Thursday, February 14, 2008
Zoe Erb- "People who are a serious threat to the government should be able to be held in prison without being charged."
I strongly disagree with this statement, because it is unjust in American society. People are capable of many things, but that doesn't mean they will carry out these actions. It is impossible to predict what people will actually do. If we start punishing people for what they could do, wouldn't everyone be in jail?For example, people have the potential and ability to go into a store, take something off a shelf, and walk away. But will they actually do it? Anyone decent wouldn't. But it's the potential in people that this quote wants to punish. I don't think that's just.
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8 comments:
Yes Zoe, it is not just to suspect someone for being dangerous and then sentence them to jail. What constitutes as a serious threat to the government? I wonder how much you have to say before they suspect you, it's not fair and it is one of the biggest flaws in our country. If they were a threat to our society I would respond differently.
I feel that this government is too paranoid about being disrupted and that reflects off them in a bad way because they must have done something bad to get them to that situation.
But what happens when there is evidence, from past actions and real, hard future plans, that someone is going to commit a crime. No criminal is a criminal until they commit a crime, but it would be ideal to stop them before they commit a crime. The police forces of the world are designed to catch people before they commit crimes, and the way they do that is through evidence and reasoning. You are right that people shouldn't be arrested without good reason, but some preemptive arrests are necessary. Otherwise, society will be playing a constant crime catch-up game.
the first comment is from Tenny
The statement is people who are a serious threat to the government should be able to be held in prison, not people who are a serious threat to our local convenience store. And no, it’s not possible to predict what someone will do, but it is possible to make an educated assumption.
Also, sure, anyone has the ability to shoplift, but in reality, will you? No. We are all student minors who will get punished for such an act, and that will tarnish our future life, job status and much else. No "decent" person would do that, so no decent person would attempt an assassination on the president or anything else to threaten the government. Only people who are known to be serious threats should be placed in prison.
I agree with what you’re saying Zoe, but I think you may not be missing the key things in the statement. I think that in the statement you are talking about, the words “serious threat” implies that the government has very good reason to think that it is more likely than not that the person in question is going to perform an action that directly threatens the government. So it’s not just a random person that has the ability or potential to threaten the government, but it’s a person that the government has good reason to speculate they will do something to threaten the government. However, I still think that this statement can only be dealt with on a case to case basis.
the second comment is Neil's
2. To assure our country's freedom, the government should be able to spy on its citizens.
I disagree with this because as we learned in 1984, a paranoid, totalitarian government leads to complete dystopia. While the Party was happy in its position of power, no one else in Oceania was. This was because they had no freedoms, including the freedom of privacy. Although humans are social creatures, we also require time by ourselves and the opportunity to think things through alone, and later with others. In 1984, the Party banned all feelings of happiness outside the Party, and were able to maintain control over that using spying methodology. Without access to each citizens' inner thoughts and private lives, the Party's power would dissipate.
That last response was for part 3.
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