美国是自由之地？别再吹拉！ [美国媒体]

Let's stop pretending that America is the land of liberty

我们别再夸美国是个自由之地啦

作者：Ryan Cooper



Illustration | Image courtesy Derek Bacon/Corbis
December 4, 2015

Mass shootings havebecome so common in America that even dark jokes about the sheer mechanicalroutine of it all now seem stale. One part of the public safety debate thatwill always be around, however, is arguing about the supposed tradeoff betweenfreedom and security.

在美国，大规模枪击事件已成为日常，以至于连黑段子都变得千篇一律，没有新意了。到处充斥着有关公共安全的争论，然而，我们争论的焦点应该放在，是要自由、还是要安全上？

@drvox is bearingarms the only civil liberty you'd give up on hope of security? Privacy? Freemovement? Speech? The Press?
— Timothy P Carney (@TPCarney) December 2, 2015

“公民拥有持枪自由，你会为此放弃安全、隐私、活动自由、演讲和新闻自由吗？——提摩西P卡尼2015年12月2日（注：Timothy P Carney 美国批评家）

In some hypotheticalsensible country, one could have a debate about whether some crime control or securitymeasure might be worth the potential infringement on our liberties. But theUnited States is not a sensible country informed by a grounded understanding ofliberty or security. We long ago shredded most of our important constitutionalprotections without the slightest evidence that they made anyone safer.

假设在某些开明的国家里，哪些犯罪管理或安全措施可能对自由产生潜在的威胁，人们会对此而进行讨论。但通过对美国自由和安全的了解，你会发现美国并不是个明智的国家。我们宪法权威性保护措施很早以前就被撕的面目全非了，毫无迹象表明他们有让人们变得更安全。

Let's take a quicktour through recent history and see how fundamental liberties areholding up in the new century.

让我们迅速回顾一下近代历史，看看在这个新世纪里，基础自由权是如何停滞不前的。

Privacy and personal security. The Fourth Amendment protects people from "unreasonable search and seizure," and plainlyforbids general warrants (and by extension, dragnetsurveillance). As is now well known, the NSA operated a dragnet program onbasically all electronic communication for over a decade. True, a reform billdid pass earlier this year, but sharp note that it's written broadlyenough that the great majority of the government dragnet machine isalmost certainly still operating. Massive warrantless spying is still happeningevery day.

个人隐私和安全。第四条修正案表示人民不受“不合理的搜查和扣押“，而且是明文规定（以此类推，网上搜查也属于不合理）。众所周知，由美国国家安全局主导的，对所有基于电子通讯进行监视项目持续了十多年了。确实，今年年初还通过了一项修正法案，但仔细一看，该法案却写的十分宽泛，其中绝大多数的拉网式搜查几乎仍是由政府来主导。大量来路不明的情报收集活动每天仍在发生。

Baldlyunconstitutional seizures are a routine part of police business in America,through so-called "civil asset forfeiture."These require merely an assertion from law enforcement that the property wasobtained through crime. It's extremely difficult to get one's property back,and the practice has been rising sharply of late — so much so that the total value ofseized property exceededthat lost from burglaries last year for the first time.

借所谓的“没收公民财产“，无视宪法，公然侵犯已然成为美国警方的日常。（注：在美国被警方没收的财产大都变为警察的津贴）。这些条令凭的仅是“依法强制没收非法所得”。财物一旦没收绝难要回，而且这种执法活动与日俱增。正因如此，去年被没收的财物价值总额居然首次超过被盗财物的总和。

Due process. The Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, andFourteenth Amendments protect people from being punished by the state without afair legal proceeding. For certain groups of Americans — Muslim-Americanextremists living abroad, minorities, and poor people, among others — due process is thin to nonexistent. Such people can be shotto death, thrownin solitary confinement, or imprisonedfor years, or assassinated without any due processwhatsoever, and rarely if ever will any law enforcement official be made toaccount for their actions.

法定诉讼。第五，第六，第七，和第十四条修正案，保护人们免受不公正法律程序的处罚。但对于某些美国群体--穆斯林，海外美国极端分子，少数种族，穷人和一些个别人，诉讼过程几乎没有. 这些人有可能被枪毙，扔进监狱或被监禁数年，又或是跳过诉讼程序被暗杀，极少有执法官员会对他们的作为作出解释。

Freedom of speech. Thisone is doing better than due process, but has still eroded significantly. Steven Salaita recently won$875,000 fromthe University of Illinois when a job offer was rescinded because the school'spresident disagreed with his political views on Palestine.Ted Cruz, meanwhile, promises that he will strip federal fundsfrom any university that supports the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctionsmovement.

言论自由。这个可比法定诉讼做的要强不少，但却日渐恶化。Steven Salaita最近在伊利诺伊大学争取到了一份年薪为875000美元工作，却因该校校长不同意他的巴勒斯坦的政治观点而遭辞退。特德克鲁兹，许诺要剃掉所有大学中支持抵制，剥夺、制裁的联邦基金，而遭到同样对待。

General atrocities. TheEighth Amendment, in addition to international treaties and U.S. law,absolutely bans torture. Yet the entire top echelon of the Bush administrationconstructed and operated a tortureprogram, even destroyed the evidence thereof, andpaid no price. The leading presidential candidate of one of our two politicalparties now openlyadvocates for torture's return — even if it is totally useless for interrogation.

普通暴行。第八修正案，包括国际协定和美国法律，对酷刑绝对是明令禁止的。然而，布什政府整个高层却设置了一个虐囚计划，毁尸灭据后，竟没有付出任何代价。现在的两党总统候选人都在倡议重启酷刑-即使这种严刑酷审起不到丝毫效果。

Americaalso imprisons a greaterfraction of its population than any other country,by a substantial margin. There are three-quarters of a million people in jailsalone — and 62percent ofthemhave been convicted of no crime.

美国被关押人数所占人口的比例也远超其他国家，每百万人有四分之三进过监狱——但这其中有62%的人无罪释放。

Doesthat sound like a land of liberty?

这听起来像是个自由之地么？

Now, itis true that just about anyone can buy huge, powerful guns and enormous pilesof ammunition in this country. Heck, even people on our insane, Kafkaesqueterror watch list canstillbuy guns. That's freedom of a sort, though it comes atanincomprehensible cost — and is largely worthless for those who'd rather not own a gun(roughly 68 percent ofthe population).

此时，在这个国度里，任何人都能轻易买到威力巨大的枪支和大量的弹药。哎~,甚至精神病、上榜的恐怖分子都能买到枪。这勉强算是自由吧，尽管所付出的代价让人有些匪夷所思——对于那些宁可不要枪的人（约占美人口68%）这一切毫无意义。

For fartoo many Americans, the Constitution and the idea of "freedom" aremere fetish objects, basically uncoupled from any analytical conception ofpolitical liberty.

对于大多数美国人，对任何政治自由观念，分析后会有个大致了解，那就是，宪法和理想中的“自由”仅仅只是个神话。

Theremay be reasons to oppose any and all gun control, but a diminution of generalliberty is not among them.

反对控枪的理由或许有很多，但绝不能以牺牲自由作借口。