Ethan A. Huff,
Natural News
Sept 8, 2011
A new Associated Press (AP) poll shows that many Americans are still in the dark about the importance of protecting their freedom and liberty from being stolen by their own government. While roughly 66 percent of respondents indicated a willingness to give up a little more privacy and freedom to protect against terrorism, a shocking 46 percent said that if they had to choose one or the other, they would give up whatever rights and freedoms asked of them in order to “fight terrorism,” rather than defend and protect their own civil liberties.
Poll results also revealed that, in the name of fighting terrorism, 71 percent of respondents support the use of public surveillance cameras to look for suspicious activity; 58 percent support random searches, naked body scans, and pat downs; 55 percent support unwarranted intrusion of financial transactions; 47 percent support requiring that every American carry a national ID card to show to government agents on demand; and 35 percent support racial profiling.
The findings are chilling, of course, as they illustrate the widespread ignorance among the populace of the tactics used by governments in the past to eliminate freedom, and assume totalitarian control over the people. Public surveillance programs, mandating that civilians show their papers on demand without probable cause or warrant, and secretly tracking civilians, for instance, were all methods used by the Nazis during World War II to incite fear, and ultimately to seize control.
And these are the exact same tactics being used today by the US government to trick Americans into surrendering their freedoms and liberties to fight terrorism. Apparently, as long as there is a frightening boogeyman, which in this case is radical Islam, there will always be people willing to sacrifice their freedom to gain a false sense of safety and security.
“It’s like opening a crack in the door, and then the door is opened wide,” said Keri Jean, a homemaker from Elk Ridge, Utah, concerning the slippery slope of sacrificing freedom to gain perceived security.
To view the full AP poll results, visit:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie…
One Response to “Ten years after 9/11, two-thirds of Americans still willing to give up more freedom to fight terrorism”
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The thing is in the last 100 years the government has always had a boogeyman, whether real or imagined. In the 1910′s it was the Germans, in the 1920′s is was essentially anyone who didn’t listen to the government, 1930′s the rich because of the depression. the 1940′s the German/Japanese, 1950′s the North Koreans/Chinese, the 1960′s the Viet Cong, the 1970′s the Iranians, the 1980′s(late 80′s) the Iraqis, the 1990′s the Iraqi’s again, 2000 The Islamic faith as a whole, and 2010′s most notably Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
In the history of the world there have been three great holocausts because of faith. It always comes in the same fashion, a new leader of a major part of the world, the destruction of an important building and the blaming and attempted extermination of a world faith. The first occured around 100 AD, the leader Nero, the building most of Rome, the result the killings of a mass amount of Christians. The second occured from approx. 1939-1943 the leader Adolf Hitler, the building the Reichsteig, result the extermination of 6,000,000 Jews, and most currently the leader George Bush, the building the World Trade Centers, the result an attack on anyone who appears to be Islamic because they are Middle Eastern because Middle Easter, Islam and Terrorist now seem to have become interchangable in most coversations.
“Those who sacrifice liberty in exchange for security deserve neither.” — Ben Franklin
“When a governement is afraid of its citizens, that is liberty.
When citizens are afraid of their government, that is tyranny.” — Thomas Jefferson