Which Is More Important?

Question

Protecting Our National Security or Protecting Our Personal Freedoms?

Please explain...

Answer 1

This shouldn't be an absolute either/or choice.

National Security trumps Personal Freedoms. We have no personal freedom if some totalitarian regime takes us over. If you have to choose one or the other as most important then you have to protect the mechanism which provides the personal freedoms first and hope that after the threat is gone you'll get the lost personal freedoms back. National security is more important, but that doesn't mean all personal freedoms should be suspended.

The government should only be allowed to infringe where it is obviously needed to maintain national security and there should be a trustworthy oversight mechanism in place. National security is the more important of the two, but that shouldn't give the government carte blanche to run roughshod over your life on a whim, there should be a good reason first.

You need a good balance of both. Some personal freedoms need to take a back seat to national security under some circumstances. I don't believe you have the right to expect privacy if you call al Qaeda on the phone. If you are going to fly on an airplane then be prepared to be strip searched, especially if you called al Qaeda on the phone! The government must have some sort of reasonable evidence that you may have compromised national security before they can march into your home and go through your stuff, tear through your financial records, phone records and everything else that we feel ought to be our business and nobody elses.

Racial profiling is a touchy subject these days, but when everyone who caused the main problem is an islamist arab between the ages of 15 and 45, I think you have to be insane not to pay special attention to that group. That doesn't mean you should ignore everyone else, but we should pay special attention to folks who match the problem group in a lot of ways. Racial profiling stinks, but if you can't take advantage of all the available evidence, you're handcuffing yourself, especially if something Very Bad happens later on and everyone loses more freedoms because the whole game just reached a new level. Watch the movies "The Siege" and "The Sum of All Fears." Do they have a lesson for us?

This subject warrants a more in depth discussion, but in order to do that more effectively I think the question needs to be broken down and clarified as to what constitutes national security and what personal freedoms are specifically at risk in our hypothetical scenario.

Answer 2

I believe protecting personal freedom was foremost in the writing of the U.S. Constitution and The Bill of Rights. Read the words.

Those who drafted, proposed, and eventually brough to fruition the U.S. Constitution and The Bill of Rights could not have forseen that "National Security" would be an issue. They knew only one other nation, England, and were only concerned with gaining "freedom" from that nation.

The United States is now in a position of protecting not only personal freedoms, but our nation's security. I think the people have abandoned personal freedom out of fear, and the people are now depending on national security to protect them.

What can we do to regain some of our personal freedom? Write your state representative, your congresssmen, the President (yes, the President!) One voice may not be able to make a difference, but a million voices can echo around the world!

Answer 3

Both should be equal. Without national security, we have no personal freedoms, but without those freedoms, there's no point in security, since we wouldn't have anything to protect.

Answer 4

Protecting our personal freedoms. Fail to protect freedom and not enough people will volunteer to defend us. Fail to protect our freedoms and no one will report suspicious activity by terrorists.

Our national security depends on how smart we are (= how many engineers and scientists we graduate) and on whether we trust our government and call on it to report things that are suspicious. The Department of Homeland Security does nothing to make us safer in these two critical ways, it is a "white elephant."

Answer 5

National Security - Liberals will say personal freedoms but without a secure country you cannot be free.

Answer 6

Freedoms because you can protect our national security without turning America into George Orwells 1984. Ben Franklin once said "those who are willing to give up some freedoms for some security deserve neither freedom or security".

Plus the terrorists attacked us because they hate our freedoms remember? Bush said that. So then if we give up our freedoms then the terrorists win right?

Why should we let a bunch of nutcases determine our lives. If we do that aren't we giving the power over to them? Why should we give them what they want?

GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH.

Answer 7

Personal freedoms. Without them the national security is not needed.

Answer 8

They are equal, and in fact go hand in hand. You can't have freedom in this world with out national security. Germany almost proved that, if not for our national security fighting the cause, so now we are still free.

Answer 9

National Security

If someone comes here to blow you up, you can't enjoy FREEDOM from a coffin!

Answer 10

personal freedoms!!!