Al-Qaeda has won. <-Revelation of phone records and tyranny since 9/11

[originalpckelly]

I have but one question for the reader, what do you personally believe Al-Qaeda's goal was on 9/11?

Plainly put, I believe Al-Qaeda wanted our nation to suffer. They wanted us to loose our comfortable lives and the government that made those lives possible. We have been their greatest ally in the achievement of that goal.

Today our nation learned, that our government has been collecting the phone records of millions of Americans. While that isn't exactly wiretapping, it is a disgusting destruction of liberty.

In the past few years, our people have lost sight of the truth. We have blinded by fear and hatred. Our President has taken advantage of this blindness, and used it for his own personal gain. Time and again he has asked for more authority, and time and again we gave it to him.

Now we realize how foolish that was. We will be no safer with tyranny than with terrorism. We have replaced one problem with another. And now we pay the consequences for our collective lack of character.

All Americans are now suspected terrorists. The only thing separating us from being considered a full "Al-Qaeda" operative, is a terrorist dialing the wrong phone number.

Al-Qaeda has won. Somewhere in a cave, Osama Bin Laden must be jumping up and down in joy, for he has caused the downfall of the most admirable and powerful example of liberty in human history, America.

Most people did not know responding to terrorists could lead us down such an awful path, but in principle such a response was an act of enabling tyranny. Terrorists use fear and hatred to get what they want and so to have tyrants throughout the history of man. Tyranny is both the arbitrary use of authority and the authority of the few or one over a larger group. Fear and hatred are the most deadly poisons to liberty because they enable tyrants.

Republics have fallen ill with hatred and fear many times before. Germany's Weimar Republic is the most powerful example. Adolf Hitler managed to stir a large majority of Germans into a frenzied hatred of the Jewish people and other minorities. He managed to use that hatred gain control of Germany, and then he used fear to keep that control. We all know the horrors of that time, but we also know our present situation is altogether different.

The Roman Republic may be the closest example to our nation's current state. The start of Rome's Empire, which would one day be ruled by the likes of Caligula and Nero, came with an act of hate by Rome's people lead by Tiberius Gracchus. Gracchus used the people to depose a fellow tribune who stood in the way of his reforms, and in the process he destroyed one of the Roman Republic's time honored traditions, the origination of legislation in the Senate. This act is widely recognized by historians as the beginning of the end for the Roman Republic because it opened the door for the instability of mob rule. It was only a matter of time before Gaius Julius Caesar rose to absolute power with popular support, and that was the beginning of the Roman Empire. While some may remember Rome's empire days as its best, those days were only the best for the people at the very top, but even for them it was unstable. Assassinations and forced suicides became common practice in Roman politics. The lower classes were even worse. Slavery abounded. The most horrible part of Roman society during the empire might be the Colosseum, where slaves would fight to the death for the entertainment of the people, a most barbaric practice. All this has been recorded throughout the ages in history.

The history of America in the next few years still remains to be written. It is altogether possible that we the American people may reverse the fall of our nation, but it requires the most difficult act. We must rise above our hatred of the terrorists and the fear we have of them attacking our nation again. Only then can we begin to defeat tyranny at home and terrorism abroad.

We must, for the sake of the victims of 9/11, pursue the terrorists and bring them to justice, but for the sake of those victims we must also make sure that this justice is of the highest integrity. Our nation has already allowed the profoundly inhumane treatment, and some might even say torture, of terrorist suspects. This allowance is symbolic of the blind hatred and fear of the terrorists we have, it has sullied the names of the 9/11 victims, and has shamed our nation before the world. It may not be as bad as other disgusting acts in history, but that fact does not make it any less disgusting or symbolic.

It is absurd to believe not pursuing Al-Qaeda is what they want, but it is completely logical to believe that they wish us to come down to their level and destroy our lives. The terrorists attacked us with blind rage on 9/11, and when we respond with the same rage we enable their tyranny. Our hatred has blinded us to the subtle destruction of our nation at our own hands. In pursuit of one tyranny we allowed another one to grow at home. It is only a matter of time before someone comes along, in much the same way as Julius Caesar, and takes absolute power with popular support.

Our President has taken some power, but it is not possible to call him an absolute dictator. The greatest danger our President poses is the one of creating precedent. His actions now, may be used later by someone else with the sole intention of becoming a dictator. We must respond to his actions with a united front. We must openly and fully condemn his actions, and if those actions have violated the law, he must be prosecuted. This will reaffirm our liberties and show the world and history that America will not succumb to the hatred and fear of the terrorists and their goal of destroying our way of life.