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Animal Farm
In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, a serious question
has arisen for American citizens. Is sacrificing
freedom in the name of security worth the cost? There
are reasons to support both sides of this argument.
After all, people generally do not enjoy living
restrained, but what is the point of living freely if
those people are living insecurely? When that question
comes to mind, it is logical to think that security
measures are far more important. The individuals who
are solely focused on freedom fail to realize the
consequences of not sacrificing part of these
freedoms. They believe that their complete freedom is
more important than the safety of children, families,
and this great nation. This makes the answer to the
question abundantly clear. Yes, it is worth it to
sacrifice freedom for security measures, until
protection is guaranteed.
It makes perfect sense for American citizens to be
suspicious of virtually unfettered government
surveillance. The government has not done its job to
provide reasonable explanations about how it uses the
data of its citizens. They question whether or not the
Patriot Act is actually constitutional. It was created
after the 9/11 attacks to prevent terrorism. It
allowed the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to
not only receive the phone data of potential
terrorists, but also the data of any individual
considered relevant to an investigation. The
government has been extremely secretive about their
possibly unconstitutional surveillance, and at first
glance, it does seem to risk the right to privacy, a
deeply cherished American freedom. The government's
data-mining has been on what they call suspicious
activity. This includes seemingly innocent things such
as photography and note taking in certain areas. Most
importantly, some United States citizens feel that
they they are not seeing the government bring results
from sacrificing their freedoms, but rather it is just
excuses its actions for national security reasons.
Admittedly, the government was able to look up the
data for any individual in the nation for possible
terrorist activity. However, President Barack Obama
has ended the FBI'S free access to phone records. The
records will stay with the phone companies and can
only be accessed with permission from a federal court.
Also, there has been proof that confirms government
surveillance has been beneficial. Post 9/11 the
national security has helped stop at least 30
potential terrorist attacks on United States soil, by
conducting legitimate surveillance. Despite all the
complaints about the Patriot Act being
unconstitutional, there has been little evidence to
support these claims. As a matter of fact, there have
been continuous movements that make sure government
surveillance under the Patriot Act is indeed
constitutional.
The United States is heavily focused on its freedom,
inasmuch that it does not know how to guarantee safety
alongside. It cannot uphold its first amendment, which
states that Congress cannot pass a law that respects a
religion, or pass a law that prohibits the free
exercise of religion. The Mississippi HB2 law
prohibits local governments from protecting the LGBT
community against discrimination, for religious
opposition reasons. While the law supports the free
exercise right, it is still a law that respects
certain religions. Had the state of Mississippi been
willing to sacrifice part of this freedom, the
innocent LGBT community would have been better
protected. "It should be permissible, I'd argue, for
an individual or a faith-based organization to seek a
personal exemption from a law that would otherwise
threaten their religious identity. It should not,
however, be permissible for the same individual or
group to project that identity onto others by writing
their religious beliefs into the law itself." If
religion or other factors become part of the law,
there would be no point in having one. It could never
guarantee the safety of the nation's citizens. The
animals are like citizens of Animal Farm, who want
freedom and safety. When the hens "protested that to
take the eggs away now was murder", Napoleon proved
that the could not provide the animals safety or
freedom. His actions displayed that he would even go
against their strongest principles, and become like
man, before helping the animals. A promise for
security had been broken, and the officials gave their
attention to gaining more power, instead of finding a
proper solution. If one cannot guarantee safety, that
person cannot guarantee freedom either.
The ones in power cannot lose sight of the purpose of
freedom, otherwise it will lead to great downfall.
When Karl Marx created communism it was meant to be
the solution to inequality. It sounds excellent in
theory, but it is also unrealistic. One's desire for
power would make them lose sight of what they are
standing for. The irony in "ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT
SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS" proves this.
It does not make sense for things to be equal while
some things are more equal than them. Napoleon's
desire for power caused the great rebellion to fail.
He completely disregarded the goal of the rebellion,
and became worse than man, twisting Animal Farm and
the Seven Commandments into something they were never
meant to be. The Seven Commandments were principles to
be lived by everyday. The pigs lost focus of the
commandments and put more attention to gaining power.
They instead manipulated the animals into believing
they needed all the power to protect them and thus
changed the rules. "No animal shall sleep in a bed
with sheets", "No animal shall kill any other animal
without cause", and "No animal shall drink alcohol to
excess," are ways the pigs abused the animal's trust
and became more like man, and the pigs provided ironic
reasoning for these changes. An intensely debated
freedom in the United States is the freedom of speech.
What many people forget to realize is that freedom of
speech also applies to hate speech. While the Unite
the Right rally in Charlottesville was allowed to
express their intense feeling, they officials should
have interfered before the violence started. "Local
officials must rise to the challenge and ensure the
public peace through proper preparation, crowd
control, site-specific rules on what items are
allowed, and other reasonable steps to mitigate
violence." Instead, officials delayed the action to
uphold the freedom of speech, resulting in the loss of
3 innocent lives, and 38 more casualties. There will
be more casualties unless freedom is sacrificed. Even
the commandments were actually made to be security
measures but by refusing to sacrifice a little bit for
these rules, they became pointless. Airport security
checks were created to prevent potential terrorist
attacks like 9/11, but what they failed to realize is
that the terrorists "were not exploiting a weakness in
luggage screening, but rather a weakness in our
mind-set, our understanding and expectations of what a
hijacking was and how it would unfold." The TSA has
the right to check luggage and prevent people from
going forward, but it cannot invade one's rights in
any way. People will continue to abuse power and
invade rights if freedom is not sacrificed for
security.
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