I’m amazed at how willing people are to give up their rights and freedoms for a little security. Every time I watch the news, there’s some people that get interviewed at airports about whether this is really inconvenient for them. Without fail, all of them say “Well, if it’s for everyone’s safety, I guess it’s alright”.

If you search on the Internet, I’m sure you’ll find tons of articles talking about how easily the average person is just giving away their rights without a second thought. I think the problem is that most people don’t understand what their rights are.

Freedom of speech is the one right that everyone knows about. I think it’s the only one everyone knows about. I don’t think anyone would give that up quite as easily as, say, the right to remain secure against unreasonable search or seizure. The problem from what I’m seeing on the news is that people don’t realize it’s a right and treat it as a minor inconvenience. I mean, being inconvenienced is a small price to pay for being safe against the threat of terrorism, right? Do you think people would be as willing to be stopped from carrying a can of coke onto a plane if they knew that this was a right of theirs, like free speech?

Why do we have a right that protects us from being searched? Why do we have laws that protect our privacy? Is it to make it harder for the honest government to protect us from terrorists?

Democracies have these rights because governments can’t be trusted. That’s the reason why there are three different branches, so no one institution has all the power. That’s why Americans have the right to bear arms: so if the government starts oppressing them, then they can raise a militia and fight back. That’s why our elections are by secret ballot.

That’s why we should be questioning the wisdom of banning all liquids on flights. Think about it, the human body is two thirds water. If a someone wanted to bring liquid on board a plane, they just need to bring themselves. Humans are liquid making machines. And what’s next, banning solids because terrorists start making solid explosives?

Tags: Canada, democracy, freedom, rights, USA

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 17th, 2006 at 9:10 pm and is filed under Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.