To: Boot Hill; All
You know if they got around to reading every man's thoughts and banning incorrect thinking, all of us would be in jail. Shades of "Minority Report", that's just what you would have. I'm sure many Freepers would have been Arkansied during the Clinton candidacy for their private views.The Secret service would be arresting most conservatives, even if their only thoughts of revenge was in feeding their cat, Socks to a pit bull,
That is really what this case is about. You don't want to encourage wire-tapping and decrypting your neighbor's conversations and data. You have to ensure privacy of discourse and the reasonable space needed for blowing off steam to one another. (There is a reason why men don't have mental telepathy, and it more a mercy from God as well as a benefit.) That Democratic Operative couple that recorded Gingrich down in Florida got themselves in trouble, I believe that's one of the reasons both Dems and Pubs passed that law and Clinton signed it(ala Linda Tripp). The Dems would not be above recording their foes but they also knew the same could be done to them.(with Clinton, it is instructive to study what is going on with the Dems when they agree wit the Pubs with anything).
It sounds like the neighbors didn't like each other, and if we could have tapped into the Aronson's calls and private thoughts, I'll bet we would have found out some interesting things too regarding their thoughts regarding their neighbors. Plus you just don't always inadvertantly just tap into a wireless phone, "accidentally" using a scanner. The Aronsons were hunting for it, though of course no one could actually "prove it", I got the strongest sense that that was the one of the main issues when the case was ultimately decided. If they had stopped recording when the law went into effect, that is one thing, but they continued after the law went into effect. I think the courts were right on this one.
Was there any evidence that the Quigley's actually did or planned to do any of the stuff they talked about? If they found plans or materiel related to their talks, well that would be a whole other kettle of fish.
Most of us from time to time while working out how best to react to neighbors and mean bosses and the like, have said things in private that could get us in trouble with those same people. Let's all be honest about that! These are surface emotions...the truth really rises out of our deeper hearts...what is our actual behavior, what is our follow-thru regarding our thoughts? Do we act on Christian principles and "Love our neighbors", an active love that respects and upholds them, even if the emotions don't always follow thru....this is not hypocrisy, this is the carrying of our crosses, of actively not giving in to the evil revenge thoughts that might arise from our hearts!
Thus is the privacy needed to work out our frustrations with those we love. If that privacy is lost, either by tapping phones or Tapping thoughts(like that brain wave machine that can tell when some-one is lying, talk about the enormous potential for abuse if that thing really works like they say it does, or doesn't work because some-body's brain chemistry works differently), there would be a war like you wouldn't believe. I believe if God truly were to punish us, he could make us all mental telepaths, man we'd all be nuclear crisped with in a fortnight, we just couldn't stand each other and our-selves!
To: mdmathis6
"[Privacy,] That is really what this case is about." Maybe to you, but to me, I was more interested in whether Quigley's charge of defamation against the ADL was factual or not. From my reading of the evidence presented here, Quigley was not defamed and was rightly called an anti-Semite.
--Boot Hill
111 posted on
03/03/2004 5:09:49 AM PST by
Boot Hill
(America: Thy hand will be upon the neck of thine enemies.)
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