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Freedom Flees in Terror
Paul McMasters of the Freedom Forum has an editorial about the various and many restrictions on freedom that are following in the wake of the September 11 crashes.
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What good it is, is that if we're going to die, let's die with our morals intact. I would rather die free than live in shackles.
Once you're willing to give up your morals, where do you draw the line? If the government tells you that they need to be able to randomly search your house, because you might be a terrorist (and they blow things up, so you could DIE!), would you stand for it? If the government says "this internet thing is letting too many people exchange terrorist plans, and if they do that, you could DIE!, so we're going to censor the net.", would you stand for it?
The bottom line is that once you acknowledge that you're willing to trade your moral values for your life, your life isn't worth possessing any more.
If winning the fight against evil means restricting our civil liberties, then so be it. The last thing we need right now is people criticizing the government, and that includes people whining about restrictions on their "civil liberties". Come on, people! It's only by the grace of the US Government that you have those "rights" to begin with. And if, in order to sustain itself and protect the American people, the government needs to take back some of those privileges we've grown used to, you have nothing to complain about. You should be THANKING the government for letting you have freedom of speech for all those years.
Let's examine some of the issues MacMasters is concerned about.
"Critical" information? Well, if it's "critical" to the public, then it must be even more critical to terrorists, who will use it against us. The last thing we need right now is for information to be available to everyone. If you don't absolutely NEED a piece of information, you have no business knowing it, or attempting to get your hands on it. Anyone who has a problem with this is aiding terrorist and is exactly the type of person we need to fight.
How could anyone have a problem with this? If you are in favor of desecrating Old Glory, you have no business being in this country. Go to Afgahanistan, and join your ideological bedmates.
If you have a problem with my views, REPLY, don't moderate!
It's not the government engaged in taking away your freedoms, it's terrorists. If you're willing to fight for them join the military and do it. Who was up in arms about personal freedoms before 9-11, sure there were a few issues being quibbled about but nothing as bad as the current situation. Oh but now that it's in your living room it's time to fight, but when it's in some other country or not affecting you it's not a problem at all. This is a generation of self serving people, all information all the time, everything right here right now. We've never faced hardships REAL hardships that threaten the very fundamentals of how we live, until now. I'm not even sure sacrifice is a word in our vocabulary. I'm guilty of it too. We have no reference point from which to judge how bad things are or how bad they may become. I say lets be as prepared as possible for whatever may happen. I can't even think with all the what-if's being thrown around.