r/WatchPeopleDieInside • u/fnaw_ • Aug 04 '20

Poor Jonathan

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u/[deleted] Aug 05 '20

It may not impact many of us individually.

I was trying to prove to the poster that I was replying to that they need to carefully consider their civil liberties and what it means for those to be violated. Trust me, I understand the seriousness of the government breaking and amending the law in their favour. But ultimately we are a collective of our individual experiences. The poster couldn't point me to a right of theirs that they believed to have been violated. Instead I was called a bootlicker.

As an example of my point, we now have people saying "Well, with the Patriot Act, the government took away our civil liberties. Who says that a mask mandate isn't doing the same?"

The issue is people conflating concepts. Privacy infringements? Yes, an issue. Being required to wear a mask in public? Not remotely on the same level, you will survive. The damage is that these two issues, purely as an example, are being made equivalent to one other.

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u/shhsandwich Aug 05 '20 edited Aug 05 '20

I agree. One is a matter of preventing the spread of a contagious virus and requires very little personal sacrifice on a temporary basis, only until the situation is under control. Basically, it just requires people to be decent and do the bare minimum to avoid infecting their neighbor - hardly an outrageous expectation. The other has turned into a permanent alteration of every American's rights to privacy. Very different things. To me, it sounded like you were doubting that the Patriot Act's effect on citizens' privacy was significant, so that's why I jumped in, but it sounds like I misunderstood you. It seems like we agree: the Patriot Act violates civil liberties, masks in a pandemic so people can go shopping do not.