A good political debate...

“Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.”
-Ben Franklin

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.”
-Hellen Keller

"I pwn n00bz all d@y"
-natit eht mirgo

I used to think the same as you though but I've kind of been shying away from that in the past years.  The patriot act tries to seem like it's all nice and out to protect people and just the name "patriot act," makes me want to vomit.  Is the government saying I'm not patriotic because I won't give up freedoms?  I just can't support the Patriot Act.  I mean why can't the government legally keep track of people~

Ben Franklin also said that before the advent of the nuclear bomb, the assault rifle, nerve gas, etc.

Nobody ever said that we were trying to avoid danger altogether.  That would just be idealistic.  It's all about minimizing the risk to the best degree you can.  Remember the liquid bombings that were averted a few years back?  Do you think the airport just randomly decided to check those guy's waterbottles that day?  Nope.  The Brits had their phones tapped, they knew the method, the time, the date, and the flight.  Find me the furthest left person that was going to be on one of those flights and see if he can truthfully say he/she isn't happy that an infringement of privacy saved them.

Hard to refute a well known fact like that; so touche, sir...touche...

Damn, I dunno how that last one got in there.
The Hellen Keller one was just on the same page as the other one haha and I thought it was a neat quote that maybe sort of applied.

As for a plane where it is knows that it will be blown up in mid air, of course people would let their rights be infinged in that situation, but that is a known situation, it's not like anything bad can come of that situation, what about the repercussions of other people having their rights violated because of that incident~

“What "rights" are you talking about?  Find me the word "privacy" in the US Constitution.  You can't, because it isn't there.  There are no rights being infringed upon, just a concept that we as a very individualist culure thought up.  The reason that we are keeping a watch on people as a result of those incidents is because those incidents PROVE that people are capable of doing awful things.  We wouldn't have these policies in place if everyone always played nice with eachother, because there would be no need.  These attempted attacks prove the necessity of these policies...because without them there would be a lot less "attempted attacks" and a lot more plain ol' "attacks". 

Not inferring anything but I'm curious to your stance on torture/Guantanamo.
Not being in the constitution doesn't matter to me, me personally, and the constitution was written before nukes and all that good stuff as well.  Wait does that help or harm my argument haha, I dunno but I'm gonna go see some friends back home, I'll come back tomorrow and check this out (hopefully I'll still have forum rights).  Good luck studying man the end is near~

All of America was scared shitless after 9/11.  The amount of attacks on U.S. soil can be counted be the fingers on one hand.  Adding billions of dollars on security has done almost nothing.  If all that money went to starving people, it could probably saved more lives than were lost on that fatefull day.  It was a tragedy, but no amount of security is going to stop someone who wants to attack, theres always unprotected parts of town.  It doesn't seem like a logical reason to take away rights of the citizens for something like this.  What was supposed to be a temporary law to raise security has lasted 8 years.  What a sham.

I agree. My biggest problem is that the Patriot act didn't come from a time of peace. If we were worried about security when there was little to be afraid of, as a preventative measure, i'd have less of a problem. The Patriot act, however, came from a time of uncertainty and fear. The government was reactionary and it played upon the people's fears and suspicions.

Anyone could be a terrorist, here, give me the power to spy on your conversations.

Anything could support terrorism, here, give me the power to censor your media, to monitor your bank accounts; to monitor, to monitor, to monitor.

It's not a long shot to go from 'Security' to control. Hitler consolidated power by playing on the German's fear, maintained his power by exploiting their fear.

I will always be in favor of the rights of the individual over security. I would rather be 'unsafe' than un-free. The saying goes 'Give me liberty or give me death' not 'Give me Security'

Ben Franklin was alive during an era when an extremely powerful and violent weapon was still relatively new (gunpowder) as evidenced by their preferred style of fighting, standing in lines taking shots at each other...

the word privacy won't be found unless you can get past looking at things in the literal sense. It is quite obviously inferred, I wish I could offer a citation to a book I've heard about on the subject but it escapes my memory.. perhaps someone knows what it is?

QFT

Heres a pie chart comparing the US budget on the military to the world. After you take a look I'd really like to see how a valid arguement can be made to increase spending, or even, how to counter an arguement for decreased spending.
static.globalissues.org/i/military/country-distribution-2008.png

Yay Patriot Act.

So before you say the Patriot Act does this or that, I suggest you read it yourself. http://epic.org/privacy/terrorism/hr3162.html

I have started reading it and it is no easy task. It seems that government documents are almost purposly written to confuse you, haha. You can sometimes take two sentences and shorten them to one small sentence to get the same message. Anyway, even though it is a chore to read I don't think regurgitating something you heard on the news or read on the internet in regards to this bill is even worth your time. Why fight for someone elses opinion when you can develop your own. Oh, and I don't think interepretation of the Patriot Act is only liberal and conservative, sometimes people forget that there are political ideas outside the closeminded two party system. That is a whole other debate, but in short, I hope the two party system fails and that we at least get a third party in the majority. Ideally, I think all American's loyaties (including politicians) should be to the American people first not some political party or corporation.