{"id":1374,"date":"2008-10-16T17:21:26","date_gmt":"2008-10-16T22:21:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=1374"},"modified":"2009-01-25T13:14:41","modified_gmt":"2009-01-25T18:14:41","slug":"necessity-and-tyrants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/10\/16\/necessity-and-tyrants\/","title":{"rendered":"Necessity and Tyrants"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was reading a discussion related to a story about how soon every email in the UK will be monitored by the government<\/a>, and someone brought up this quote:<\/p>\n

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And I had to stop and think about that for a moment, because… well, it’s worth stopping and thinking about things like this. To think that every plea for taking away our freedoms because it’s “necessary” (whether to “combat terrorism” or “fight the war on drugs” or whatever) is the argument of a tyrant.<\/p>\n

I suppose the lesson to take from this is to give us all pause whenever our leaders say that some new measure is “necessary.” Because, chances are that measure is taking away some of our freedom (whether we realize it or not), and we should always pause and reflect on such decisions before<\/em> we allow them to proceed.<\/p>\n

Of course, most of us are too busy watching TV, so I guess it’ll just be me sitting here and worrying about the state of things.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was reading a discussion related to a story about how soon every email in the UK will be monitored by the government, and someone brought up this quote: “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” And I had to… Continue reading Necessity and Tyrants<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[19,66],"class_list":["post-1374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-society","tag-government","tag-slashdot","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-ma","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4556,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2014\/08\/14\/necessity-free-flow-information\/","url_meta":{"origin":1374,"position":0},"title":"The Necessity of the Free Flow of Information","author":"Keith Survell","date":"August 14, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. ... [A] free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master. Although this quote\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "society"","block_context":{"text":"society","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/society\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4877,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2016\/05\/20\/its-time-to-let-go-of-american-individualism\/","url_meta":{"origin":1374,"position":1},"title":"It’s Time to Let Go of American Individualism","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"America has long cherished the spirit of individualism, but these days we could stand to maybe loosen up a bit in regards to it.","rel":"","context":"In "My Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"law of self-reliance","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2016\/04\/law-of-self-reliance-800x758.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2016\/04\/law-of-self-reliance-800x758.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2016\/04\/law-of-self-reliance-800x758.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2016\/04\/law-of-self-reliance-800x758.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":291,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/11\/29\/school-bars-declaration-of-independence\/","url_meta":{"origin":1374,"position":2},"title":"School Bars Declaration Of Independence","author":"Keith Survell","date":"November 29, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"This is just silly. And I don't mean in the \"funny\" sense of the word, either. Seperation of church & state is one thing (a good thing, certainly)... but... c'mon, it's the freaking DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE!!","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":480,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/05\/26\/blogger-broken\/","url_meta":{"origin":1374,"position":3},"title":"Blogger Broken","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 26, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Blogger is broken. I haven't been able to publish in over 24 hours - and so far, nothing but an automated response to my plea for help. I don't even know if this post will make it up or not.","rel":"","context":"In "Rants"","block_context":{"text":"Rants","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/rants\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":809,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2006\/10\/28\/taxes\/","url_meta":{"origin":1374,"position":4},"title":"Taxes","author":"Keith Survell","date":"October 28, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"You might want to watch this - It's about taxes, specifically the United States Federal Income Tax - and how it may not be legitimate. The big argument is about whether or not there is a \"law\" that requires you to file a form 1040 and pay your taxes each\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":165,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2004\/06\/18\/necessary-security\/","url_meta":{"origin":1374,"position":5},"title":"“Necessary” Security","author":"Keith Survell","date":"June 18, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Again from the radio today, was the phrase \"necessary\" security, and how now, with 9-11 so \"far\" in our past, we regard \"necessary\" security measures as an extreme inconvenience. The question is, what exactly IS necessary security?","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1374"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1374\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}