The United States government wants desperately to preserve the status quo. And, it recognizes that the greatest threat to this preservation comes, not from outside our own country, but internally. Our government will soon use the World Trade Center attack as an excuse to further restrict our civil liberties, in the name of national security.


We may never have thought anything like this would have happened in our lifetimes, but now it has. We are entering another Cold War, and it will have it’s own McCarthy Era; but, the government won’t fight an “enemy” across the globe. It is about to turn on us, the American citizens.


George W. is calling for a huge military buildup over the next year or more. He’s already bringing back the topic of the National Missile Defense System, which has proven to be utterly ineffective in the past six months. Power tends to corrupt, and the power of the United States government, whose policy is made by people like Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, and Karl Rove, is absolutely corrupt.

Congress is about to appropriate billion for “rescue, repairs, and counterterrorism efforts”. That billion won’t be used to rebuild the World Trade Center. It will be put towards quashing domestic dissent, attacking anyone who dares to vocalize disagreement with the decisions of the government. There will be demonstrations in the streets, and the police will become even more violent than ever before. If the government has its way, the citizens’ freedoms of speech, press, and assembly will quickly fade away to make room for the new priority: security, as if there could be any. The United States government will soon begin restricting our liberties under the guise of preventing further American deaths.

But, the only reason this country is worth living in is those same liberties. Can our lives be so precious, our security so paramount, as to be conserved only through oppression? Nothing could be further from the truth. I can’t speak for anyone else, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Troy

Chapman University student

"Those willing to trade a little freedom for a little security will lose both, and deserve neither." -Thomas Jefferson