Canadians are willing to give up civil liberties

A survey out this morning says 72% of Canadians are willing to give up some civil liberties in order to make the country safe from terrorism. I'm sure some politicians must be popping champagne with this news. I'd like to see in detail what "some liberties" really means to most of us.

I hate the notion of terrorism even though I fully understand why it exists. These people come from poor historically torn or corrupt countries. They have no cruise missles, F22's, nuclear power submarines, nuclear bombs or thousands of highly trained specialty forces...nor in most cases any serious money to get even some of these things ligitimately. They have no clout in the major governments of the world and cannot get what they want through ligitimate organizations like the UN and other so called "effective" structures even if that term is truely questionable these days. In fact they see all this as working against them. So they turn to the uneducated and "brainwash" them into suicide bombers giving them an effective bang for their buck. It renders all the high technology of our forces somewhat useless. This in turn tries to instill fear in Western countries and distrupt our economies and hopefully force the population to move our political thinking in a way more to their liking. In short it sells well with their "home audience" because it makes it seem like they are effectively fighting the power nations of the world. It would seem however, despite the many varied reasons for terrorism Al Qaeda just wants us all dead and that pretty much drives home the point why all this has come up.

They are not playing by our game rules so we label them "terrorists" and make sure the local population here sees it exactly like that. For the most part I tend to agree terrorism is like a cancer and does not work towards any sort of peaceful reconciliation with the countries/governments they oppose and it truely must be stopped. It is a genuine threat to peace. If we don't we'll end up living in semi-organized chaos. I think though, part of the solution is for us in the so called West to change as well. It's not all one sided since terrorism did emerge for a reason and so far no one seems to be identifying the reason and trying to deal with the root causes instead of just the symptoms. Bombing men, women and children in third world nations won't get anyone on our side. We are also too focused on the economic fallout and the overall money aspects despite all our claims about human lives and freedoms.

That being said giving up my civil liberties in order to fight these people suggests once again we are giving into them. On the one hand I don't really have a problem with more security cameras around public spaces so long as they are used for seeking out genuine criminals and these so called terrorists. However I don't want them to be used to just pick up anyone they think is suspicious or doing something the user behind the camera interprets as wrong... it then becomes a form of Big Brother... Their use must be regulated and checked.

When it comes to changing the laws we live under and losing rights in areas where we currently have freedoms it is another matter. Governments and corporations would love to be able to have more control over the population. We see that in dictatorships which are really the extreme of this direction. They keep the population uneducated, use force to keep themselves in power and instill fear to prevent any revolt. Well luckily much of North America is well educated but sometimes I think people rarely think outside the box. We live in a structured paradym and accept it without question. Our mass media and other institutions support this. The government does instill the fear or terrorism be it real or not. Given that reality we have to also realize one man's terrorist is another man's mercenary. So it really comes down to all of us to keep our government's focused on the right things and not accept everything they tell us with blind acceptance. In short it's imperative we be able to think for ourselves. The media too must ask the tough questions and not be responsive only to their sponsors. The government must be truely responsible to the people and not just to it's financial backers.

Giving up civil liberties might be the start of a dangerous road we may later regret going down. It's more evidence of the rising tide of Conservatism that's sweeping this continent and one that we should ensure is checked so it won't go beyond what is truely needed if it's needed at all. Canada is one of the best countries on the whole planet to live in and I wouldn't want to see it go from a shining example of human freedoms and respect of fellow citizens to one of suspicious fear and government control.