Civil Liberties Are Not Something You Trade
from Esquire:
Civil Liberties Are Not Something You Trade
By Charles P. Pierce
The blog doesn't like to get all civics class on your ass that often, but there's one trope zipping around out there at the moment in connection with the current storm over phone records and data mining that makes me a little bit crazy -- and that is the discussion of whether or not the American people will "trade off" civil liberties for what is really merely a sense of security. (You know what, folks? Don't tell me about all the terror plots you've foiled if you're not going to give me details. There is no reason to believe you. Either don't mention them at all, or convince me. There's no third alternative.) The terms of the transaction are obviously incorrect. The American people are not being asked to "trade" their civil liberties. They are being asked to surrender them, for all practical purposes, permanently.
Civil liberties are not something you get to "trade," not least because they don't all belong to you. They belong to me, too, and to the woman at the next table here at the Commonwealth Avenue Starbucks -- Oh, c'mon, you knew where I was anyway, NSA guys. -- and to the four people who just walked down the street past the big plate-glass window. You give yours away, you're giving mine away, too, whether I want you to do so or not. Therefore, we all surrender those civil liberties. We do not trade them because we don't get anything back. And it's not like we can cut another deal later to get them back.
We at least should be honest about this. We aren't making a square deal with an equal partner here. We are committing ourselves to be less free. We did it with drugs, when people got us frightened of shadows on the wall, and then we did it with terrorism, when real events occurred. We did it with Communists way back in the 1920's and the 1950's, and with the French during the administration of John Fking Adams, for god's sake. We decide to be less free. And I say "we," because, frankly, outside of the usual Obama-bashers and a handful of people like me who were yelling about this stuff way back in the day, I'm not seeing a political groundswell to take action to remedy the situation. (Are you going to vote for a presidential candidate next time around who campaigns on the platform that he will weaken the office? Good luck with that.) There is going to be a lot of noise for a while and then, maybe, in 2016, we'll elect a Republican and hardly anyone will care any more. We are a less free people. We are a people who have decided, en masse, and through our choice of leaders, to be a less free people. We should at least own that, and not talk about "trading" things that were not ours to give away.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/phone-data-and-civil-liberties-060713
= new reply since forum marked as read
Absolutely, Charley Pierce! They don't even teach Civics in HS anymore. And only in college if it's your major. Thanks, marmar for linking us to the article.
Play "man on the street." Get a friend with his camera and mic, and hit the streets. Ask people of all ages "What are Civil Liberties?". Make a "DU Doc" 
Upload it to YouTube and then transfer it on over to DU.
We all need to think of ways to teach our fellow countrymen what "Civics" is. We've been dumbed-down so much over the past 30-40 years. With this current slight of the hand, it appears that a big chunk of our civil liberties has just been taken from us. We didn't vote on this. No one asked for the permission to take it. They just effing took it. Easy-peasy. We are on the verge, if not over the edge, of a police state. 