This is the Freedom we bring to Iraq

first off, the military doesnt GIVE us those rights. God Does. The military protects those rights.

 

Wick

Any reasonable democracy gives people a reasonable chance to speak out the US is not the only place it happens.

The US might ‘guarantee’ its citizens a reasonable chance to speak out, in the US, but outside of it the US has been at times nasty in attacking dissenting voices to it’s policies. For example the way the Bush administration has targeted al Jazeera. Also the US has supported regimes that have been very brutal in suppressing other views, used torture and murder against opposition groups for, which there are many examples from US-Latin American dealings. So that US arms, military and money has all been used to prop up such regimes which actually means the US in fact has very often suppressed peoples right to free speech.

I mean if you had been some trade unionists who’d had his gonads wired up to the grid by a CIA trained torturer from a regime that owed its existence to the US, the first thing you’re going to say about Americans might not be their love of peoples right to talk out about their leaders, is it?

I’m an atheist so I think the choice to be pacifist is a human choice, as Megara says people have free will (god given or not) to decide on their own viewpoint.

As to the military protecting rights, the fact is that they can protect it or take it away depending on the orders they are given, and no people should entrust their hard fought for rights only to the possibility that they might not follow the orders to take them away.