Edward Snowden's Libertarian Moment: We "will remove from governments the ability to interfere with [our] rights"

Posted by Zenphamy 9 years, 2 months ago to Philosophy
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Is Snowden beginning to make sense to more people? From the article:

"If people lose their willingness to recognize that there are times in our history when legality becomes distinct from morality, we aren't just ceding control of our rights to government, but our agency in determing thour futures.

How does this relate to politics? Well, I suspect that governments today are more concerned with the loss of their ability to control and regulate the behavior of their citizens than they are with their citizens' discontent."

And:

"Our rights are not granted by governments. They are inherent to our nature. But it's entirely the opposite for governments: their privileges are precisely equal to only those which we suffer them to enjoy.

We haven't had to think about that much in the last few decades because quality of life has been increasing across almost all measures in a significant way, and that has led to a comfortable complacency. But here and there throughout history, we'll occasionally come across these periods where governments think more about what they "can" do rather than what they "should" do, and what is lawful will become increasingly distinct from what is moral.

In such times, we'd do well to remember that at the end of the day, the law doesn't defend us; we defend the law. And when it becomes contrary to our morals, we have both the right and the responsibility to rebalance it toward just ends."

Is our present legality distinct from morality? I would argue, YES.
SOURCE URL: http://reason.com/blog/2015/02/24/edward-snowdens-libertarian-moment-we-wi


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