Security is more important.

I think it's a false dichotomy.

85.7% Liberty

Liberty. We at least still have our rights.
If we go for security, we can't undo all the crap that happens on the way there. Surrendering freedoms.

Liberty.

You will never be 100% secure. That's just a fact of life. Obviously there should be a median between the two, but freedom should always come before safety.

Quote from: Meta Cognition on November 27, 2014, 02:26:12 AM

I feel confused that you're not defending the government. If you become a famous politician when you get older, you're not going to throw away all the opportunities you'll get for supporting larger government so that you could please the populace. Or are you just pretending to be anti-gov to confuse us because you've secretly been manipulating us this whole time?

My incentives as a citizen aren't the same as my incentives as a politician, so I won't pretend to know how I might act in the latter situation. I will say, however, that being able to criticise past and current governments for their shortfalls, regardless of your genuineness, is a good thing to have in your arsenal.

Quote from: E̲n̲ga̲ge̲d̲T̲u̲r̲k̲e̲y on November 27, 2014, 09:16:41 AM

I think it's very easy for people that have, for the most part, never faced a serious threat from another power, to say that liberty is far more important than security.

I think it's very easy for people that don't, for the most part, realise that their own government can pose a significant threat to their well-being.

Sentence fragment. All I'm saying is that we've got a bunch of relatively wealthy, free, and safe people in this thread saying they'd take liberty over security no matter what, and that just seems incredibly juvenile to me.

I want Liberty granted to me so I can provide my own security.

Look at Iraq, under Saddam they had significantly more rights and freedom, as well as security.

The people of Iraq had only the freedoms Hussein felt they like should have. That's not liberty or security, that's living under the capriciousness of a tyrant.

You seem to still be mistaking people's opinions in this thread (or at least mine) for an absolute declaration of no short-term variability. We're talking, primarily, about long-term trade-off. Of course liberty and security don't totally collide, and as variables like technology improve it can increase the governments capacity to protect both or favour one. Not to mention, you have a very warped sense of "security". The Soviets had high security? I'm sure even the humblest CHEKA officer would take issue with that idea.

Like I said earlier, the government can pose just as much a threat as some outside influence like the Taliban or ISIS and in its pursuit of security it can often cement itself as an entity of danger itself. The question is not a consequential one, but rather about the impact governmental intentions can have. To say the Soviets had security - or that my nation has security improved by adding journalists to a list of domestic terrorists - is to make a complete mockery of the entire idea.

Happy Puritans-fucked-off-on-the-Mayflower Day from Bongistan.

There should be a balanced social contract that fits the needs of the people.