Posted on 06/11/2002 6:39:05 AM PDT by Boonie Rat
Poll: Four in Five Americans Would Give Up Some Freedom for More Security
By Jennifer L. Brown Associated Press Writer
Published: Jun 11, 2002
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Four in five Americans would give up some freedoms to gain security and four in 10 worry terrorists will harm them or their family, a new Gallup poll shows.
About one-third of those polled favor making it easier for authorities to access private e-mail and telephone conversations. More than 70 percent are in favor of requiring U.S. citizens to carry identification cards with fingerprints, and 77 percent believe all Americans should have smallpox vaccinations.
"It was amazing the percentage of people who are willing to give up freedom to get back some sense of personal security," said Elaine Christiansen, senior research director for The Gallup Organization. "These aren't people who were necessarily near the twin towers, near the Pentagon, near the Murrah building. These are average people."
The telephone survey, conducted in March, included 934 people across the country. Researchers also polled about 500 people in each of three cities where terrorist attacks occurred - New York City, Washington, D.C., and Oklahoma City - to compare results with the general population survey.
The poll showed 8 percent of Americans are very worried and 31 percent are somewhat worried that they or someone in their family will become victims of a terrorist attack in the United States. In New York City, the level of worry is higher - 19 percent said they are very worried and 34 percent said they are somewhat worried.
Washington, D.C, and Oklahoma City reported levels of fear close to the national average.
Scientists involved in the poll said they were not surprised many Americans remain fearful after Sept. 11.
"The magnitude of the event was just so profound," said Carol North, a psychiatry professor at Washington University in St. Louis, who said talk of the war in Afghanistan, airline security and terrorist threats is propelling the fear.
The study was co-sponsored by The University of Oklahoma psychiatry department through a grant from the Oklahoma City National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism. The main survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points, while the margin of error for the survey in the three cities is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Meanwhile, a New York Times/CBS News poll found that 60 percent of New York City residents think the threat of a terrorist attack in their city is greater than it is in any other big city.
Barely 40 percent of respondents believe the city is safer than it had been four years ago, a decrease of 20 percent from those polled in August. Even so, nearly two-thirds of those surveyed said that given a choice, they would prefer to be living in the city four years from now than any other place.
The poll, conducted by telephone in English or Spanish June 4 through Sunday, surveyed 940 adults. It has a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points.
Technically, the government could have all of us 'tyrannophobes' rounded up for our own protection under various 'Mental Health' provisions.
You think 'tyrannophobe' is a jest? Not so. You could look it up.
You've asked me this before, Dan and I'll tell you once again. NO, I don't support a national ID card. But the truth is, in many ways, we've got a couple of personal ID cards already. All American's have a social security card and a drivers license is mandatory in all states. Here in Colorado, if you don't drive, you'll need a state ID card in order to identify yourself, when cashing checks and other, proof required situations.
You are correct. The sheeple need only to recall a little history to realize that....in fact, goveernments in general are much more responsible for loss of life of civilians than terrorists ever could be.
These brainless people who look to fedgov for 'saving them' should look at what the fedgov did to a certain religious sect, the POWs, Pearl Harbor, Rwanda, Africa.
How great it will be under the auspices of the UN one world bunch....they already lament there are too many people on earth....and people thing government gives a damn about them and their wretched life!
I disagree with this. Ideas alone aren't enough to save the constitution, nor can the constitution protect us from outselves. Those of us who believe in a constitutionally limited republic must fight to keep it at every turn.
How many permanent government programs began as temporary measures? Farm subsidies, the minimum wage, the federal income tax, affirmative action, the list goes on. All of these things began as temporary or emergency measures, and all of them were supposed to have passed once they were no longer needed. However, people forgot that these things were considered temporary measures, and they are all now considered permanent fixtures of public life.
This is why I opposed the so-called "Patriot Act." It is not that I do not with terrorist be brought to justice, as some have suggested. Rather, I know that we will win the war against the terrorists, but the Patriot Act will remain.
