The years since the World Trade Center attacks on 9-11 have seen the greatest attack on our civil liberties since our Founding Fathers blessed us with them some 240 years ago. The NSA recording our personal phone calls, military assault equipment in even small town police departments, plans to put thousands of drones patrolling our skies watching our every move, and the never-ending push for socialized health care. What are they so worried about?
Ten years ago when our national debt was much less than now, the Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan group of economists, warned of a looming catastrophe if we didn’t reign in federal spending. Obviously the folks we send to Washington D. C. didn’t listen. When you add the advertised $17.4 trillion to the $4.5 trillion balance sheet of the Federal Reserve, plus the many trillions of unfunded future liabilities of Social Security, Medicare, federal and military pensions and benefits, plus who knows what else, it is a crushing debt burden for even the USA. Estimates of the total debt, with these and other unfunded liabilities included until the year 2034, range from $50-70 trillion and I have read estimates much higher going further out time-wise.
What does this have to do with personal freedoms? The government has done the math and knows an economic disaster or outright collapse is imminent. To protect us from the inevitable wave of mass starvation and social unrest, they are putting in place now the civil infrastructure needed to provide for our security.
Ben Franklin once said “Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.” In the end, he will once again be proven prophetic.
Michael H. Bond
Snohomish
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