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“I’ll take my liberty over security.”

If you like, we will put that on your tombstone.

But actually, the two go together.

I prefer a strong intelligence operation by the government, and I think that people should not fear being watched occasionally. One is safer if one’s whereabouts are known. I like to get to know the cops in our town, so they recognize me, and know that I belong there.

But without freedom, we are not safe. You can’t trade freedom for security: it is a devil’s bargain, which means that you don’t get the payoff, the supposed security.

And as far as the traitor goes, I say hang him. You can’t have every misfit around running off to Russia with all the secrets a spy could get in a hundred lifetimes, and then pretend that he was a hero.

How do you feel about the Rosenbergs? Should we build them a monument now?

It is not the intelligence operations which are dangerous, so much as the fact that the government is involved in everything else. The nice-sounding things the government tries to do are far worse! They control education, which means that they brainwash the future generations. They let in huge numbers of aliens, when they should be protecting us. They are trying to take over all our health and nutrition choices. They are corrupting the population with welfare, and encouraging vice through sponsored gambling and lotteries. Now they support approved sexual perversions, and soon (why not?) official prostitution. Almost every racket which used to be the purview of criminal gangs, has now been preempted by the government: marijuana and drugs are coming under that category. Abortion is supported as a matter of policy, and by an alliance with the abortion providers. Counterfeiting is big business by the government, only they are pleased to call it “stimulus,” and maintenance of “infrastructure.”

We need national defense, but we don’t need any of the other things.

I’ll take my liberty over security.

The saying "everything changed after 9/11" is true, and it didn't change for the better. The government managed to convince a lot of previously freedom-loving people that they needed a full blown police state to "protect" them 24x7, and that all opposition to surveillance and security apparatus was "unpatriotic."

You're against the Patriot Act! Well, that must mean you're unpatriotic!