Do not give up the public liberty for a little temporary safety.
So why do you wear clothes or live in something other than a glass house?
First off, I think under the circumstances, with America being at war, the Patriot Act is a good piece of legislation.
>>>This is not libertarian nonsense, it is just pure common sense.
Okay, it's just pure nonsense then. As for common sense, sitting back and doing nothing, isn't common sense in my book.
>>>I take the following to heart, and perhaps you should too:
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety". ~ Benjamin Franklin
LIke I said, in my original reply at RE:#6, You can't have freedom without security and with all due respect to old Ben Franklin, you can't have liberty without safety.
I am sorry to have to differ with you, as I am sure your heart is in the right direction.
I has hoped that you would read my three threads, previously referenced to you.
Many rights, which you do not actively defend, have been and are being stripped away.
You have had the right to discrimnate on the basis of a person's skin color, given the facts known to you regarding a description of a like person who has demonstrated injurious harm to the public --- but that right is being taken from you, by a Congress "hell-bent" upon eliminating your freedom of choice in such a matter.
You have had the freedom to choose, but again, see the previous paragraph.
You have had the right to keep and bear Arms, foremost because of the martial power resolved in the authority of the legislative bodies of the States, made up of our duly elected representatives, to affect the Muster --- we have the right to defend ourselves with martial power and organize and train accordingly, ie. be "well regulated" in our exercise of these rights; but nowadays, this basis is being stripped away from our teaching and history of the American Heritage; and you are losing that right too, what was meant by the Founding Fathers and Framers, in the expression, "a public education," the maintenance of our understanding why we are free.
In the absence of other Americans having the rights which you have enumerated, then we are losing ground, because foremost in our minds must be our duty to protect not only the rights, but the foundations of them, for others than our selves.
While it is the obligation of government to remain within the powers delegated to it on the list enumerated in our Constitution.
It is the burden of government and its agents, to have to weary from knowing and constantly being reminded what its limited "rights" are and how it will suffer when it transgresses; any advance beyond the limits, to be dealt with by the vigilant, some of whom are here at Free Republic.
An advance by government, but especially by social engineers, is the loss, to you and me, of more of our rights.
The rights you are losing are your authority (and again, the foundations for it); you have it, but you are not aware of it; and your government is taking it away from you, piece by piece.
I still don't get their rationale...but then, I really don't think they use their brain before engaging their mouth.
It is not obvious to me. I believe you make a common mistake of believing headline writers and article writers are the same people. That is not true here nor in the papers.
The article says 80% would give up some freedom for security and that is the 80% I put you in. If I even insult you, rest assured you will know it, and there will be no debate. All I did was place you in the majority, a position you took without any help from me.
This is really, really interesting.....you see, my dad is 89 years old and does not have any state sponsored ID card or drivers license...he relinquished his license back in '96 when his arthritis got so bad he was afraid he would be unable to brake his car or truck sufficiently to prevent accidents.
Now that he lives here in Idaho with me, we can't get him a state-sponsored ID.....to get a state sponsored ID card, you have to provide a photo ID from someplace else...even a school card will do. Yet, he can buy a fishing license every year...and a hunting one, too, if he could get around.
I joked around with the Deputy at the Sheriff's office that maybe I should have him take a swing at an officer so he could be tossed in jail and have a mug shot taken!! Our Deputy didn't think that was such a gooooooooooood idea! LOL.
Last year, after 911, he was scheduled to fly to Oklahoma for a family reunion on 9/17. The airlines accepted his notarized birth certificate and his social security card, as they have the prior 2 years. Isn't that odd--the social security card has printed on it "Not for identification purposes" or something like that. And, of course, the birth certificate has no picture.
Something at the state level where a city wanted to maintain a permanent fixture to property taxes.....the City of Missoula, Montana, at one time had a 20 year bond issue backed by properties in Missoula proper.
