Drifting toward Communism - Essay Example

Drifting toward Communism Is America at risk of losing its freedoms and moving towards being a socialist/communist state? The answer is yes on both counts and no particular political ideology is blameless. The liberal wing of society would quickly strip away the constitutionally guaranteed right to bear arms if it were able. Additionally, they would institute the ideology of Karl Marx, which advocates the equitable distribution of wealth, in regards to many aspects of American life. A classic example is the movement to socialize health care. The right wing has actively advocated subverting the rights contained in no less than five of the first ten amendments (the Bill of Rights) to, as they claim, ‘protect’ citizens from terrorism. Both these groups combined are actively attempting to convert America into the totalitarian, communist society that many have fought against in the pursuit of the very freedoms the nation is supposed to stand for. The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states, “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” (“The Constitution”, 2006). This, as were all of the first ten amendments to the Constitution, was added by the Founding fathers so as to provide a more clear definition of the specific rights guaranteed to Americans. Obviously, the right to own arms was of supreme importance to the Founders given that it was listed second only after the freedom of religion and speech was documented in the First Amendment. The Founders knew that by ensuring the right to own arms, citizens would have the ability to protect themselves from that which might endanger their life, liberty or pursuit of happiness. This could include bodily protection from persons and animals or from an oppressive government that threatened the freedoms outlined in the Constitution. It has been argued that the citizens of the country no longer have a need for arms such as they did 230 years ago. No hostile Indians and little threat from wild animals; the government is stable and elected by a democratic process and the citizens of the country have the most powerful armed force ever assembled by humankind in addition to several levels of law enforcement that protect it. It is also argued that the right to own guns has become a detriment to the safety of society which is in opposition to the intentions of the Founders. Though on the surface a somewhat valid argument, the underlying rationale for the right to keep and bear arms remains an essential element for the protection of individual freedoms, which the Founders foresaw. An example can be found the first time gun control was enacted in the U.S. Following the Civil War, many Southern states passed a law that forbade blacks from owing firearms. Because of this, they had no means by which to protect themselves from radical white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan. Today, minorities of all descriptions including Muslim and homosexuals are better able to protect themselves from hate groups because of their constitutionally guaranteed right to own firearms (Fulk, 1993). Many examples of human rights violations have been documented in all parts of the world following laws that banned citizens from owning guns. In 1911, Turkey enacted gun control legislation which led to the extermination of 1.5 million unarmed Armenian citizens of that country by 1917. In 1929, the Soviet Union enacted gun control. From that year until 1953, over 20 million unarmed people identified as political non-conformists were murdered by the state. Approximately 20 million citizens in China were killed for the same reason from 1948 to 1952 following gun control enacted in 1935. Gun control was enacted by the Nazi regime of Germany in 1938. From that time until the end of World War II in 1945, untold millions of Jews, homosexuals, gypsies, politically-defined mentally ill people, political non-conformists and others considered less than ‘normal’ were exterminated. In 1956, Cambodia enacted gun control which led to the eradication of more than a million of its ‘educated’ citizens from1975 to 1977. Similar genocidal events occurred following gun control laws enacted in Guatemala in 1964 and Uganda in 1970 (Fuller, 2005). Safety and security is dependent on the right to bear arms. Police departments are under no legal obligation to protect anyone or any group and usually are only able to react to a crime that has already occurred, take a report and investigate. “Governmental police forces were created to prevent and break up riots, and to keep a general sense of public order. They were never designed to stop criminal acts against individuals and, accordingly, they do this job poorly” (Fulk, 1993). There is about one police officer available for every 3,000 citizens in a given city; therefore, personal safety is the responsibility of each person alone. The hallmark of American society, in which its citizens have historically taken great pride, is the fact that they are self-reliant and strongly defend personal liberties. Gun control is but one case in point of an American society that is moving away from these attributes which have defined the nation’s ideals and towards the belief that the government can best deal with its problems. Some people choose to accept threats to their well-being as their fate then depend on the justice system to make everything right. Others, however, choose to defend themselves and their property. Both personal choices are the right of every American, at least for now. Many American citizens would throw away hard fought for freedoms by denying the constitutionally guaranteed right of gun ownership. They would do so without regard to the possible genocidal consequences as exhibited by historical examples or without concern for the safety of their neighbors and countrymen (Fulk, 1993). The term ‘universal health care’ is comforting. Nothing is more important to people than their health but more than 45 million Americans have no insurance and many more are under-insured. Socialized medicine seems like a grand and compassionate concept until one examines the consequences incurred by the countries who have implemented it. One of the first countries to