The Cost of Security for Lars Vilks

How much should the government and universities pay before we either take some sort of action against the terrorism or give in and not speak?

The question isn’t how much should we pay, but what action should we take?

Before you respond to this rather interesting question, bear this in mind too — free speech may and likely will include speech that you personally find distasteful and will only ever be an issue this way when it is controversial.

So for instance, how much money would you be happy to see the government (like a university, or a police force) spend to protect the ability of Fred Phelps to say what’s on his mind at any given moment? When you’re willing to spend scarce, hard-earned taxpayer dollars to protect speech like Phelps’, that is the true measure of your commitment to free speech.

I say, Phelps and Vilks and anyone else who is making a public statement about an issue of public concern and who is otherwise in compliance with the law should get sufficient protection to ensure that there is no violence at the time and place when the speech is to take place. If that takes 130 cops and $125,000, so be it.

I do not believe that terrorist groups are clever and well-organized enough to pull off a campaign of bankrupting governments this way. Besides, we’ve proven more than competent at bankrupting ourselves without any assistance from the bad guys.

I think Phelps and co are disgusting and despicable but I wouldn’t want to see harm come to them. I’d rather them spew their hatred and have it met with calm, kind, irrefutable arguments.

I say spend what we have to spend to defend our right to free speech and send the bill to the people making the threats against our citizens. If the baddies don’t want to pay then they’re welcome to reap the rewards of that choice – prison time. (Probably not even remotely feasible but if I ruled the world that’s how it would be). Freedom of speech is far to valuable to put a price tag on.

I may not agree with what you have to say but I will defend to my death your right to say it.

How much should the government and universities pay before we either take some sort of action against the terrorism or give in and not speak?

The real question is: what sort of action do you suggest? I’m not playing devil’s advocate here, I think this is a legitimate question, one which has the leaders of our countries stumped. It’s not that they don’t want to do something about terrorism, it’s that doing something (i.e. doing things that make the situation better rather than worse) is harder than it sounds.

Indeed, this is a fairly common goal among non-violent libertarian groups and one of the areas in which we have been most successful, as Toronto’s decision to spend 1.2 billion dollars in an attempt to oppress anti-G20 demonstrators exemplifies.

Libertarianism: the cancer in the atheist movement.

@Valhar2000

Or, more likely, they’d end up dead, along with a couple of their attackers a few bystanders. But, hey! Let’s not let reality get in the way of a libertarian wet dream, right?

I don’t mean to shit on your progressive wet-dream but:

Because Britain had destroyed it’s gun culture of thoroughly, it had to beg the US for guns during WWII, to the point our government solicited it’s citizens to send it’s spare guns to a P.O. box in New York City, so they could be shipped to there. Their training times for firearms were high too since the only ones in the country were meant for birds and only owned by the rich. This is costly and hurt the nations ability to defend it’s self. It also lead to them using spears out of museums, and smelting musical instruments to make crude firearms like the Sten SMG.

When you have a population that has access to a weapons for self defense you have a population that has:

A): A chance to preserve it’s life.
B): A chance to train to become proficient in their firearm of choice.

If we banned or heavily regulated cars, in one generation no one would be able to drive well like pretty much most of the US in 1901.

What this shows is it’s expensive for Sweden to have free speech. Just let people have a firearm easily and carry it for self-defense and make it easy for them to train with it. Dramatically cuts down on costs.

Libertarianism: the cancer in the atheist movement.

Oh, that’s completely wrong.

Libertarianism is the cancer of all of humanity. Thankfully, it’s woefully benign.

Tax the mosques?

Trivial conclusion: There’s a cost to these threats even if we refuse to give in. If we give in, we lose the morals which makes our society great. If we don’t, we’ll have to pay for it by increasing security.

I’m glad to read that recognition of what would be the greater loss.

I see the point about Phelps and were he only making speeches at universities or holding random demonstrations downtown, I’d agree but instead he chooses to harass dead solidiers families so I’ve got to say that’s not a great analogy. I’d defend to the death that asshole’s right to free speech but I hope to hell the Supreme Court shuts down his harrassment of those who (to use a trite phrase) make the ultimate sacrifice for this country.

Libertarians frankly are the cancer on society (but I would agree all not just Atheist) and, frankly, why assume all Liberertarians are Atheists. I don’t think so.

