okie wrote:Setanta, I deleted a bunch of our debate, but to repeat, I pointed out Social Security, tax returns, etc. simply to point out the government has information on us for various purposes. If you don't believe those to be Orwellian, I am simply making the argument that other programs to find terrorists should not be so scary to you as well. There are safeguards built into those programs just as there are in the Social Security, tax returns, etc. One of the prime purposes of government is to protect us, actually probably more constitutional than Social Security.
In regard to airport security, I simply pointed out that liberals and political correctness deny us the ability to use profiling in airports in the manner that we should be able to do. So we all suffer a sort of Orwellian atmosphere, because of liberal policies. I do not see this a "straw man." (Note favorite accusation by liberals: "strawman.")
You decry strawmen, and claim that you don't see what you post as a strawman, and then end your post with a strawman. If you cannot demonstrate that everyone who can reasonably be described as a liberal consistently accuses others of indulging in the strawman fallacy, you have constructed a strawman. I begin to suspect that you do not know what a strawman is. If you claim that i have made a statement which i have not made, and then "demolish" the statement, you have indulged a strawman. Look at what the idiot Bernard has been up to for several pages. He has hysterically accused me of any number of statements which he says i cannot defend--but as i never made the statements, he is erecting a series of strawmen.
My remark referred to your statement about airport security. You have erected a strawman here in that you claim that "liberal" political rectitude prevents profiling at airport security screening. That's a strawman because it is not true, nor have i ever made a claim that airport screeners should not "profile." I suspect you never travel by air. Everyone--absolutely everyone--is subject to the same screening, without regard to their appearance. If you check in baggage, the TSA runs it through an x-ray machine before the airline representative puts the baggage tag on your bags, and they can and will ask you to open any bag which they consider contains anything suspicious. Having secured your baggage claim tickets and boarding pass, you go through a further security checkpoint at which they x-ray your carry on luggage, and can and will ask you to open it if they see anything suspicious, and you empty your pockets and go through a metal detector. If you set it off, they will use the "wand" on you. They ask you to remove your shoes (i was surprised when they said today that all people will be asked to remove their shoes--i've been asked to remove my shoes, and so has everyone else i've seen for literally years). The procedure is the same for everyone, and profiling simply does not apply, nor would it make a bit of difference. To repeat, absolutely everyone is subject to the same screening procedure.
Leaving aside the ludicrous inference that Social Security is unconstitutional, i would point out to you again--to forestall you going back to the haybarn to build another scarecrow--that i only pointed out that certain people might allege the government is Orwellian, or "scarey" as you would have it, and explained why. I did not at any time contend that the government is Orwellian, or that it scares me.
I do not assume, nor have i any good reason to assume, that the purpose of the national government is to protect us. Both the state governments, and local governments provide public safety services--the Federal government has no such mandate.
