[quote=harvey]
1st Amendment protects the speech of US residents.
It doesn’t protect foreign governments.
[/quote]
That is where it kind of gets interesting.. some of the protections of the constitution have been extended to non-citizens as well as non-residents via Supreme Court. Non-residents and non-citizens which happen to be citizens of foreign nations. At this point, we need to be careful of any attempt to pick and choose which.
While I agree that foreign govs. should not be afforded the same freedom, I also realize that much that is not good can be maneuvered under the umbrella of protecting against the acts of that foreign gov. (ie. like North Korea claiming that the US and just about everyone else is out to get them — so they must censor their public from seeing life outside of North Korea). It is a matter of degree.. but how much is healthy? And how much of ‘Trust Me’ from the government leads to being blindly lead?
Some are whigs, liberals, democrats, call them what you please. Others are tories, serviles, aristocrats, &c. The latter fear the people, and wish to transfer all power to the higher classes of society; the former consider the people as the safest depository of power in the last resort; they cherish them therefore, and wish to leave in them all the powers to the exercise of which they are competent
— Jeffersons comment to William Short
Ironically, sometimes I feel that the current democrats/liberals have traded places with the former tories due to their wish of more government control. Sounds almost like how some feel that the ‘despicables’ shouldn’t have a right to vote.
Think of this.. how much over-reach has occurred through the Patriot Act, and how much has the Constitution been trampled on under the guise of protecting the citizens of the US. How much have we actually been protected? How much has been swept under the rug as ‘secret’, ‘top secret’ which is really just ’embarassing’ or ‘awkward’ to the current or previous administrations. Classifications only intent was to protect the nation and its people – not politicians and governmental 3 lettered administrations from scrutiny. The other question might also be, how much has this also been the justification to use military force to potentially benefit certain companies at the expense of other nations and potentially the lives of citizens of other nations.
As for the gov’s “Trust Me”, I prefer to trust but always be able to verify.
