This could well go under the "This Should Inspire Ray" thread of general story ideas, but the situation so affects everyone it deserves its own thread.

Citizens in Great Britain, and to a large extent the United States, are now not allowed to carry their own personal items, bought and paid for, on airline flights, INCLUDING FOOD AND DRINK, which, by the way, are not provided on any flight I've seen in the last few years. While you're suffering hunger pains, don't think to seek solace in a good book as those will soon be banned on flights as well.

Once at their destination, certain tourist sites are restricted IF NOT CLOSED ENTIRELY. I've just learned that twenty years after its full restoration and party to celebrate same, the Statue of Liberty is now PERMANENTLY CLOSED!

The future is here, and it ain't pretty! What version of "Fahrenheit 451" might be written to describe the state of the world now and how much worse it may grow in the next few years? How can we sufficiently provoke public outrage before losing ALL our hard-won freedoms?

hi, i'm new to these forums (obviously, just look at my post count). anyways, i agree with you that places such as the Statue of Liberty should not be closed off, but i also see why people are taking such measures in airport/airplane security. i'm sure you have read about the terrorist plan that sparked such upgrades in security (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060810/ts_nm/security_britain_usa_dc_7). i think it may be wise to make such changes for the safety of passengers.

In the 1940's when World War 2 broke out, anyone that was Japanese was put into detention camps. Businesses were closed, families torn apart. Even tho they were American citizens.

With the world situation as it is, certain freedoms get set aside. That's what war does. Large segments of the world hate American culture, specifically popular American culture. Nowadays, war is based in religious drives. Many freedom loving societies have floundered into moral bankruptcy. Churches in European countries are dead. England's empty churches are found everywhere thruout the week and Sundays. Yet radical religions are fast growing and fervent in their passions and causes. If you are worried that you can't have a bottle of soda on a plane trip, dont! Or that your phone may be tapped because your enemy may be somewhere talking along the same phone lines, and you are worried about whose tapping the phones, dont! Look outside on any major downtown street. It's all being photographed. Every move is being watched as you enter a department store. Why? Because someone is out to steal from you, rip you off, and maybe take your life, commit an abduction, a rape. It wasn't intended to keep tabs over you like Big Brother.

A great segment of people don't care anymore about the God of the founding of our country, or the God of Israel. Much of Israel itself has fall to apostasy. Hugh Hefners and the porn dealers run a large segment of young American culture. Some 3+ years ago Playboy decided to go full porn on cable because their portfolio for the stockholders was lagging. Some people want to argue that position. Look around. It's nuts out there. Porn was the driving force of the early expansion of the internet into wide commercial use. You want freedoms? Freedoms are God given, thru the moral intentions and causes of good people. There are far too many people out there with battering rams looking to break holes in the dam and let the waters of freedom run out. And they are integrated deeply into the fabric of our country. When Bradbury wrote about freedoms taken away in 'Fahrenheit 451', the freedoms were already taken away. He hit about a number of reasons why it happened. He used the hypnotic large screen TVs as a means to be caught up in a make-believe world, oblivious to the real outside. Discussed how because people become confused with all the things to read out there, it was better that those things be 'burned', removed, discarded. It would be different, perhaps, if we all lived very very long lives, and had time to fix things as they went along during our life times. But a new generation pops up very quickly, most without any early understanding of the moral implications of all that has come about to bring about this kind of society today. What is considered freedom today in many instances was considered fool hearted, stupid, and absolutely foolish in generations past.

The Statue of Liberty is not closed today because someone wants to take away your freedom. It's closed because someone wants to blow it up. My freedom is not being taken away from me by that other person. My freedom is being challenged.

I eagerly await the day when I hear one follower of Mohammad stand up and say this is my country too and the extremest Muslims do not speak for me and should be stopped at all cost. Until that day, and the current silence from that community is certainly deafening, I must assume that the lack of such feeling is passive support for the positions of the extremests. Its is time to fish or cut bait. The smell of fish is in the air.