It was something like 2 - 3 years after the 20 years was up that a gentlemen in looking at the tax bill and checking it out demanded a refund and that they quit collecting it. The city refused saying they needed the money. The man filed a lawsuit which the city vigorously defended!!
This is FreeRepublic. The title of the article, as posted, is the real issue. After all, I can't read your mind, but I did catch your inference. Since you say, it wasn't a mistake, I'll take you at face value.
>>>The article says 80% would give up some freedom for security and that is the 80% I put you in. All I did was place you in the majority, a position you took without any help from me.
Thanks, I'm very proud to stand with such an overwhelming majority of American's, on most of the points in this specific issue. It's nice to be right, but it's better to be right and have your fellow citizens agree with you.
>>>If I even insult you, rest assured you will know it, and there will be no debate.
OMG, I can't wait to be insulted, with no strings attached. Come on, don't try and fool with me, or play silly games. I can read between the lines.
See, if the feds say, "Citizens, we would like to encroach on your freedoms more so that we might make you safer."
My rejoinder would be, "Feds, what have you done about enforcing the laws on the books regarding immigration?
"What have you done to close our Swiss-cheese borders, where millions and millions of undocumented persons come in with impunity?
"What have you done about surveilling our noncitizen enemies here and abroad?
"What have you done to restrict transfer of high technology to immigrant students from China and hostile arab nations?
"What have you done to plug up security leaks by treasonous scum the likes of Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen, to name just the tip of that iceberg. They were not the only spies in your corrupt CIA and FBI, I can assure you. Where do you stand on that Aegean Stable Clean-up Project?
"What have you done to really crack down on noncitizen arabs on various visa here in the United States. Why are so many of them free?
"What have you done to do away with the political correctness, the careerism, the self-serving piggishness and arrogance, and the gross ineptitude that so many agents and whistleblowers have acknowledged which exists in your agencies?
"Have you done nothing?
"I think most would agree that you feds have done nothing to correct these things.
"AND THESE ARE THE VERY THINGS THAT MAKE US UNSAFE. THE VERY THINGS THAT YOU HAVE CARELESSLY NEGLECTED, OR NEGLECTED BY DESIGN. SO AS TO MAKE US INSECURE, AND PERHAPS, FOOLISH ENOUGH TO CLAMOR FOR MORE 'SECURITY' AND 'REGULATIONS' AND 'ABRIDGED FREEDOMS' WHICH YOU DISINGENOUSLY WOULD CLAIM TO BE FOR OUR SECURITY.
"Why not work on these things for the next few decades, then we can reconsider whether a more complicated ID system, or freer searches and seizures, are needed?
"As far as investigating the alien arabs, just do it.
"If you are investigating arab pseudocitizens, don't ask for special privileges, just bend or break the rules, and survey them. Nobody cares about their rights, and nobody should.
"That's how you earn your paycheck, just like everybody else: bending the rules, taking a chance, with the possibility of being sued if you are unlucky. That's life in America. All us professionals have to do this to some extent.
"But I really doubt if you are going to be hauled into court for infringing on the rights of some arab pseudocitizen.
"After all, you don't seem to have any problem abridging the rights of real Americans, the white, religious, gun-owning types.
"You guys seem to just plow right ahead when you deal with those 'kooks', right?
"What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, dudes!Just do it!
"But don't bother us real Americans.
"Especially don't abridge the rights of good Americans, because you have not done your job in the past, to enforce existing laws on the books.
"And above all, don't use this crisis as an excuse for you to hate and cheat and tyrannize the American citizens, whose freedom you hate as much, or more, than hostile foreigners.
"Then, why don't you guys go get real jobs, for a change?
"The way you muck around and bother innocent Americans, you obviously have too much time on your hands.
That would be my polite rejoinder to the feds.
just look at the color-coded warning system. could you tell me what color we are in today and what it means? would it have not made a lot more sense to use numbers 1-5? would that have not been easier for anyone to understand?
[shaking head in amazement]
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