Did He Really Say That?

Did he really say that? What a piece of work. And I’m not referring to Franklin, in case anybody is confused.

I mean, is Obama seriously promising us 100% security if we put up with this minor inconvenience of having our civil rights taken away? Because I don’t think even God can promise 100% security because there is supposed to be free will and stuff.

And how do you like that bit about us having to make choices as a society? Yes, I’d love for that to happen. As long as “we make choices as a society” doesn’t mean the Obama administration makes choices for everybody and then tells us to shut our collective pie holes.

I also invite everybody to ponder the difference in the intellectual depth of the two quotes. Franklin and his Enlightened colleagues believed in progress and in the perfectibility of human beings and societies. I believe in them, too. And then I encounter these words from Obama and I’m not sure any longer.

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28 responses to “Did He Really Say That?”

lamestllama

June 12, 2013

Hard to comment, I had so much hope when Obama was elected.

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danmillerinpanama

June 12, 2013

President Obama apparently tried to construct a straw man in order to knock it down. As far as I know, no one has asked for, much less demanded, one hundred percent security. Nor, as far as I know has anyone asked for or demanded zero inconvenience or one hundred percent privacy. He is a master of that sort of thing.

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Dame Eleanor Hull

June 12, 2013

I’m with Franklin.

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samantha megan (@slammy99)

June 12, 2013

It would be nice to live 200+ years ago and only have sexual predator Ben Franklin as a security risk, but we live in modern times with criminals possessing internet access. To be fair, Obama also said the following:

“In the abstract you can complain about Big Brother and how this is a potential program run amok, but when you actually look at the details, I think we’ve struck the right balance,” Obama said, noting that a secret federal court reviews requests for surveillance and that Congress is briefed on such activity.

He acknowledged having ‘a healthy skepticism’ about the programs before he was first elected in 2008, but that he had since come to the conclusion that such “modest encroachments on privacy” were worth it.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/08/us-usa-security-records-idUSBRE9560VA20130608

Bush began these top secret programs, such as PRISM, however, those who wanted either McCain or Romney as president weren’t complaining then and will be silent on the subject during the next GOP occupation of the White House.

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bloggerclarissa

June 12, 2013

“To be fair, Obama also said the following”

– To be fair to what? The words you quote are a lot more egregious than the ones I quote.

“Bush began these top secret programs, such as PRISM, however, those who wanted either McCain or Romney as president weren’t complaining then and will be silent on the subject during the next GOP occupation of the White House.”

– https://clarissasblog.com/2013/06/11/obama-and-nsa/

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bloggerclarissa

June 12, 2013

“It would be nice to live 200+ years ago and only have sexual predator Ben Franklin as a security risk, but we live in modern times with criminals possessing internet access. ”

– You only live in modern times with internet access because of Enlightened thinkers you enjoy condescending to. Ignorance is bliss, of course.

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David Gendron

June 12, 2013

In what sense Franklin was a sexual predator?

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1. bloggerclarissa
  
  June 12, 2013
  
  Oh, don’t listen to the people who have achieved nothing yet love to condescend to those who have changed the world for the better.
  
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2. David Gendron
  
  June 12, 2013
  
  I agree but if Franklin was a sexual predator, I want to know in what sense he was. I know that he was a machist but I don’t know about all his sexual behavior.
  
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3. Shakti
  
  June 12, 2013
  
  OT: Benjamin Franklin is not for prudes.
  
  An essay on farting
  
  Advice to a Friend on Choosing a Mistress
  
  The most eye popping thing is maybe he buried dissected bodies beneath his London house (anatomy dissections were difficult to do back then).
  
  Sexual predator? That’s a stretch, to put it mildly. Horndog? Absolutely.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    June 12, 2013
    
    “Sexual predator? That’s a stretch, to put it mildly. Horndog? Absolutely.”
    
    – Exactly. Like so many people in the era.
    
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4. cliff arroyo
  
  June 12, 2013
  
  “In what sense Franklin was a sexual predator?”
  
  In the sense that the person who wrote that is a clueless twit who knows a lot of feminist jargon and nothing of history or ideas. Throwing names around is a way of claiming glorious, glorious victimhood (and lots of soothing reassurance).
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    June 12, 2013
    
    “In the sense that the person who wrote that is a clueless twit who knows a lot of feminist jargon and nothing of history or ideas. Throwing names around is a way of claiming glorious, glorious victimhood (and lots of soothing reassurance).”
    
    – EXACTLY. It must feel really good to dismiss great thinkers whose ideas you are incapable of processing because of some salacious gossip you have read somewhere online.
    
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5. David Gendron
  
  June 12, 2013
  
  Would you say the same thing if he was really a sexual predator, or if this great thinker was Polanski, for example?
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    June 12, 2013
    
    Well, if he were Hitler, Franco, Stalin or Dahmer, I would have a different opinion of him. 🙂
    
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Stille (@aperfectbalance)

June 12, 2013

These programs are extremely ineffective at actually catching criminals. Their encroachments on privacy can by no means be described as “modest”.The Verizon metadata collection means the government gets to learn the name of everyone you talk to on the phone, and find out your location at any moment you had a Verizon phone on your person. I have no acceptable-on-daytime-television words to explain how little all this does to keep anyone safe, and how tremendous the invasion of privacy is.