As for government providing security for the populace? Duh. That’s one of the main reasons they exist. In fact, I’d argue it’s the only reason for them to exist. If the anarchy wet dream ever happened, you’d soon find people having to band together to protect themselves from the bullies. That’s government, dummy. How do you think they formed in the first place?

It’s entirely legitimate to make a searching inquiry about the appropriate functions of government. Merely asking such questions, and even answering them “no,” does not make one a “cancer on humanity.” Let’s eschew childish name-calling, address the issue on its merits, and find a way to disagree with one another without being disagreeable to one another.

With that said, I maintain my earlier claim that protecting nonviolent people against actual or reasonably-anticipated acts of violence is a legitimate sort of action by the government, one for which tax dollars ought to be collected and spent. At an absolute minimum, the government exists to protect the innocent from the violent. Without peace, nothing else is possible — not free speech, not commerce, not even ownership of property.

So to return to the question posed by the original post, how much should we spend? We should spend what it reasonably takes so that people can engage in lawful activities of all sorts without having to fear suicide bombers, deranged gunmen, muggers, people tossing Molotov cocktails, invasions by foreign armies, and so on. We may disagree on the exact amount of money that is reasonable to spend under a particular set of circumstances, but surely we can at least agree that in broad terms, this is the core function of legitimate government.

I watched it live on the web. Nothing happened. I want my money back.

Personally, I don’t think that government has any legitimate functions.

That statement was authored by @Miko, not @VXbinaca. If either @Miko or @VXbinaca are actually anarchists, let them offer their best argument(s) for anarchy and let the ideas succeed or fail on their merits.

…don’t expect us to let the village idiot out to make any important decisions, VX. Guess what, your constant pushing of obviously stupid statements…

I see little merit to the anarchist position as well, but I see no need to be so personally nasty while disagreeing with it. Respectfully, I suggest you learn to omit ad hominen attacks from your argument style; your arguments will be stronger as a result.

On second thought, do what you like — what you do and say reflects on you, not on me. I’ve pointed out what looks to me like a problem and suggested a solution, and tried to demonstrate how to disagree without being a jerk. Whether you do what I suggest or not is your call.

Valhar2000 Says:

A third option is to allow Lars Vilks and volunteers to carry weaponry to protect themselves and give them legal cover so that they won’t be charged if they are defending themselves. This could help make up for any shortage of police forces.

Or, more likely, they’d end up dead, along with a couple of their attackers a few bystanders. But, hey! Let’s not let reality get in the way of a libertarian wet dream, right?

What is your evidence to support this claim? Can you point to any statistics on bystanders that have been injured in incidents with someone who had a CCW? Do those statistics show that the injury rate is different from the number of bystanders that are injured by missed shots fired by police officers?

Also, how does the “they’d end up dead” scenario differ from the other options. Correct me if I’m missing one:

1). The government provides police protection.
2). “Take some sort of action against terrorism”. We would still run into incidents like the one with Theo Van Gogh.
3). Give in and not speak. Universities could refuse to host certain events, but the government can’t abridge someone’s freedom of speech for their own safety. We would still be concerned with various cartoonists with death threats.

If the “giving in” option is suggested due to concerns over the cost, we’re already showing a willingness to allow people to die due to cost-benefit analysis. How would the possible death of innocent bystanders factor into that? I’m trying to picture the situation where the police provide no protection to the target, and also prevent them from arming themselves. You would have to argue that the death of innocent bystanders is more likely and/or costly than hindering the target from taking steps to defend themselves.

So I decided to check back here one last time to see if cooler heads had prevailed.
Guess not.

@Rollingforest:

The progressives impending doom is no excuse to be ru- no downright hateful to your fellow atheist. I’m not even fucking voting this November. Neither the FDR-wannabe’s or the crackpot TP’s represent me. Yet I don’t even drop the L word in here and am called the cancer on atheism, society the world, etc etc.

Way to represent “progress”. Y’all deserve to lose in 3 weeks simply for your rudeness here alone. I’m now starting a Facebook event with my moderate friends to celebrate the progressives impending defeat over beer and cigars.

@Secular Stu

They won’t answer you because they’re:

– Anonymous cowards tracked in from non-atheist sites.
– Without argument.
– Lacking science or stats to back it up and anything they cite I’ll rip to shreds in a New York minute.

@Transplanted Lawyer

I’m not an anarchist, it’s just those guys jumping to conclusions.

I will be unsubscribing from this topic, please take it to the forums where and hit me up with a PM if you want to be counter-productive by frothing at the mouth some more where I’ll see it.