People want a quiet life where they don't have to worry about the safety of their children, and this is exactly what everyone deserves. This is a generally a force for good in the world but it can be subverted by bad regimes. Human rights are designed to protect everyone even if they lack a passion for freedom, or safety, or national security. By disdaining other viewpoints you are thinking in terms of civic virtue instead of basic rights, which is characteristic of fascism, not democracy.
If the same money was put in to health, road safety, gun control, and so on, they would be much more secure and safe. Real lives would be saved, not hypothetical ones. But since they are high on terrorist stories fed to them by the terror dealers in government, via their media runners, they will never know that, so their sense of security is utterly false.
PRISM will not save them from the real statistical dangers in any way. It will not ever give them a quiet life.
I agree with you but an honest and insightful comment (in my opinion) didn't deserve to get downvoted to gray. I thought that was reserved for crazies and trolls, not people expressing a self-evident position.
The fact that the priorities of most people are not necessarily aligned with reality isn't the fault of someone explaining the status quo. This gets missed, I think sometimes, in these discussions.
Warm fuzzies can be dangerously misguided leading to tragic consequences. The post sounds good on the surface, but such sentiment leads to ends far from what is intended. It may be honest, but not particularly insightful.
A quiet life free of safety concerns is NOT a right, and attempting implementation thereof via government necessitates serious violation of other fundamental rights. A "proper" totalitarian police state is the only means to that end - and not something many of us are going to put up with.
(No, I didn't downvote it, but understand why one would.)
If we use upvotes to signal agreement, then it is only natural that people use downvotes to signal disagreement. I don't have a link for it right now, but pg has say that as much is expected.
I agree 100%. I just disagree with the Ben Franklin position that people don't deserve security or freedom merely because they suffer from the human condition.
People want a quiet life where they don't have to worry about the safety of their children, and this is exactly what everyone deserves
Why do they deserve this, and not to be told that the life and safety you propose is not possible to provide? I would further argue that safety and quietude are not basic rights, and while I'm open to having my mind changed on the topic, I have never been able to find evidence that what you say is so.