And it matters little who started it as long as politicians from both parties are trying to continue it. Any attempts to throw the blame on the other team’s side of the field are, at best, distractions from the fact that the US is now capable of ridiculously huge invasions of privacy without going through the legal channels that served as checks and balances on the potential harm brought on by this. Seriously, all this data could have been obtained before, by going through a court and obtaining a warrant. What all this does is remove the need of getting anyone who’s not in the executive branch involved in this. Not counting the “secret court” because as long as they’re secret they might as well not exist, for all the oversight they have. I’d recommend you to (re)read the works of sexual predator Benjamin Franklin and the ones of his peers – their ideas have shaped your nation, creating one of the most stable systems of governments in modern history. There are few modern countries that have existed under the same system of government for over 200 years (and none the size and diversity of the US) – a system that is rapidly having its core values gutted out of it with nothing but secrecy and propaganda to replace them. Do not think it takes long for the effects of this to get to the point where they inconvenience law-abiding citizens like you, either.

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1. Stille (@aperfectbalance)
  
  June 12, 2013
  
  For some reason, I can’t login through twitter properly. Had twitter problems all day today, so it’s probably twitter’s fault. Sorry for making extra moderation work for you, Clarissa.
  
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2. Stille (@aperfectbalance)
  
  June 12, 2013
  
  Ah right, I got caught in the spam filter for link-heavy posts.
  
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  1. bloggerclarissa
    
    June 12, 2013
    
    Sorry, I’m grading and it took me a moment to catch up. Thank you for these great comments!
    
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3. Stille (@aperfectbalance)
  
  June 12, 2013
  
  To end the linkdump on a humorous note, here’s how metadata use could have found out Paul Revere.
  
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zaebos

June 15, 2013

If he was a sexual predator, it doesn’t matter and that’s irrelevant. It’s nothing more than fallacy and distraction.

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Titfortat

June 12, 2013

Republican/Democrat, when you look closely at the ones in power they have a lot more in common than at first glance.

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Shakti

June 12, 2013

Sadly, I think there are so many people in this country who are against modernity and Enlightenment (I noticed your capitalization) principles that this won’t bother them.

Vignettes and examples:

–The libertarian who gets angry over searched at the airport because she’s white and couldn’t possibly be a terrorist, why aren’t they profiling more brown looking people? Same person has no problem with a proposed state law that drivers be required to furnish citizenship papers when stopped and asked. She’s counting on the idea that she’s white and people presuming that she’s a citizen when she supports this law.
–A cow-eyed ex-coworker of mine who bleated, “It keeps us safe” when I describe how this flight security theater doesn’t keep anyone safe and makes traveling demeaning. Coincidentally she has no relatives outside of the city and never needs to fly. I have to fly if I want to see my grandparents and half my family.
–All of those people that want others to have to follow their religious laws, or carve out exceptions for their special religion (aka the religious Right– that coalition will fall apart the minute a named theocracy is accepted.)
–Everyone who wants to gut science curricula to force kids to learn about Creationism like it’s actual science.
–People who want to teach kids lies about how contraception works as part of public school curricula. (Abstinence only sex ed.)

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bloggerclarissa

June 12, 2013

“A cow-eyed ex-coworker of mine who bleated, “It keeps us safe” when I describe how this flight security theater doesn’t keep anyone safe and makes traveling demeaning. Coincidentally she has no relatives outside of the city and never needs to fly. I have to fly if I want to see my grandparents and half my family.”

– I stopped discussing this with people altogether because it’s frustrating to see how alien the concept of dignity is to so many.

“All of those people that want others to have to follow their religious laws, or carve out exceptions for their special religion ”

– Those are the scariest freaks of all the scary freaks. What we need is definitely more of Enlightened values.

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N G

June 12, 2013

Obama also said in his 2013 inaugural address:

“We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work; when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship. We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American, she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.”

Very laudable comments but how does this square with his recent announcement to nominate Jason Furman as the next chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers who sees the Wal-Mart business model as the future for America?

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/228664382_Wal-Mart_A_Progressive_Success_Story

His support of the “race to the top” and other educational reforms is also leading to the elimination of those nasty market distorting child labor laws and turning schools into cheap Bangladesh style sweatshops which is exactly the business model of the Harold Birch Vocational School in Providence, Rhode Island. This vanguard operation segregates special needs students into “sheltered workshops” where the school contracts with private businesses to perform menial work for 50 cents to two dollar/hour.

“One former student stated that she was required to spend a much greater portion of her school day in the workshop, including full days, when the workshop had important production deadlines.”

http://www.alternet.org/rhode-island-school-forces-disabled-kids-work

Out with democracy and bring back indentured labor is the new motto.

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Lear

June 12, 2013

Different époques. In Franklin Time the US was going in the rise nowadays is losing terrain. It might explain the need to use fear as a tool to win influence.
In Franklin’s time government also had more power. It was always influenced by the economic powers but not in the scale it’s today.
Obama really has no choice but to sell this security story or he’d be tied down by the real power holders.

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June 13, 2013

Ian Welsh wrote a great post about it:
http://www.ianwelsh.net/the-logic-of-the-surveillance-state/

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Wirbelwind

June 13, 2013

Just to quote a good article by Glenn Greenwald:
“The way things are supposed to work is that we’re supposed to know virtually everything about what they do: that’s why they’re called public servants. They’re supposed to know virtually nothing about what we do: that’s why we’re called private individuals.”

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