Patriot Act is a slippery slope
Timothy Chrestman--Daily Mississippian (U. Mississippi)
Issue date: 2/19/03 Section: Opinion
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My friends, are you ready to live in a world where one single person has so much power with no check or balance, a world where Big Brother is constantly watching you, without a search warrant?
If you are, I pray that you aren't the next on that list to lose your citizenship.
This is a slippery slope, and once you begin to concede basic civil liberties that this country has preserved since its conception in 1776, then you concede, little by little, your freedom.
At some point in time, there can be no more concessions if you are to remain a free subject of any country. Indeed, at some point you cross the line from democratic republic to a variation of a dictatorship; this country, through the Patriot Act, and its proposed prodigy, is doing nothing less then undermining the foundation that this country has preserved for more than two hundred years.
I ask again, are you ready to cross that line?
Kent Moorhead used a very effective and appropriate Benjamin Franklin quotation in his speech on Saturday, and I will leave you with that as the closing thought for today:
"Those who would give up essential freedoms for security deserve neither freedom nor security."
If you are, I pray that you aren't the next on that list to lose your citizenship.
This is a slippery slope, and once you begin to concede basic civil liberties that this country has preserved since its conception in 1776, then you concede, little by little, your freedom.
At some point in time, there can be no more concessions if you are to remain a free subject of any country. Indeed, at some point you cross the line from democratic republic to a variation of a dictatorship; this country, through the Patriot Act, and its proposed prodigy, is doing nothing less then undermining the foundation that this country has preserved for more than two hundred years.
I ask again, are you ready to cross that line?
Kent Moorhead used a very effective and appropriate Benjamin Franklin quotation in his speech on Saturday, and I will leave you with that as the closing thought for today:
"Those who would give up essential freedoms for security deserve neither freedom nor security."