Years back, an old and astute professor at the University of Washington ended a fascinating lecture to a small group of freshmen with the following contention: "Our country might find itself in a position that could force it to deprive its citizens from certain freedoms to preserve basic rights."The political atmosphere in the United States then was hardly tense; moreover, the professor was not essentially alluding to a political topic; his argument was meant to assert an environmental concern: the government must interfere, mustering its entire legal prowess to contain human activities that have for long harmed our increasingly fragile environment; even if such intervention can theoretically be qualified as one that curbs certain freedoms, as long as by doing so, we preserve basic but fundamental rights, the right to a good life, health and collective preservation. Utilitarianism at its best; partly, I agreed.
But a question, nonetheless, lurked within and I simply couldn't wait until the following lecture to raise it. I followed him to his office. He sat in front of me, gasping for air and desperately probing the top drawer of his ailing desk for a cigarette; I hesitantly overlooked the irony and retorted: Your point made a lot of sense, but it was too generalised; what if the freedoms being denied are those of political dissent, civil rights and the like? Would any fundamental right be a worthy prize to compel such compromises?
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But a question, nonetheless, lurked within and I simply couldn't wait until the following lecture to raise it. I followed him to his office. He sat in front of me, gasping for air and desperately probing the top drawer of his ailing desk for a cigarette; I hesitantly overlooked the irony and retorted: Your point made a lot of sense, but it was too generalised; what if the freedoms being denied are those of political dissent, civil rights and the like? Would any fundamental right be a worthy prize to compel such compromises?
MORE
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-022807102618.htm