EVERYONE'S A TERRORIST NOW

If your holidays consisted of caucus results, Congressional recesses, and secret legislation viewing, then this post will most likely not surprise you in the least bit.  However, if your news proficiency was lacking over the past few weeks, don't you worry, Uncle Austin is here to fill you in.

In recent weeks, Congress passed the Defense Authorization Bill, continuing the efforts to fight terrorism on a global scale with tactics including enhanced interrogation and the elimination of Habeas Corpus for suspected terrorists.  We've seen bills like this before: efforts to combat our enemies that completely violate the dignity of "suspected" criminals and tarnish our reputation of standing for equality and freedom.

But the neo cons needed more to fulfill the lust for their ultra-heavy militaristic addictions.  To really give the terrorists a kick in the crotch, they added that these measures can be applied to anyone; however, instead of knocking the gonads of terrorists, they missed their mark and racked the American people.

Now, according to this new bill, the military will gain the right to detain any U.S. citizen without the proper warrants if that person is suspected of being a national security threat.  Ergo, if Grandma spews hateful jabber about elected officials at the supermarket, it's off to Gitmo for her.

But wait, the hero of this story, Barack Obama, will save Grandma, won't he?  Actually not.  Obama signed this bill into law, stating that he did not support the bill and will not use it's power.  The problem: even if Obama doesn't use his new authority, the next president probably will.

This new source of power for the Commander and Chief and the military is easily one of the greatest violations of the Bill of Rights in recent history.  Now, our protection against the powers that be in this country are no longer guaranteed. Like so many measures before, the government is using this defense bill to slowly strip away our God given dignities in an effort to combat an unspecified, undefined enemy.

Yet even with its evident problems, this bill highlights a larger issue that is at hand in our government and in our society.

"They who give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."  When Ben Franklin uttered those words, it was as if he knew our country would seek to limit the rights given to its citizens in the means of "protection" and "security".

Ever since its creation, America has always needed an enemy to face.  First, it was the British.  Then, the Germans followed swiftly by the Japanese.  The Soviets, Communists, and Chinese followed, and now, it's Muslims and "religious extremists".  The problem with our enemies now is the same one we've faced in the past: they are generally not as bad as we make them out to be.

Locking Japanese citizens up in internment camps and arresting communists simply because of their political beliefs, at the time, seemed necessary to protect the country as a whole.  But as we face this country's next great rights battle, a battle I suspect will be used to lock up Muslims and supporters of Islam, we must stop to address what drives this need to always be fighting a villain.

The catalyst: fear.  Fear drives our foreign policy and causes us to act irrationally.  9/11 angered this country and drove us to find a new enemy, even if that enemy was unjustly accused.  Because of the actions of a few select people, we have demonized an entire sub-sect of the global population to feed our ever-growing fear.

So, instead of attacking this bill because of its contents (which should be done), perhaps we should instead look at the reasons for the passing of such bills, and look to solve that reasoning.

We face major security problems in this country, but the only way they can be solved is through negotiation, understanding, and a willingness to admit that America isn't the center of the world.