Friday, January 11, 2008

Freedom Isn't Free

"What we don’t see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do. "

-Mayor Giuliani

I was in New York during the Giuliani administration I didn't think he was particularly good for the city, especially in the latter parts of his tenure. One of his proposals was to impound the cars of anyone accused of frunk driving and quickly sell them at auction without benefit of trial. His justification? Basically it was that some folsk get aquitted and he *knew* they were guilty so he should sell their cars anyway.

Glenn Greenwald puts it best:

Whenever he found a crusade that triggered his sense of righteousness, legal and even constitutional constraints were of little concern to the mayor. He ended up on the losing end of one court battle after the next, arising from his efforts to stifle private expression that he disliked, including endless campaigns against an art exhibit he deemed blasphemous, bus and subway advertisements he considered offensive, and political protests he found annoying. According to Rachel Morris‘s recent article in The Washington Monthly, Giuliani “lost thirty-five First Amendment cases in court.”

2 comments:

Tom Sisson said...

This is what scares me most about each of the Republican candidates with the possible exception of McCain but even he sounds scary at times.

You should have quoted Rudy with the lisp:
"What we don’t sthee isth that freedom isth not a consthept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be...

MAH said...

LOL!

I remember when he started arresting people for j-walking. In NYC!! Holy crap!

I think if you're old enough to cross the street by yourself, you're old enough to know when to not bother waiting for the little walking guy on the sign to light up.