"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans"?

Question

Does this have any meaning or context in our world today? Should be give up or suspend rights to protect our country?

President Bill Clinton, USA Today, (3/11/1993)

Why is President Bush vilified for not extending American rights of due process and habeas corpus to terrorist that want to exterminate us?

Typical Liberal/Democrat double standards!

Answer 1

We do what we must do to protect our country. If that means we lose a little freedom it is worth it. If losing a few freedoms makes us safer then do it because if we don't we may not have any freedoms to lose.

Answer 2

I don't see where our rights are being infringed upon. If an illegal enemy combatent is picked up waging an illegal war of terrorism and someone at Gitmo waterboards him or her to get information that will save American lives, SO BE IT. If they want to avoid harsh interrogation techniques, they'd better 'fess up right at the beginning. I noticed that, in spite of being waterboarded, Kahlid Sheik Mohhammad seems to have survived. I don't think I'm going to feel sorry for this mutt because he was waterboarded after he sawed Nick Berg's head off with a dull bayonet. Nick Berg's father may have different feelings about that but I don't care.

Answer 3

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
-Thomas Jefferson

"Government is not reason, nor eloquence. It is force. And like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearsome master."
- George Washington

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
James Madison, while a United States Congressman

Yes, we did produce a near perfect Republic. But will they keep it, or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the surest way to destruction."
- Thomas Jefferson

"The people are the masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who would pervert it!"
- Abraham Lincoln

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that government long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for thir future security."
- The Declaration of Independence (1776)

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."
- Daniel Webster

"It is a precedent fraught with danger for the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it and no security for the people... ... the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred and rigidly observed in all its provisions."
- Colonial member of the U.S. Congress 1827-31 & 1832-35 David Crockett, AKA Davvy Crockett

"The liberties of none are safe unless the liberties of all are protected."
- William O. Douglas

"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air -- however slight -- lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness."
- William O Douglas

"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence."
- A. Beard, American Historian, 1874-1948

Answer 4

Clinton Backs Gun-administration Efforts The Washington put up Tuesday, March 2, 1993 PISCATAWAY, N.J. President Clinton Monday chided the nationwide Rifle association for opposing gun-administration efforts in Virginia and New Jersey and he pledged to paintings for "smart" controls on the nationwide element. Clinton, in New Jersey to promote his nationwide service application, made the comments, his maximum huge almost about gun administration, in an replace with community journalists. New Jersey Gov. Jim Florio, a Democrat who's up for re-election this year, is locked in a conflict with the Republican legislature over his efforts to maintain the hardest controls in the country on attack guns. Clinton suggested the country "can't be so fixated on our want to maintain the rights of favourite individuals to legitimately personal handguns and rifles ... that we are unable to imagine about the reality" of risky streets and violence throughout the country. "i desire the administration of the nationwide Rifle association will flow decrease back to doing what it did at the same time as i replaced right into a boy" -- providing information about searching and safe practices particularly than scuffling with gun-administration proposals like those right here and in Virginia, he suggested. He suggested it replaced into "an mistakes" for the NRA to "oppose each and every attempt to convey some safe practices and some rationality into the way we cope with countless the severe criminal issues we've" and suggested efforts in Virginia and New Jersey "do no longer unduly impression the right to shop and undergo hands. this is no longer likely to kill each and every man or woman to attend some days to get a handgun at the same time as we do a history verify," he suggested. Clinton recognized a case of an acquaintance in Arkansas who bought a gun to a guy who used it to kill countless human beings and suggested the guy regretted his action at the same time as it replaced into stumbled on the gun-shopper replaced into mentally ill. waiting to envision on the backgrounds of gun consumers, he suggested, might want to avert such tragedies.

Answer 5

If we give up our rights then we are no longer a country.

Answer 6

no not at all...lets just all be politically correct and hope the rest of the world will do it for us....duhhhhhhh.....ever hear liberty is eternally vigilant...

Answer 7

This is a famous Clinton gaffe.............he had many