In 1755, Ben Franklin wrote: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
There's a continuum implied by this statement, with "Liberty" on one end and "Safety" (Security) on the other. Most people have no desire to live at either extremity (Liberty w/o Security = anarchy; Security w/o Liberty = police state), and striking the correct balance between these two has been a centuries-old pursuit of civilized peoples.
Yet, when Franklin penned this aphorism, there were plenty of people living in the same land as he who were not only denied liberty, their enslavement certainly gave them no reason to feel secure. At any moment, those who were champions of liberty could, on a whim, utterly destroy these unfortunate unfree souls, and feel utterly secure in knowing that they would suffer no negative repercussion for doing so
Though the Founders of this nation wrote and spoke of liberty as if were something greater than life itself - "Give me Liberty or give me Death!" - in complete opposition to their words, and in order to reap material wealth, the Founders erected boundaries to limit liberty to those of their own kind. All others, being less than human to the original 1%'ers, deserved neither liberty nor security.
Generations on, those who have benefited from the privileges of liberty have seldom wavered whenever they have felt that liberty threatened. Willing to sacrifice essential security to ensure that their posterity would continue living as free peoples, these latter generations even pass laws to free the previously enslaved. Unfortunately, the laws of emancipation could not ensure that, though free, the previously enslaved, and their descendants, would ever experience essential liberty. Actually, over 150 years after the fatal flaws of the Founders were corrected, these descendants still lack both essential liberty and safety.
And so there developed divergent views between those who have liberty as their birthright, and those who have to continuously fight to attain it, as to the value of liberty, and the value of security. Little wonder that their views would diverge, as their frames of reference do not coincide.
They have inhabited the same physical nation, but have lived lives that are worlds apart - as if in two different castes.
So far apart, in fact, that these different groups still do not see eye-to-eye on matters regarding liberty and security. What feels like a direct threat to those whose birthright is liberty often seems inconsequential to those who have been systematically denied liberty. And what feels feels like a direct threat to those who have been systematically denied Liberty, often provides security to those privileged to have been born Children of the Founders.
They have inhabited the same nation, but have lived lives that are worlds apart - as if in two different castes.
Are you aware that the descendents of these distinct groups, these two distinct castes, diverge on these matters?
Perhaps this reality can be made clear to you. Perhaps then you can come to understand how Kos, himself, could make the following statement:
I don't give a shit (183+ / 0-)
Seriously, I just don't care.
NSA spying is bad! So is stop and frisk. So is splitting up families by deporting children to countries they've never been to and don't speak the language. So is harassing American muslims.
Government overreach is bad. But to act like having the government track who you call is the height of government abuse is a very white privileged view of the privacy issue.
But as for Greenwald and Snowden? Seriously, I don't give two shits.
So was this just a flippant statement by Kos uttered only to generate debate, or are there facts to support it?
Yes, there are facts to support Kos' "thesis". On the other side of the Kosschach ink blot we'll see if these "facts" are enough to validate Kos' claim.
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