The dividing line between dissent and sedition?

[Lord Stormbringer]

One of the things that's struck me about any public debate has been how both sides, left and right, have dogma.

The left want to say anything, no matter how irresponsible, baseless, or untrue, and call it dissent. They seem to believe that free speech means that they can say anything with out consequence. To me the biggest problem is that this "dissent" often has nothing more than political advantage and public hysteria in mind. So much of it seems to be utterly with out perspective or often baseless, or at least unproveable. Does that really help? Is it really in line with patriotic dissent? Doesn't that hurt us, domestically and abroad?

The right call anything negative, no matter if it's true, grounded, and accurate, irresponsible or worse sedition. Any criticism seems to be treated as if it's an attack and they don't need to address it with any thing more than an attack? Even the simplest requests for information are being denied. Is it really right for our elected officials, making high level decisions which mean life or death, to silence any opposition? Don't we have a right to know the most basic things? Is national security and military strategy so fragile that we can't committ to anything, say anything, explain anything?

[Cynical Cat]

I have to say I find your premis flawed. It isn't a contest between the Left lying and the Right refusing to acknowledge legitimate criticism. Both sides use those tactics (I'm not going to address who is worse). There seems to be a serious degredation of the public-political sphere in American public life (and possibly other places as well).

There is a general lack of accountability. One can lie or mistate with impunity. TV political commentary is too often a right wing mouth piece and a left wing mouth piece spinning the news. Media organizations are increasingly more concerned with getting large audience share, and are thus adverse to doing critical examinations of controversial issues or popular politiians. On the other end of the spectrum we have party mouthpieces pretending to be news sources and the owners of large media empires using the aforementioned empires as political mouthpieces (and possibly being involved with corrupt quid pro quos).

We are living in an age where people get crappy, sensationalized news and political reportage is mostly gutless or tailored to their audiences prejudices. The natural consequence of this is the abilitly to get away with lies, evasions, villification, and all manner of corrupt and crimminal practices.

[Lord Stormbringer]

I have to say I find your premis flawed. It isn't a contest between the Left lying and the Right refusing to acknowledge legitimate criticism. Both sides use those tactics (I'm not going to address who is worse). There seems to be a serious degredation of the public-political sphere in American public life (and possibly other places as well).

This wasn't about the crappy state of political discourse worldwide (the political rationality is no better oversees, just less people care). I think we all can acknowledge that politicals of both stripe need to grow the hell up and news reporters need to actually inform instead of parrot the party lines.

THIS was meant to be a disucssion on where the line should actually be drawn between the need for security and the right of free debate. I was asking because it seems both sides have lost any sort of perspective on the issue.

[Cynical Cat]

Most of your post lead me to believe you wanted discuss other matters. So, national security concerns and where to draw the line.

We do have the benefit of hindsight. Mass internment, for example, is generally seen as wrong. Detaining suspects for a while generally acceptable, but for how long? What restrictions on communications? What about their rights? What oversight and accountability?

I'm not going to say I know the perfect balance, but it seems clear unless those who wield these broad powers and monitored and held accountable, there will be serious abuses that will have devestating affects on peoples' lives.

[Steve]

"In war, truth is so precious that it must always be protected by a bodyguard of lies." - Sir Winston S. Churchill

That, really, sums up the MO of the government today. We're in a long-term conflict with a shadowy organization that, given an opening, will seek to do more damage and bloodshed to us. The government is therefore interested in keeping a lid on it's operations to fight that foe.

But this isn't a conventional war, and the tools we're using in this one resemble law-enforcement more than a conventional war's methods would, so it's inevitable that attempts to wage this new conflict will clash with our long-standing precepts of civil rights and law. And this isn't the kind of clear-termed war where the populace knows where the enemy is, that the enemy can be defeated, and that it's okay to let the law fall silent for the clearly-defined duration of hostilities. This could be a multiple generation war, and the last thing we want to do is willingly establish for the government the precedent to turn it's powers upon us.