A lot US Citizens do not deserve the Democracy they live in

[bleedingheart]

When i see polls that demonstrate that people are willing to give up their rights and be subjected to warrantless wiretaps, having their library records evaluated and being watched all the time...to be "safer"...it is a sign that these people do not deserve to live in a Democracy.

The funniest part is that the same folks viewed people living in the former Soviet Union as oppressed...all the while they are allowing our very own goverment to strangle our own freedoms so that we end up living the same way.

Clearly these folks have never known what it is like to have no freedom....my family is very familiar with it. We have witnessed what it is like and we are amazed at how freaking stupid that our fellow US Citizens are dumb enough to waltz into totalitarism all for "safety"....

I am embarrassed, I am outraged and to be honest I think it is proof that a lot of these folks are intellectually lazy and hell ...if the country was taken over they would just roll over like a lieberman...

End of rant...

[indepat]

1. Only those who ideologically, apathetically, or blindly support

what has come down deserve such, but sadly that number is in the several tens of millions.

[MrModerate]

2. Yeah, but *I* don't deserve it . . .

And I'm not going to let their laziness or error wreck MY democracy.

[bleedingheart]

3. See that is the funny part...while I am out there trying to preserve

Democracy ...writing, walking neighborhoods...etc

I run into these folks...and it makes me want to tear my hair out.

[MountainLaurel]

4. Ben Franklin said it best

Paraphrasing here: Those who would give up liberty to preserve their security deserve NEITHER>

[treestar]

5. IA, the biggest danger is the way Americans have had freedom so

long they take it for granted. Instead of movies about 911, somebody should do some about life in the USSR or any totalitarian state that is real (not an imaginary America, since nobody believes it).

[Crankie Avalon]

6. If they don't like the openness we have in this country, they can move...

...to North Korea or some other closed-off-from-the-world society!!!

OK, just kidding...but our nation is a collective of a three hundred million humans. Human nature being what it is, it's to be expected that some part of that would want "security" over "liberty," but we can only hope that that part won't ever be enough to tip the collective into something different from what our nation has been till now.

As exasperating as it can be, engagement with these people is a patriotic duty. They need to be shown up rather than dismissed.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

7. Most people never exercise the rights they (allegedly) have.

The vast majority of the American people never have, and probably never will, take part in a demonstration, publish or read anti-government tracts, or, in any way, threaten the establishment. They certainly wouldn't miss something they've never used.

In fact, most people think that those who do exercise such rights are "unpatriotic", "treasonous", "unAmerican", "dangerous", etc, and wouldn't mind having them locked up or shot.

Even a cursory reading of American history illustrates this. The suppression of freedom in this country from the Alien and Sedition Act, to the various "Red Scares" and the laws suppressing the unions, to the Japanese/American internment camps (done by a "Liberal" administration) to Kent State, to "Free Speech Zone" and the "Patriot Act", have been accepted and applauded by the citizenry.

“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” H.L. Mencken

[MrCoffee]

8. That's why we're here...so that they have the right to be idiots.

Read Federalist 10. They are the lazy scared stupid faction. They have just as much right to be here as we do.

[Odin2005]

9. "The people will vote away thier rights" -Ben Franklin

[Ron Green]

10. We don't need a totalitarian regime to enslave the people. . .

we just keep them scared and convince them that shopping and buying will assuage their fear.

We don't have Big Brother, we don't need no stinkin' Big Brother. We have Ronald McDonald!

[mmonk]

11. Don't worry, they are losing it.