The
recent revelations about domestic spying by the National Security Agency, which
is feeding the fear of individuals reminded me of the following statement,
"Government is never so dangerous as it is when giving you what you ask
for." I have seen and heard so many people say they can live with this
sort of tyranny because it makes them safe, but in fact we are neither safe or
free from fear as long as the people continue to accept this sort of
governmental intrusion of our privacy. Simply saying that this spying is being
done for a good purpose does not make it the right thing to do and misleads the
average citizen to believe the government is working in his best interest. I
however, cannot agree that the government is working in our best interest and
am convinced, that we are in trouble as a democratic people because we have
abrogated our freedoms to the whim of the government and its unelected
bureaucracy. Perhaps Thomas Hobbes was correct when he wrote, that the Natural
State of Humans was to be driven by passion rather than reason. This attitude
Hobbes argues, would lead to a "war of all against all" (bellum
omnium contra omnes) and in such a state, people fear death, lack the things
necessary to commodious living, and accede to a sovereign authority, to whom
all individuals in that society cede some rights for the sake of protection.
I
believe that while, we and our politicians talk about preserving our Republican
form of government and individual freedoms bequeathed to use by our founding
fathers, that are based on an alternative to the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes
written by John Locke and state that citizens "[people] are sovereign and
government can never have the power to take for themselves any part of the
people's property without the consent of the people," we have moved away from the founders beliefs and now find
ourselves a nation and political system that men such as Jefferson, Mason, and
James Monroe would no longer recognize. In many ways through our predilection
for governmental regulations and protection, or by acquiescence to the will of
government and the disuse of the right to popular sovereignty by the citizens; democracies
and republics die. You need only look to history to find examples where under
similar stresses Republics in every case failed and were replaced by various
forms of tyrannical rule.
We have evaded our responsibility and the government has assumed powers that we have passively let slip away from our control. Private telephone communications, photographs, and other personal intellectual properties that the government has collected via our phone records or Internet activity are legitimately the property of the citizen. What Thomas Jefferson once said over the issue of Slavery, I now say over the issue of governmental intrusion in the lives of the citizen " I tremble for my country." The Constitution opens with the words "We the People" for a reason and now is the time for the citizens of our great democracy to step forward and say no in one voice. Only by taking a unified stand and communicating our desire, for an end to this over-reach of governmental power, to our elected representatives can we regain control of our government and ensure the continuation of democracy and freedom.
Mark R.
Day
10 June
2013
Lynchburg,
VA
No comments:
Post a Comment