Safety Or Freedom Should We Have To Choose?
Benjamin Franklin once said "Any society that would give up a
little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither
and lose both."
Fear, desire for convenience, and ignorance are the leading
causes of United States citizens surrendering their rights, it's
not all government corruption and tyranny like some people would
like to believe. Why would the government have to employ
deception or trickery when people are ready to line up and hand
over their rights and privacy for the very freedom and security
they are already entitled to? The necessary laws to protect our
society have been in place long before September Eleventh, but
due to a lack of communication between various agencies and
overall poor handling of resources we were the victims of a
terrible terrorist attack. Years later who is continuing to pay
for those mistakes? We are, the citizens of and travelers
through, the United States.
Although most people are living life as they normally would have
prior to the September Eleventh terrorist attacks, there is an
underlying fear or concern that flows constantly yet for the
most part un-noticed through the back of our minds like the
operating system that runs your computer. This same fear is
being used by the government on a daily basis to help build a
sales pitch that makes handing over your rights to allegedly
help provide the safety you were already guaranteed by the
constitution seem like the patriotic thing to do. Am I trying to
state that law enforcement methods should not evolve to keep
pace with technology? Absolutely not, law enforcement needs to
keep pace now more than ever. I am saying that our freedoms and
privacy should not bear the cost of their evolution.
Example, how many people are aware that section 215 of the
Patriot Act allows the government secret access to your
financial, library records, video rental records, travel info,
medical info and much more? All the while not being part of the
Freedom of Information Act, so you could not even know to whom
or when they are doing it. Also they do not need to go through
all the usual legal warrant obtaining procedures, that are
guaranteed to the common criminal. So they are in effect doing
away with the need for warrants if you are suspected of
terrorist activity.
Convenience for freedom is a tradeoff that is growing in
popularity every day, and with the ongoing National ID effort
handing over your freedom and privacy is going to be sold to you
infomercial style with hook after hook and "call to action"
phrases in abundance. But in this ad campaign instead of those
call to action phrases being "buy now", or "call today" they are
going to refer to freedom, patriotism, and increasing the
government's ability to keep you safe. The end result will be
that the average United States citizen who is too busy with
their own lives already to really read the fine print and see
what is going on is going to hand over their rights once again.
And then when you have accepted your shiny new National
ID/Drivers License (which is going to also be more money coming
out of your pocket) the government will then do the follow up
sale and show you the benefits of being able to use your
National ID for everything for example: - Use It As A
Drivers License
- Use It To Supply Emergency Medical
Information
- Use It As A Credit Card
- Use It As
A Library Card (so your reading habits can be monitored)
- Use It To Pay Tolls
(after the eventual government purchase and centralization of
EZPASS type services to help the government keep you safe
on the road through improved management of the National Highway
Network)
- Use It To Buy Gas
- Use It To Rent
Videos (so those titles can be properly recorded
to monitor your viewing habits for patterns of potential for
wrong doing)
- Use It As A Firearms Purchasing ID (ha ha
like you'll be allowed to have
those anymore, for firearms will have been deemed unsafe by the
people who
you trusted enough to hand your rights over to in order to help
protect you).
All that convenience for just giving the government just a
little of your personal information, how can you pass up that
deal? Act now while supplies last, get yours today! I think you
get the picture by now. That concludes the fear and desire for
convenience examples. I will use the ever-popular topic of gun
control to sum up my examples of rights surrendered through
ignorance. I wish I could say that it was totally the government
taking advantage of peoples ignorance to pass the gun laws that
they do, however that is not the case. This falls under the
"give 'em enough rope and they'll hang themselves" realm.
The following quote from John Kerry is an excerpt from "Remarks
by President Bush and Senator Kerry in the Third 2004
Presidential Debate Part II, Tempe,AZ 10/14/2004:
"I know something about prosecuting. And most of the law
enforcement agencies in America wanted that assault weapons ban.
They don't want to go into a drug bust and be facing an
AK-47.
I was hunting in Iowa last year with the sheriff from one of
the counties there and he pointed to a house in back of us and
said, see that house over there? We just did a drug bust a week
earlier, and the guy we arrested had an AK-47 lying on the bed
right beside him.
Because of the President's decision today, law enforcement
officers will walk into a place that will be more dangerous.
Terrorists can now come into America and go to a gun show, and
without even a background check, buy an assault weapon today.
And that's what Osama bin Laden's handbook said -- because we
captured it in Afghanistan and it encouraged them to do it."
