This time of year many of us are planning to visit family and need to decide whether to drive or fly. If you decide to drive you won't need to worry about the government taking a scan of your nakedness or strangers touching and feeling, over and around your private parts.
For those who choose to fly, they will endure unimaginable personal indignities all in the name of collective security. This is just one of the newest intrusions of our civil liberties that are being exploited under the guise of the War on Terror.
I thought this War on Terror was about foreign enemies, so why are the American citizens the new suspected terrorist? All citizens who choose to fly are now suspected terrorists and must submit to humiliating invasions of their privacy. This war on an invisible enemy has made us all suspects in the eyes of our government and they are more than willing to exploit it.
We teach our children that no one has the right to touch our bodies, especially our private parts. Most of us also tell our children never to allow someone to take a nude photo of them because once the picture is taken, it is out there forever.
So now we adults are faced with this new dilemma if we choose to fly. Do we allow our government, in effect, to take a nude photo of us or 'opt out' and have a government employee frisk our body like a common criminal?
The headline that said it all was on the Drudge Report the other day . It was titled - The Terrorist Won! This headline was under a photo of a nun standing on a black mat , legs slightly apart while a government employee was kneeling down, feeling up the nuns legs.
Some people say, "What are you ashamed of?" or "I'm not ashamed of my body." All I have to say to these people is the first thing Adam and Eve did, once they gained knowledge, was to cover their nakedness. It is the one thing that separates us from other living beings. Do you see animals covering their nakedness?
On the other hand, some people say, "I'm willing to do anything to keep us safe." or "These dangerous times call for extreme measures." All I have to say to those people are those wise words from Benjamin Franklin: "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."
If our government truly has our best interest at heart or they really care about keeping Americans safe, then why is our government unconcerned about the free flow of millions of undocumented, unchecked foreigners that simply walk over our borders? Or why, after nine years, has our government failed to punish the captured perpetrators of 911 while slowly removing the liberties of innocent American citizens?
I guess after we allow our government to poke, prod and uncover our nakedness we will know how it feels to be a cow. I just hope we don't have a food shortage.
(Cindy Johnson is a community columnist for The Minot Daily?News)