Has the war on terror destroyed the basic underpinnings of our democracy? Have the "terrorists" won?

Given, we are not a pure democracy; our founders created a system to balance the fluctuating will of the masses against the needs of the few. Underlying this is the assumption that a well educated and sufficiently knowledgeable populace can make meaningful decisions balancing liberty and security.

When the decisions are made out of the public square in absence of meaningful review, with no recourse, or way to remedy falsehood, and those who involved are gagged by fear. How can we do our job as citizens?

Part of the problem is the way we have chosen to talk about and deal with the acts that we currently call "terrorism"; something that I touched on in the blog post, Terrorism is a criminal act, and terrorist should be treated like the common criminals they are.  We have elevate these acts as something abnormal, what we need to understand is that they aren't. They are acts that have taken place throughout humanities history. By elevating we give an excuse to those who would grab and consolidate power. 

Eventually we need to address this on national level, how can we govern ourselves if we are not given the information needed to do so.  We can handle the truth, we have to.



These are some some of the thought I've had after reading the The Economist article Secret government: America against democracy originally shared by +Tim Bray on Google+ 





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