The Idea of Civil Liberties

I chose article three because of its title “Security Versus Civil Liberties”, this title appealed to me since I have an interest in law. Richard Posner feels we should sacrifice some of our civil liberties in times of crisis. However, he comes from a standpoint that he is an average citizen and feels if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to hide. Yet, he fails to take in account that most people are hiding something; people cheat and steal as a way to get ahead in life. He does not see that poor people, whether they are junkies or have disabilities have to take short cuts in life to make a living. He does not address people who are below middle class, which I take as his disregard of how the lower class feels. We may have a caste system, but we should never treat anyone as a second-class citizen. I did not like this article simply because if it were up to him he would give the power to choose our rights to the government. What he suggests is we trust our government. The key principle of the Constitution is never trust a government and to never let anyone boss you around. Republicans are better than him when it comes to his ideas on were power should lie. At least you know where the Republicans stand, but he wants things to shift with the times instead of having a set plan. We have a document that does that already and it is the Constitution.

Posner believes that we need to give up our civil liberties in times of risk. To me this is exactly what he mentioned before it is nothing but hindsight. If we had known we were at risk, we would have done something about it. The NSA (National Security Agency) already handles national security and they can step on whatever rights they want to get their job done. However, they are careful and go slow to make sure they are not seen. Therefore, as far as Posner wanting to give up civil liberties for national security it seems his point is moot. We have NSA working internally for our country. Then internationally the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) that works on making sure terrorists stop before they hit our soil. He seems to think we just lie down and take these beatings. Yet, we spend billions a year paying these agencies to find our enemies before they find us.

Untold Stories

Immokalee "My Home" is the highest point in southern Florida. It used to represent the simpler time. Where ranchers made up the community. It was a lot like the old west, there was not much law and everyone worked to make the most of their communities. The railroad changed the trading industry and even the lumber industry started coming down into Florida. Eventually the farmers market changed Immokalee from a cow community to a farming community. Immokalee has always been a producing community, in the future it will most likely become 100% mechanical in harvesting to cut the costs down. As for the oil, it came and gone. It gave the community a boost, but other than that once the oil is gone it is gone. We cannot attribute that property since it will be gone at some point. The casino will probably be Immokalee's future. Casinos always have become big and taken over everything in a lot of young cities. Won't be a surprise if the casino does not just continue to get bigger until it has enough power to do what it wants with the city. Also I cannot really relate to this city since I grew up mostly in the deserts of California about the only thing I ever saw growing was Joshua trees and alf alfa plants. We had a lot of ranchers but I was in the city so even then rarely saw anything. Was some great videos though learned more about the hardships of settling swamp lands. Even today this school is still struggling with that concept.