- ("In my humble opinion, the greatest causalities
in the war on terror have been our freedom and sanity." )
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- The terrible events of September 11th, 2001 sparked George
W. Bush's war on terror and marked the commencement of the war on freedom.
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- Immediately following the attacks, countries in the western
world increased security exponentially. It had been too lax; terrorists
with box cutters were able to board planes.
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- Seemingly every object that could have potentially been
used as a dangerous weapon was kept off planes.
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- However, in August, it was revealed that a terrorist
plot involving liquid explosives had been foiled; some potential weapons
were overlooked.
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- Western governments reacted by banning beverages, toothpaste,
shampoo, hand creams, and most other gels and liquids-including suntan
lotion-from commercial flights. (With red hair and blue eyes, skin cancer
will kill me before terrorists ever get the chance.)
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- Are these new measures really needed? Should we continue
to surrender our freedom to the government? Are we really winning the war
on terror?
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- To quote Ben Franklin, "They that can give up essential
liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor
safety."
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- The terrorists' main goal is to make us fearful in order
to change our way of life.
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- So what does the government do to combat this terrible
foe? It feeds us fear in order to get us to change our way of life.
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- Maybe we will be safer; without our freedom, the terrorists
will have no reason to hate us.
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- The answer shouldn't be to ban all liquids and gels.
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- Of course if you strip everyone down and don't allow
anything on the plane there will be no acts of terrorism-that's not the
point. The intelligence agencies must protect the public from threats while
allowing us to continue to live normally.
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- We're treating every person as a terrorist, when 99.9999%
of passengers just want to get to their destination safely (and quickly).
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- The answer is profiling. Don't treat everyone the same;
those who are judged to be suspicious should be investigated further. Border
guards have been doing this for decades.
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- My concern is not necessarily with the specific restrictions
that are currently in place. My main worry is where this may lead. My generation
doesn't want to live in a police state.
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- What's next? What else will we give up to the government
so that it may "protect" us?
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- Governments should not restrict freedom in an attempt
to preserve it.
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- In my humble opinion, the greatest causalities in the
war on terror have been our freedom and sanity.
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- Brandon Trask is a grade 12 student at St. John's-Ravenscourt
School in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He has a biweekly column in Winnipeg's Canstar
Community Newspapers (The Lance, The Metro, The Times, and The Herald)
and also writes periodically for The Winnipeg Sun.
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