{"id":288,"date":"2010-10-14T14:13:52","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T19:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/?p=288"},"modified":"2010-10-23T21:51:23","modified_gmt":"2010-10-24T02:51:23","slug":"freedom-can-never-be-taken-for-granted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/?p=288","title":{"rendered":"Freedom can never be taken for granted."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>David Frost queried Nixon \u201cSo what in a sense you\u2019re saying is that there are certain situations\u2026where the president can decide that it\u2019s in the best interests of the nation or something, and do something illegal.\u201d Nixon: <strong>\u201cWell, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.\u201d<\/strong> Frost:<strong> <\/strong>\u201cBy definition?\u201d Nixon:<strong> \u201cExactly, exactly.&#8221;<!--more--><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When Ted Kennedy asked Attorney General Gonzales why he didn\u2019t follow the legal procedure for domestic spying, he replied \u201c<strong>Sir, the short answer is that we didn\u2019t think we needed to, quite frankly.\u201d<\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was asked about the legality of torture, she replied that<strong> \u201c\u2026by definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Convention Against Torture.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>These\u00a0interviews are available online.\u00a0The potential for misuse\u00a0of the Presidency, especially in times of perceived (and manipulated) threat,\u00a0 is a concern that\u00a0should be met by a watchful and fully-informed citizenry.\u00a0\u00a0But\u00a0 getting the whole truth (separate from lies and half-truths) is\u00a0a challenge that freedom now faces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Frost queried Nixon \u201cSo what in a sense you\u2019re saying is that there are certain situations\u2026where the president can decide that it\u2019s in the best interests of the nation or something, and do something illegal.\u201d Nixon: \u201cWell, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.\u201d Frost: \u201cBy definition?\u201d Nixon: \u201cExactly, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=288"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":303,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288\/revisions\/303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.peacefulways.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}