Freedom Fried

by Archie Kennedy

http://www.aussieseek.com/


We are crossing a line and on the other side of that line there is
fascism, totalitarianism, death squads, and crypto security. But in
reality there is no security. It is a myth. But there are plenty of
despots.
Freedom has a price. It is a price that we have been willing to pay for
hundreds of years in most Western societies. The cost is a certain
degree of necessary anxiety as a result of the unpredictable nature of
disparate human impulses.

When the citizens and leaders of a society become jittery and fearful
enough, they tend to sell their freedom for safety from the unknown and
unpredictable. In societies that have cowed to fear, you may be stoned
to death for committing adultery, you may be sanctioned for
=E2??extremist=E2?? views, or you may be put to death for a crime you
have not committed. That is a problem with a secure society. It is,
after all, a myth. The upside is that all the trains tend to run on
time.

To live in a free society we must tolerate known criminals living in
our midst. We must tolerate all sorts of political and philosophical
opinions that are an affront to our sensibilities. We have to accept
the fact that anything can happen. Many unpleasant possibilities are
plausible, even the possibility of being killed. But that=E2??s life.
Security is a myth and if we take a look around, if we take a look at
what happens when societies give in to fear, we can see what happens.
Those societies become tyrannical nightmares.

There is a border, a clear and distinct line that we cannot cross. We
must prosecute a crime AFTER the individual has acted. And no nation
can act against another preemptively.

That means that we cannot prosecute pedophiles that are likely to harm
children before they act. Instead, we have to be awake and aware and
take steps to protect them ourselves. The state cannot do it. We cannot
prosecute those that will likely murder their spouse before they act.
We have to act to protect ourselves and our loved ones. The state
cannot do it. In free societies we have always endured this precarious
situation. But we have done it.

But now all that is changing and what it may mean for us is a future of
having to endure the iron shackles of an arbitrary and brutal state
apparatus. We have to ask ourselves if we are that cowardly. Are we
timid and fearful to the point that we allow the terrorists that
slaughtered the people in the twin towers to take away our freedom?

They seem to be winning the war that Bush had boldly declared against
terrorism. Not so much in the sense that they are managing to create
enough carnage and fear in Iraq to be party to the complete terrorizing
of that society as much as the effect they are having on American
society. This also spills over into British, Canadian, Australian and
many other societies.

Coincidentally, and fortunately for the terrorists of both stripes (the
Arab terrorists and the American terrorists) there were two bombings in
London just prior to a vote in the US House of Representatives on
renewal of the misnamed and potentially fascistic Patriot Act.
Following hours of intense debate they voted 257-171 to permanently
extend 14 of 16 provisions that had a four year sunset. The remaining
two provisions were given a ten year lease on life. This would not have
happened without the London bombings. You'd almost think the
Mid-Eastren and Western neo cons were working together. One provision
is to permit "roving wiretaps" and the other will allow the state to
search individuals library and medical records.

If it is the long term plan of the terrorists to destroy individual
freedom in the West, they are doing a bang up job. Unfortunately, they
are on the same page in this regard as the neo cons that are pushing
this cancerous virus against the spirit of freedom through the media,
through legislation and through the minds of the timid and fearful
fools that buy into this fearful bull****.

On this political front, we may have to make uncomfortable bedfellows.
There are some conservatives that are vehemently passionate about
individual liberty, some liberals and socialists as well. On this
matter, we should be prepared to drop the guns we tend to hold at one
another's heads and work together against the conservatives, liberals
and socialists, that don't give a flying **** about individual liberty
and especially the terrorists and neo cons that are working to destroy
it