by Rick Scobey

Created on: August 20, 2008   Last Updated: August 30, 2008

Our freedom is constantly being threatened by two major forces: one internal and the other external. The internal force naturally is our own government. To illustrate what I mean, I would like to use the following analogy: picture a snake eating itself; it starts at its tail and continues toward it own head. Soon, the snake will eat its own head. The body of the snake represents our freedom. The snake's head represents our government. Our government's threat to our own individual freedoms has been mildly, if not strongly, activated by the reaction to terrorism and the incoming flow of illegal aliens from other countries, and even crime in our streets.

Crime is a constant daily threat to our local communities. The rising threat of crime in U.S. cities is, for the most part, due to a decrease in federal funding since most of money is being invested in fighting terrorism more so than crime in our nation. Manpower and technology are the most costly factors in fighting crime. Crime in our streets and neighborhoods will eventually threaten the freedom of law abiding citizens to freely move about in their respective communities. The high rise in crime and the lack of police manpower will eventual create "exigent circumstances" which is the rationale that courts use to empower the police, which I consider to be a step against our freedom. Thus our personal freedom is being threatened by two major forces in our communities; the criminal element and the lack of police.

The stated and federal criminal justice systems have become a threat to our personal freedoms, not only in the name of justice in the streets, but also in the interest of national security. The police, the prosecutors, the courts, and the correctional system, are part of our government! If it weren't for the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution, we would definitely be a police state. To give the FBI and police agencies the power to wire tap and invade our privacy in the name of national security is a step in the direction of "burning down the house to get rid of the rats."

The external forces that threaten our freedom naturally are terrorism, communism, and other nations that dislike the United States of America for various reasons. Even thought the cold war against communism is considered to be over, it does not mean it will not start again. I also tend to expect that the terrorists are working on a master plan to strike at the U.S. like they did on September 11, 2001.

Two kinds of external threats

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