Sacrificing Liberty for Safety?

"Those who would
give up
Essential Liberty
to purchase a little

temporary safety

deserve neither Liberty nor Safety "
..Benjamin Franklin

Newt Gingrich  would "strengthen" the Patriot Act if he were president. This is an appeal to people's fear and it uses fear to enlarge government and power over people.
 Dana Loesch, a contributor at CNN,  said it is silly to think that threats of punishment would deter terrorism. Dangerous mind set on her part.  All law is based on threats of punishment if and when you commit a crime. 

Imagine if G-d exacted punishment on you  for what you might possibly do?  But this is the new push toward canon law in the United States to replace British common law.
Even G-d does not go that far but the Vatican-based  canon law does. 


The next step is arresting people you think might commit a robbery or murder in the future. Indeed there was talk about just that kind of totalitarian draconian step not all that long ago.
"Thought crimes". Indeed Israel has come up with the horrific and goofy nonsense of  mind reading to see if someone is about to commit a crime.  Its insanity.
There was 'scientific' research about genes determining criminals at birth. Maybe they could be locked up or destroyed before they make trouble? It is pure insanity.

  The Patriot Act is a danger to the freedoms that America fought so long and hard to secure. Now we are watching them be eliminated one by one, faster and faster.

The 'see something say something' is nothing more than inform on your neighbor. It is the stuff of totalitarian big brother regimes. Signs on the train should read:"Be a rat, be a stooge for the police state" "Big brother is watching you".
America does not need to give up liberty to have security.
When challenged on his views of removing rights to secure safety, Gingrich said he does not want to wait until some act of terrorism occurs he wants to get them before that. It is reminiscent of an experiment that was said to reveal what was in your mind. It is thought crime, it is determining a criminal long before he commits a crime and locking him up for what he might do. It is simply put, evil.
In America we prosecute you after you commit a crime. Not before you do unless we can uncover a conspiracy to do something illegal. But this goes far beyond that. It removes the rights of habeas corpus and protection against unreasonable search and seizure taking even cupcakes from innocent people because they might be potential weapons. It is so over the top it is laughable. It eats into the Bill of Rights and just should not be.

In fact that is a famous ideal echoed by Benjamin Franklin so long ago.
He said, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
I think it is a serious mistake to do anything to compromise the Bill of Rights. While for a short season you might think it necessary, governments have shown themselves notorious in never restoring things they take away. They are notorious for betrayal and not keeping their word.

Free people should never place that freedom in the hands of a government.
No surprise that Gingrich is totalitarian in his approach. He wrote the forward to Alvin Toffler's  horrible book  "Creating a New Civilization"  in which this is found:

"The time has come for the next great step forward in American politics. It is not a matter of Democrats versus Republicans, or of left and right...but something more significant...a clear distinction between rear-guard politicians who wish to preserve or restore an unworkable past and those who are ready to transition to what we call a “Third Wave” information-age society"

And this gem:

"The Constitution of the United States needs to be reconsidered and altered...to create a whole new structure of government... Building a Third Wave civilization on the wreckage of Second Wave institutions involves the design of new, more appropriate political structures... The system that served us so well must, in its turn, die and be replaced."