“In real terms, if we had the right kind of political majority we could do real serious improvements. But the prerequisite to that is to substantially reduce the overextended military budget, and get back to where we were before 9/11. Yes we need to be able to defend ourselves and go to the aid of some allies, but the notion that America has to be the universal fixer everywhere in the world with our military is counterproductive, and only adds to our military budget, draining our ability to do anything else. “
After 9/11, many said freedom was a luxury, not a necessity, and we couldn’t afford the expectation of privacy,” says Scheer. “The American government is to be treated with suspicion, not the citizen. We want limited government and protection of citizens from the government. But we said we could no longer afford this because of terrorism. The people put the Fourth Amendment in the Constitution because they thought the king would come back and they said freedom was not a luxury for good times but a necessity for the worst. That’s the principle we violated.”
