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opinion:
our view
No more political
correctness
In the past we as
Americans have seen people of other countries practically brainwashed
by their own governments. We've seen it in countries like Cuba
and Iraq, where people have unsubstantiated faith in their leaders
and are suffering miserably because of it.
This problem is
slowly beginning to occur here in the United States, because
we are becoming too fearful to question our government's actions.
We live in a time
of political correctness, where things that we've said all
our lives could now possibly inflict some type of superficial
harm upon somebody else. Now we have to be careful.
But it is this
attitude that is destroying our sense of democracy. Many people
have spoken out against the war, such as Richard Gere at last
month's "The Concert for New York." Gere was booed
the entire time for sharing his beliefs of non-violence and
compassion.
This type of thing
is happening everyday.
People who don't
believe in war or who believe in Islam are quickly being characterized
as anti-American. In all actuality these people are the only
true Americans out of all of us.
Even at a time
where it is suddenly not popular to be against war or for
Islam, these people won't back down from their beliefs and
will continue to live life with all the freedoms guaranteed
to all Americans.
Wartime is not
the moment where we should stop questioning our government.
In fact, now is the time to find out what got us here and
what we're doing to get ourselves out of it, both now and
in the future.
Most importantly,
now is the time to examine what our lawmakers are doing. For
example, did you know that some of the new anti-terrorist
laws being passed are taking away some of our rights as American
citizens?
The government
has recently made it possible to read our e-mails, tap our
phone calls and limit our anti-government beliefs and this
is obviously not fair.
In fact, in the
wake of the events of Sept. 11, we have lost rights that conservatives
have tried to take away from us for years, but were never
successful because of our checks and balances system.
But with pressure
to do the right thing on them, both houses have passed an
anti-terrorist bill that will come back to haunt us somewhere
down the road.
The point of all
this is don't be a juggins -- a simpleton who simply lets
things like this happen because he or she is too oblivious
or too scared to go against the status quo and voice his or
her beliefs.
We believe it is
our right to voice our opinion however we deem fit and that
Americans should feel free to continue to do so, even if it
is not politically correct.
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