provide its citizens universal health care was the Soviet Union. Following several decades of government supplied medical care, today, “the Soviet Union is one of the few countries in the world with a declining life span and a rising rate of infant mortality” (Sowell, 2003). Other countries such as Canada and Britain offer cradle-to-grave health care which has proved very costly for taxpayers who must wait to be treated in substandard facilities for days or weeks at a time. Universal Health Care dispenses with a person’s personal choices regarding medical care and gives government bureaucracies the authority to make these very personal medical decisions. Individual freedom to choose physicians, facilities or specific treatments is lost in such a system. When people allow the government to take responsibility for their health care, it must surrender individual rights and allow the government to micro-manage every aspect of medical treatments they incur. If there are millions of people that can’t afford health care, the government certainly could not reasonably afford universal coverage for all nor could those persons. Under this system, those that could not afford it in the past would suddenly be paying for their own as well as everyone else’s health care in the form of higher taxation. Instead of having the choice to whether one should buy food instead of pay health care premiums, the government would make that choice for them. They would be healthy until they starved. Health care for all Americans is indeed important but must be based on American ideals. The free market system allows for higher quality. It also allows for more technologically advanced medical care than does the socialist system as evidenced by the universal health care experiment conducted by other societies which value their individual freedoms less than Americans do. It is because health care is important that citizens should not want their doctor, in effect, being employed by the government in an over-burdened, under-funded system that allows for more government intrusion and less individual freedom. “Universal Freedom is the only proper moral and political foundation for health care policy. Universal Health Care must be rejected as a government threat to our liberty” (Ralston, 2005). The PATRIOT Act became federal law in October, 2001. It was quickly accepted by Congress just a month and a half following the September 11 attacks. Pressure to pass anti-terrorism legislation prevailed over the need to understand what the 342 page Act entailed. Most Congressmen admit to not have reading the Act before voting to pass it. The PATRIOT Act, as many citizens and legal experts alike have argued, violates the fundamental rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s first ten amendments, the Bill of Rights (Savage, 2006).  This includes the freedom of speech and assembly (First Amendment); the freedom from unreasonable search and seizure (Fourth Amendment); the right to due process of law (Fifth Amendment); the right to a speedy, public and fair trial along with the right to counsel and to confront the accuser (Sixth Amendment), the freedom from cruel and unusual punishment (Eighth Amendment) and freedom from punishment without conviction (13th Amendment). According to the Justice Department, the PATRIOT Act gives support to and encourages enhanced sharing of information among various law enforcement agencies at the local, state and federal levels. In addition, this law assists law enforcement in their efforts to “connect the dots” from a wider scope of agencies when assembling evidence so as to “develop a complete picture” regarding possible threats from terrorists (Ward, 2005). The PATRIOT Act gives law enforcement more latitude when attempting to intercept transmissions of ‘suspected terrorist’s’ discussions via electronic surveillance. Agents of the Government can now secretly tap into any citizen’s phone calls or internet communications including all visited web sites (Rackow, 2002). If directed by the Justice Department, police officers can enter people’s homes without benefit of a warrant and even seize their belongings and not ever have to inform the homeowner of the search. Individuals as well as religious and political organizations can legally be spied on by law enforcement agencies whether or not those agencies can produce any evidence a crime has or is planned to be committed. In addition, citizens are denied their Fifth Amendment right of due process by the Act. They can be forcibly detained and refused access to an attorney with no evidence being supplied by which to justify this previously illegal action. Critics of the Act suggest that is in contradiction to the tenants of the First Amendment. As an example, a citizen can be identified and treated as a terrorist if they are breaking federal law such as trespassing on public property during a protest when a federal official is injured, not by that person but simply injured during the protest. This allows any person who was exercising their constitutional right of free speech to be arrested and detained indefinitely without benefit of legal counsel.  Though the Justice Department disagrees with this assessment of the Act, it is conceivable that a person could be prosecuted as a terrorist if that person played a part, however unintentionally, or is present while another person is injured while making a political statement. The Justice Department insists that individuals cannot be arrested if they are involved in a peaceful protest. The Department claims that domestic terrorism regulations instituted by the PATRIOT Act “is limited to conduct that breaks criminal laws (which results) in death and was committed with the intent to commit terrorism” (Ward, 2005). The ‘intent to commit terrorism’ is an ambiguous phrase open to wide interpretation as are many aspects of the Act which causes many to question to what extent civil liberties are affected by it. A close examination of the Act, which the members of Congress did not do prior to voting, confirms that those that champion civil liberties as such are justifiably alarmed. Libertarian organizations such as the Civil Liberties Union claim that the Bush administration has a proclivity