With the rapid-fire pace of world events since Sept. 11 happened, it is no wonder people are willing to let the government do anything to protect them and their families.

Armed professional soldiers guard our secure facilities now instead of poorly trained and equipped rent-a-cops.

Attack jets patrol the skies ready to repel any threat to our boarders.

Identification checks have gone from a cursory glance when using a Visa to intense scrutiny to verify people are who they say they are.

The nameless, faceless fear that is terrorism has prodded Americans to wake up and smell the burning coffee of global politics.

These changes are necessary because the planet has become a much smaller much more dangerous place.

With the advent of telecommunications, events a continent away now occur live and in color on our televisions.

An insane megalomaniac can pick up a cell phone and cut loose a savage pack of killers with a touch of a speed dial button.

A fistfight breaking out in the Japanese Parliament causes the Dow Jones to drop a few hundred points in a single hour.

At what point does security stray over into paranoid self-destructive activities?

Facial recognition systems have been installed in ballparks and stadiums in addition to restrictions on coolers and backpacks.

A new national identification system is quietly being developed that will place all of a person’s personal information and vital statistics on the back of an ID card.

Employers are being granted broad discretionary powers to invade their employee’s privacy and to screen e-mail.

Even foreign students will soon have to prove not only that they are attending school but they will also have to give a justification as to WHY they are going to school.

In our rush to pull in the welcome mat and to secure our nation, we are fundamentally changing what it means to be America.

The individuals and their right to privacy and personal security are being overridden by the larger need to protect the nation.

The founding fathers knew that humans are fallible and only by reasoned discourse can we discover the best solutions for the greatest number of people.

By making snap decision on subjects that will have long-lasting repercussions, we are setting ourselves down a path that will lead to a reduction of the worth of the individual.

We are imprisoning not only suspected terrorist, but people who might be simply witnesses with no regard to their civil rights.

We are treat the innocent like the guilty!

If this headlong rush to change is not reasoned out very soon, we just might find ourselves sacrificing the needs of the individual for the greater good of the nation.

That’s the definition of Fascism.