Now let's take it from the top, danger is a part of the law
enforcement business, if you have not committed yourself to
being comfortable with that reality, then it is time for a
career change. This is the very same law enforcement business in
which the growing trend, is to staff these agencies almost
exclusively with ex military or college students both of which
very used to obeying a government body rule, living a structured
lifestyle and not doing a lot of thinking outside the box, or
decision making based in life experience. There are plenty of
street-smart people who would make great law enforcement
personnel but because they have not been conditioned, by school
or the military to conform and obey they are now fast becoming
unqualified candidates. Anybody seeing a "Sylvester Stallone
/John Spartan/ Demolition Man" type pattern here?
In that same quote did you notice anything about whether that
AK-47 was a legally purchased and registered gun? No you didn't
because this is information that the government feels you do not
need, this enable them to plant yet another fear seed, and again
take advantage of your ignorance. When I say "ignorance" I am
not always referring to stupidity, I also mean lack of
information. The Freedom Of Information Act allows us to find
the answers to questions like "Was that AK-47 a legally
purchased and registered gun?" If you are willing to jump
through enough hoops and cut through enough red tape to get to
that information. Even if you were willing to run the gamut to
find those answers, you more than likely are doing it while
trying to advance your career, support and enjoy time with your
family and get your eight hours of sleep, so by the time you get
to those answers the laws have been passed. Coincidence?
Now turn your attention to the paragraph about the gun shows. I
have never been to one, nor do I currently own a firearm, but am
I to be led to believe, that you can purchase an assault rifle
or any other rifle with maybe the exception of a black powder
flintlock, at a gun show, or anywhere else for that matter with
no identification whatsoever. If this were truly the case there
would be a conga line of drug dealers and terrorists around the
block from every gun show in the United States with suitcases
full of cash, arming themselves to the teeth.
This leaves me with two questions, where did they get the
identification if it was not false? And why were the gun show
personnel, who are licensed by the government to sell these
weapons, not trained to spot a potential fake id? (if the id's
were fake and not another clerical error combined with a botched
background check where all the involved agencies did not have
their ducks in a row).
The gun law supporters say it's very easy to get a gun, this is
absolutely true, if you do not obey the law. Cash talks on the
street, and the street listens. However it is not as easy to get
a gun if you go through the proper channels, fill out all the
correct paperwork, provide proper identification (and references
in some cases) and wait for your documents entitling you to
purchase your firearms legally. The people that go through the
trouble to purchase their firearms this way are the ones being
punished with these laws, not the criminals.
There are two methods that would stop illegal gun traffic in its
tracks, A:make possession of an illegally obtained firearm a
capital offense covered by the death penalty (after all, gun law
supporters say the only purpose certain weapons have is to kill,
so that must be their intent) and B: make possession of an
illegally obtained firearm punishable by a mandatory life
sentence in prison. Law enforcement and all the gun law
supporters could then breathe a sigh of relief and turn their
attention back to the real criminals, but we know that those
laws will never get passed.
Who can honestly object to those laws that is not a criminal?
You can't just accidentally buy a gun, they don't fall off the
shelves in the supermarket into your shopping cart, and if a
friend left it at your house, or in your car they would have no
trouble going to the police station to admit their error, since
they of course purchased their firearms legally. It is a win win
set of laws as far as I am concerned.
Unless of course you throw in the corrupt cop scenario, where
the officer plants the firearm in your possession, but that
would not be happening either because we have police, policing
the police to protect us from this sort of corruption right?
Unfortunately that scenario alone will probably keep those laws
from getting passed. Now everyone loses, the police, the
citizens, the legal gun enthusiasts, the victims of violent
crimes committed with illegally obtained firearms, but not the
criminals. So who is truly to blame? Personally I am all for the
strictest punishments for illegally obtained firearms, because I
have neither the intent or desire to illegally obtain a firearm,
it's just that simple. I'm not a big pro-gun person but I deeply
cherish my right to have one, and like the old saying goes "If
guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."
So exists the axis of voluntary freedom surrender fear, desire
for convenience, and ignorance. The founding fathers fought to
get us our rights and freedoms as United States citizens but it
is up to us, "we the people" to maintain that freedom. Help the
groups that fight for your freedom every day by visiting them
and doing what you can to help your future. The Electronic Frontier
Foundation , The League of Conservation Voters and The American Civil
Liberties Union.