The election has been over for a few weeks now, which means that we should finally get back to talking about things that matter. The country has a new president, and with that new President comes a paradigm shift. Donald Trump ran on a platform of American strength and security, a message that ultimately led to his victory. Although this will now be the over-arching goal of the next four years, it may be an indication of something more dangerous. The American people are afraid, and are now allowing that fear to interfere with policy.
Its somewhat understandable to be afraid. The last few years weren't the best as far as peace is concerned. It seems as though we have had to endure one massacre after another. With all the violence, shootings, and perceived terrorist attacks. The country was looking for someone to stand up and tell them that he was going to keep us all safe, but the question remains to answered as to whether or not that is what we need. The ultimate question that is being ignored in this quest for complete safety is "what are we giving up, as normal law-abiding citizens".
Ever since devastating attacks on the World Trade Center, America has been followed by the looming shadow of terrorism. In response we passed the Patriot Act, which allowed for unprecedented authority for the government to invade the privacy of citizens to find terrorists and make the country safe. Not the best decision in the world, but it gets a pass if its looked at through the scope of 9/11 America. Now, the new administration is gearing up to go at it again (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-29...), appointing two domestic spying advocates to top positions in the security world. THE FBI, NSA, and CIA are expected to get increased authority and a wider scope in the next four years. These aren't the only examples of fear dictating policy. For years, Americans have allowed the fear of gun violence to lead to increased restrictions on weapons and gun laws to the point where its is illegal to own air-soft and bb-guns, things that were once considered to be children's toys, in major cities like Philadelphia. We now fear immigrants so much so that many people are humoring the idea of putting a moratorium on certain groups from entering the country. The common thread that runs through all of these issues is fear.
America, for a long time, had nothing to worry about But a growing world brings growing threats, and here we are today. Ready to hand over our civil liberties so that we can go to bed at night with a promise of protection and the illusion of safety. We are cheering the infringement of our rights of privacy and protections against search and seizure so that the government can "go get the terrorists", the ones that haven't really done anything major to us for almost 16 years. We are blindly handing over our right to bear arms so that we can have a little more peace of mind when we are walking down the street. We are allowing our fear to infiltrate our countries values.
So the terrifying question remains. What's next? What else can be taken in the name of security? Soon, we will have the monitoring of text messages sent back and fourth cause it will help the government find out, who the terrorists are texting. Also, lets make it illegal to burn flags, because its "Anti-American" and only terrorists would do something like that. Then lets just keep going after that, and outright ban speech that could be damaging to America. Its a slippery slope we are walking on. We are giving up our rights to pursue perfect safety, when the concept doesn't exist. Its about time that we admit a sad truth. Bad things happen, and we are never going to find complete safety, so lets not loose ourselves while we are trying to find it.