for secrecy and rejects the concept of transparency. The PATRIOT Act has reproved its agenda for the “outright removal of checks and balances” (Etzioni, 2004: 9). Conservatives are alarmed as well including Republican Representative Bob Barr, who is best known for leading the attempt to impeach President Clinton. Barr had led a group named “Patriots to Restore Checks and Balances” which focused solely on challenging the renewal of the Patriot Act last year (Lakely, 2005). While that Act was being formulated, the Justice Department requested that it contain provisions which allowed the Department to detain suspects indefinitely without having been charged with a crime. The Act, in its final version, allows for an individual to be detained for an indefinite time for violating a slight technicality of an immigration law. If the suspect for whatever reason cannot be immediately deported because, for example, they are legally in the country but had an insignificant flaw in their documentation, that individual can literally be lawfully detained for life. The attorney general simply must certify once every six months that this person is a ‘threat’ to national security (“U.S. Detention”, 2002: 472). As an illustration of the scope and magnitude of this problem, a Wall Street Journal story reported that seven congressional Democrats filed a request from the U.S. Attorney General so as to ascertain the status of more than a thousand detainees in federal facilities. The request was granted after the congressmen cited the Freedom of Information Act. According to the report obtained by the lawmakers, “some detainees have been denied access to their attorneys, proper food, or protection from physical assault” (Levy, 2001). Some had been kept confined to solitary confinement though they had not been formerly charged with a crime. Numerous detainees of Arab decent were allowed one phone call attempt to an attorney per week. However, if they could not reach their counsel, they could not call back until another week had passed. This treatment is a clear violation of the Fifth Amendment right to due process of law. Though these detainees were not U.S. citizens and not entitled to such constitutional protections, many wonder how the country will be perceived by those it hopes to convert to American style democracy if it doesn’t apply its own rules to all persons. Wadsworth Publishing conducted a survey among experts in the field of criminal justice. According to its findings, 95 percent believed the PATRIOT Act was passed without the thoughtful consideration of the impact this legislation had on public policy. Most, 74 percent, responded that the PATRIOT Act violated the rights of individuals and another large percentage felt that laws already on the books, if implemented, could adequately and equally protect the country from terrorism (Thompson Wadsworth, 2003). One can surmise from these findings that those experts surveyed supported the government’s endeavor to protect the nation from future terrorist attacks but also felt that the Act is a threat to the nation’s freedoms. The name itself, the PATRIOT Act is an acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. The label for this law was cleverly designed and packaged to enlist broad support from a nation that is generally vulnerable to patriotic propaganda but even more so at the time that it was so swiftly enacted. Citizens and legislators were all too eager to submit to the rhetoric that suggested that sacrificing a certain amount of freedom was a small price to pay for security. The words of Benjamin Franklin, described in the following paraphrased quote, ‘those that give up liberties for safety deserve neither,’ were obviously disregarded by the proponents of the Act. The arguments given by those in favor of the Act are easily reasoned and justified but it is clear that the war on terror the U.S. is waging has caused irreparable damage to the civil liberties formerly guaranteed by the Constitution. America is losing a grip on its freedoms such as those that have been recently stolen by the Bush administration. The right wing has done its damage and the left wing is waiting in the shadows to steal more away. If the PATRIOT Act is allowed to stand in addition to gun control and universal health care advocates having their way, who will apologize to all of the people who gave the ultimate sacrifice for freedom that was so casually thrown away? References “(The) Constitution: The Bill of Rights.” (2006). Cornell Law School. Accessed December 10, 2006 from Etzioni, Amitai. (2004). How Patriotic Is the Patriot Act? Freedom versus Security in the Age of Terrorism. New York, Routledge. Fulk, Austin. (1993). “Gun Control vs. Our Freedoms.” Gays and Lesbians for Individual Liberties. Accessed December 8, 2006 from Fuller, Al. (July 23, 2005). “Gun Control Revisited.” Odessa FactSheet. Vol. 44. Los Altos, CA: The American Horse. Lakely, James G. (June 14, 2005). “Conservatives, Liberals Align Against Patriot Act.” The Washington Times. December 8, 2006 Levy, Robert A. (October 9, 2001). “The USA Patriot Act: We Deserve Better.” The Cato Institute. December 8, 2006 Rackow, Sharon H. (May, 2002). “How the USA Patriot Act Will Permit Governmental Infringement upon the Privacy of Americans in the Name of ‘Intelligence’ Investigations.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review. Ralston, Richard E. (December 7, 2005). “Universal Freedom: The Only Hope for Health Care.” Americans for Free Choice in Medicine. Accessed December 8, 2006 from < http://www.afcm.org/universalfreedom.html> Savage, Charlie. (April 30, 2006). “Bush Challenges Hundreds of Laws.” The Boston Globe. Accessed December 6, 2006 from Sowell, Thomas. (May 6, 2003). “Universal Health Care.” Jewish World Review. Accessed December 8, 2006 from Thompson Wadsworth. (December 3, 2003). “Thompson Wadsworth Criminal Justice Survey.” Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company. “U.S. Detention of Aliens in Aftermath of September 11 Attacks.” (April, 2002). The American Journal of International Law. Vol. 96, No. 2, pp. 470-475. Ward, Elaine N. (February 7, 2002). “USA PATRIOT Act of 2001.” The University of Texas at Austin. December 8, 2006 Read More