1994, April 21—Last night on MTV's "Enough is Enough" (a program
dealing with crime
and violence in America), a student from George Washington University
asked our president about Singapore's system of government, noting that
the Singaporian system does not base itself on
the strong belief in individual civil rights as ours does. The
questioner observed that Singapore and countries like it boast
extraordinarily low crime rates. He asked "How do you account for
that? Is our system outdated? Does it need to be changed?"
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THE PRESIDENT: Yes -- the young man, Michael Fay, in
Singapore. As you know, I have spoken out against his punishment
for
two reasons. One is, it's not entirely clear that his confession
wasn't coerced from him. The second is that if he just were to
serve
four months in prison for what he did, that would be quite severe, but
the caning may leave permanent scars, and some people who are caned, in
the way they're caned, they go into shock. I mean, it's much more
serious than it sounds. So, on the one hand, I don't approve of
this
punishment, particularly in this case.
Now, having said that,
a lot of the Asian societies that
are doing very well now have low crime rates and high economic growth
rates, partly because they have very coherent societies with strong
units where the unit is more important than the individual, whether
it's the family unit or the work unit or the community unit.
My own view is that
you can go to the extreme in either
direction. And when we got organized as a country and we wrote a
fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a
radical amount of individual freedom to Americans, it was assumed that
the Americans who had that freedom would use it responsibly. That is,
when we set up this country, abuse of people by government was a big
problem. So if you read the Constitution, it's rooted in the
desire to
limit the ability of government's ability to mess with you, because
that was a huge problem. It can still be a huge problem.
But it
assumed that people would basically be raised in coherent families, in
coherent communities, and they would work for the common good, as well
as for the individual welfare.
What's happened in
America today is, too many people live
in areas where there's no family structure, no community structure, and
no work structure. And so there's a lot of
irresponsibility. And so a
lot of people say there's too much personal freedom. When
personal
freedom's being abused, you have to move to limit it. That's what
we
did in the announcement I made last weekend on the public housing
projects, about how we're going to have weapon sweeps and more things
like that to try to make people safer in their communities. So
that's
my answer to you. We can have... the more personal freedom a
society
has, the more personal responsibility a society needs, and the more
strength you need out of your institutions -- family, community and
work. |
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Source: Bill McDonald — bd___@cle___and.Freenet.Edu |
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We hasten to stipulate
that Clinton's statement — "...when
we got organized as a country and we wrote a
fairly radical Constitution with a radical Bill of Rights, giving a
radical amount of individual freedom to Americans" — is a
relative
observation. That is, if Americans had a "radical" amount of individual
freedom at the inception of the United States of America, it was only
relative to the tyranny they endured as subjects of the British crown.
So, that particular remark is not
the smartest thing Clinton ever said.
But his comment on the relationship between personal freedom
and
personal responsibility is a rational and moral bullseye. The fact that
his own behavior doesn't provide a role model for that principle
doesn't change the fact that the principle itself is sound.
Everyone is in favor of his or her own version of freedom,
however they
define it. But the real test of your dedication to the concept of
personal freedom is the degree to which you are willing to accept the
consequences of your own thoughts, words, and actions. If that sort of
personal responsibility shows up in everything you think, say, and do,
then you may count yourself among that group of rare individuals who
talk about freedom, know what they're talking about, and walk their
talk. If not, then go ahead and keep on voting for vermin like Billary.
They'll be glad to let you trade your personal freedom for the security
they always promise, but never deliver.
2007, February 24
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