Goodbye Civil Liberties

Many average Americans are more than willing to give up their civil liberties and privacy, to one degree or another, if it means they will be 'safer'. And they would certainly be reasonable in doing so in light of the fear mongering and general paranoia that has become part of the collective consciousness of this country since 2001.

What we in the United States must come to realize is that this surrender of civil liberties-- fundamental rights on which this country was founded-- truly is the slippery slope to fascism. Fascism doesn't happen overnight and it is not necessarily obvious to a population when it does occur. Many average Americans believe that they would certainly notice if their government began to reflect the qualities of fascism- it would be quite obvious, would it not?

The language and rhetoric of the Bush administration (and the political elite in general) does not seem-- at least to the average American (*)-- to be the language of fascism. But if we are to understand the motives of the Bush administration, if we are to look beyond the rhetoric and peer deeper into the forces and influences that drive them to do what they do, to say what they say, and, more importantly, to say what they say in the way they say it, we must have historical context (see my previous entry, The United State of Amnesia).

The average German in 1939 did not consider the language of the Third Reich to be the language of fascism. It was the language of nationalism-- patriotism-- and a language that was quite appealing to the average German. Many parallels can be drawn between the erosion of civil liberties in Nazi Germany following the Reichstag Fire of 1933 and the erosion of civil liberties we are facing today in the United States following the terrorist attacks of 2001. Both the Reichstag Fire and the September 11th attacks are invoked again and again by the Third Reich and the Bush Regime, respectively, in a calculated method of fear mongering with the goal, whether consciously or subconsciously, of achieving a consolidation of power within the executive (see my previous entry, Signing Statements).

The surrender of our civil liberties is not a solution to terrorism. If we wish to take the problem of terrorism seriously, we must examine why we were attacked. We must take an honest, objective look at the world and how we exert our influence on it. Military aggression and a 'war on terror' are not the answer-- this only stokes the fires of American resentment. The attacks of September 11th were 'blowback', a direct result of American influence and foreign policy.

I challenge the reader to look beyond FOX News and the Bush rhetoric to find a deeper historical context for the current condition of the United States and our position in the world. Maybe surrendering our civil liberties now will lead to a safer tomorrow, but we must look beyond tomorrow. We must look to next week, to next year, to the next generation. We need long-term solutions and ideas, and it is up to each of us to educate ourselves. FOX isn't going to do it for us.

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* I use this phrase 'average American' persistently not to be condescending, not to put myself in any way above the 'average American'. Quite the opposite, I believe the average American is more than competent but that it is the mainstream media, the rhetoric of the Bush Regime, and lack of historical context (again, see my previous entry, The United State of Amnesia) that lead to a general misunderstanding of the position of the US in today's geo-politcal climate.