What happens when we ask the government for protection? Will they swoop in and comfort us? Will they provide us with resources to make things better? Is there anything they do now that keeps us truly safe?
When I go through TSA at the airport, I rarely feel very safe by their actions. I’m not discounting the fact that because TSA is there, it may discourage people from bringing knives or guns on board a flight. However given their 95% fail rate, as determined by the Department of Homeland Security, I don’t feel very safe. Every time a stranger in a uniform sexually assaults me, I wonder why this is necessary. Did I not just walk through an X-Ray machine? Did some jerk not just thumb through my book to make sure none of the pages were cut out to conceal things? But of course, I can’t argue with them or I’ll get the special private screening. Just put the freedom in the basket and comply in order to get to the plane.
Let’s next examine the NSA and their massive domestic spying program. I’ll admit that I don’t expect anything I post online to be considered “private”. Facebook and the information we feed it is open to the public, regardless of your “privacy settings”. But they obviously don’t limit themselves to social media. Millions of phone records, collected without warrants, are just stored at taxpayer expense. Waiting to be used against people when the timing is right for the government. But how far will they take it? It starts with protecting you from “terrorist”, and no one will argue. Then they will justify an expansion for murderer and rapist, and who would argue? But where will they stop? What’s to stop them from collecting information on their political opponents who they deem “dangerous” or those who have a criminal record, regardless of the infraction. Even after they have collected this data, have they stopped anything? Did they stop the Florida nightclub shooter? Did they stop the Parkland school shooting?
Next let’s examine Police Departments. I would like to start by saying I don’t dislike the police or the officers themselves. But they are too complacent with injustice out of fear of losing their jobs, like anyone else would. Their jobs have become too overburdening to be effective. They waste massive amounts of time on “crimes” that have no victim. Every cannabis bust further erodes public trust. Every unarmed American they shoot, deepens this divide. Let us not forget police can, at will, seize any property they think was involved in or come from a crime. The burden is placed on the citizen to prove their innocence, which is a blatant violation of due process. How is the public supposed to trust the largest and most violent gang in America? Who are they now protecting and serving? They are obligated to enforce freedom-infringing laws passed by politicians furthering their agenda. They are serving the politicians and lobbyists who focus on ways to control and master the public.
Of course, evidence that the government fails to protect people is shown by the not too distant past. In 1936 Franklin D Roosevelt said, “Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.” He, of course, didn’t remain indifferent when they rounded up American Citizens of Japanese descent and forced them into camps for our protection. Was this done in the spirit of charity or done out of a paranoid delusion of safety? Or when American Citizen of different skin tones peacefully protested to be treated the same, the all loving government showed they cared by using fire hoses and attack dogs to attempt to push them back underneath the ruling class.
The Government doesn’t want to see us free. They want us to be in fear. Because it’s only when we are in fear, are we willing to forfeit our rights for security. Only in fear, can they be seen as protector and not dictators. Both Republicans and Democrats have failed to protect the people from an authoritarian government. Until we tell the politicians that they do not control us, they will continue to corrode our rights until there are none left. It’s time we change the way we vote, it’s time for a new party.