty. For example freedom of speech is not an absolute. It may well be the case that freedom of speech is an absolute necessity as far as the individual is concerned, but it is in the best interests of society to restrain the individual when it comes to such things as hate speeches.

Because we live as a collective in organized society this means we are forced to temper some of our freedoms. My interest may not be in the interest of the everyone. Basically we can say it is a balancing of positive and negative liberties.


Tut

[paraclete]

Yes one of our liberties is to loose our money in the market because of the manipulation of that market by others exercising their supposed liberties. Basically liberty is the free exercise of every action that is not tempered by law and the exercise of every action allowed by law

[TUT317]

I'm only free if you take from me to give to someone else?

That would depend on the degree of freedom you can rightly expect in an organized society. There is no absolute freedom in any democratic society. So under the social contract we can expect some of our freedoms will be modified.

When Ex asks the question (in another post), "Should sex offenders be free from registration/", or "Should non-violent drug offenders be freed from prison?" The answer is always considered in light of the impact such individual freedoms have on the rest of society.

Tut

[paraclete]

That would depend on the degree of freedom you can rightly expect in an organized society. There is no absolute freedom in any democratic society. So under the social contract we can expect some of our freedoms will be modified.

When Ex asks the question (in another post), "Should sex offenders be free from registration/", or "Should non-violent drug offenders be freed from prison?" The answer is always considered in light of the impact such individual freedoms have on the rest of society.

Tut

So the answer is yes

[TUT317]

so the answer is yes

Hi Clete,

Generally speaking I would say so because I cannot think of one freedom that is exempt from the prying eyes of the judiciary. But some freedoms seems to be better protected than others. Again, I would also think that it would depend on the case, but when push comes to shove it is usually the courts that have the final say.

Steve's example of the girl who is fighting to hold onto her job is a little more complicated in my view. I think she has to wear the social sanctions of her actions, after all she was prepared to put the picture in front of the public. The possibility of losing her job over this is a different matter.

But again it is not a case of, " I'll tell you what is not liberty" because this is falling into the trap of setting up a false dichotomy. I think I said something similar in a earlier post to Tom.


Tut

[paraclete]

You have got to be kidding there are some people who have forfieted their liberty

[TUT317]

you have got to be kidding there are some people who have forfieted their liberty

Do you have a specific example? I think part of the problem will be that 'liberty' can be used in a broad or narrow sense. In it's broadest sense I don't think many people have actually forfeited all of their liberties regardless of their crimes. But I could be wrong.

Tut

[speechlesstx]

That would depend on the degree of freedom you can rightly expect in an organized society. There is no absolute freedom in any democratic society. So under the social contract we can expect some of our freedoms will be modified.

I don't disagree, but I do disagree with the idea we are "free" with an increasingly heavy dose of government involvement in our lives. I find it incredible that the same people whining about staying out of a woman's "choice" are the same one's fighting desperately to not only limit mine but take away my ability and right to be free to help others as I choose.

[tomder55]

The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.
Patrick Henry
A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address.

[Wondergirl]

John Adams, Founding Father and 2nd President; Thoughts on Government, 1776:

“Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.”

James Madison, Founding Father and 4th President; Federalist Papers, No. 57, February 19, 1788:

“The aim of every political constitution is, or ought to be, first to obtain for rulers men who possess most wisdom to discern, and most virtue to pursue, the common good of the society; and in the next place, to take the most effectual precautions for keeping them virtuous whilst they continue to hold their public trust.”

Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father, American diplomat, statesman, and scientist; letter to Robert Morris, December 25, 1783:

"All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it."

[tomder55]

“There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.”

“Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”
John Adams

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

Do not separate text from historical background. If you do, you will have perverted and subverted the Constitution, which can only end in a distorted, bastardized form of illegitimate government.
James Madison

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

When the people find that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.
Benjamin Franklin

[excon]

Hello again,

I WAS going to start another thread, but this post is about liberty too - liberty for the MINORITY senators.

The rules for filibustering CAN be changed ONLY on the first day of the new senatorial session.. Should the Democrats DO AWAY, or sharply curtail the filibuster?

Now, I'm all for giving the minority a voice.. But they ARE the minority, and shouldn't HAVE the privilege of deciding what happens in the Senate. With the filibuster, they DO. The problem is the Republicans used to filibuster to PREVENT ANY Democratic legislation to pass the Senate because they were afraid it would make the president look good. Well, they can't have that, so they filibustered 386 bills. Many were bills the Republicans AGREED with, and they WORKED for the country... But, they love their party BETTER, or hate the president MORE, than they love their own country... I surely don't know why that is... In comparison, when LBJ ran the Senate, he had to deal with ONE filibuster - that's ONE = 1, you know, the loneliest number, ONE!

Now, I don't know if McConnell is going to do the same thing THIS session, but why should the Democrats give him the opportunity? He already showed his colors. The American people WANT the congress to WORK. The Republicans don't. The Democrats should MAKE 'em.

excon

[talaniman]

Get rid of the filibuster, and the super majority requirement.

[tomder55]

Boy I remember how they howled when the Repubics threatened to use the nuclear option. Now I guess they's OK with it.