You have a good point, Patrask. Weren't many Japanese in World War II outspokenly loyal to the U. S. and willing to prove their loyalty? How many Muslims do you see taking this position now?

As for returning to a better state of things, I hope to live to see America restored as it was following the bad old days of the 1930s to mid-1940s. In the early 1940s, California even had border guards to keep undesirables out--not illegal aliens, but BORN AMERICANS from certain states and economic groups. As this is no longer the case (at least, in California--but certainly hasn't changed enough--look at communities surrounding New Orleans following the hurricane Katrina disaster,) and neither is the whole red-baiting witch hunt of the 1950s during which Ray wrote "Fahrenheit 451," one can still hope the current state of things improves.

dandelion, food and drink are quite commonly supplied on scheduled international flights from the UK, so there's little risk of anyone passing out from thirst or starvation. I would be more concerned about the utter tedium of a transatlantic flight without MP3 player/walkman/book/newspaper!

These are clearly emergency measures in response to a specific threat, and they probably won't last forever, although I think the ban on liquids might be turn out to be permanent.

What I find rather strange is that electronic devices, formerly banned from hold luggage for fear that they might contain bombs, now MUST be carried in hold luggage.

To bring it back to Ray Bradbury for a minute: if books are banned on flights, there's only one thing for it: all passengers will have to memorise a book word for word...

Ask a Muslim with whom you are familiar, as to what happens to someone who becomes a Christian in their family, or circle of friends. The answer is always the same. Death. It's quite shocking. Go ahead and ask. Interested in what answers you get that avoid that situation.

http://www.carm.org/islam/terrorism.htm

This message has been edited. Last edited by: embroiderer,

“Freedom is the luxury of self control.”

If you cannot connect at this time to the link above about Muslims and their faith, it's because sites like these occasionally get damaged by those feeling offended that such passages are displayed. Instead of discussing them, their computer wiz-kids temporarily shut those sites down. Now THAT is Fahrenheit 451 at work.

there is a clothing site called onetruth.com.
even if you aren't a Christian (it's a Christian clothing company), the message of this shirt is still very profound. it has an eagle holding the word liberty and the sentence below it reads "because sometimes the things we call freedom enslave us" (http://onetruthstore.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=6).

i think this goes right along with what embroiderer stated in his/her second to last paragraph (the third post in this thread).

quote:

Dandelion says: 'In the early 1940s, California even had border guards to keep undesirables out--not illegal aliens, but BORN AMERICANS from certain states and economic groups'

It was all about the fruit...some of the border guards were privately hired. Mostly they just stationed themselves at key points on the main highways. See 'Grapes of Wrath.' (book, not the film)

Also, I think only the crown section of the Statue of Liberty has been closed, not the entire statue. If it has been closed totally, it will eventually reopen.

Terrorists will NEVER be able to make Americans and what America represents bow to their whims. Trust me on this. Communism failed to do it. So did Hitler, Pearl Harbor, even most of the things we created ourselves to defeat freedom, such as Senator McCarthy's erratic visions. You can still protest, you can still make your voice heard in America, without ending up in a mental hospital or a gulag. Or, as that singer once said: 'You Gotta Have Faith.'

Even cheapie Southwest Airlines offers peanuts and drinks to passengers...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Robert M Blevins,

The Islam/terrorism quotation site is back on. At least at this hour. http://www.carm.org/islam/terrorism.htm

In centuries past, Christians did equally bad things--the crusades, Inquisition, witch hunts, etc.--it's just the rest of us lose patience waiting 700 or 800 years for these turkeys to grow out of it and catch up with the rest of the world.

The thing that bothers me most about the restrictions in air travel carry-ons is that they seem to me to be REactive rather than PROactive: a guy brings a bomb in his shoes, so now they check everyone's shoes; someone tries to bring on liquid explosives, so now they check liquids.

Also, there is a very BIG difference between SOME so-called Christians in power abusing that power toward their own ends (not all Christians supported the Crusades, the Inquisition, etc. in fact many Christians died opposing these things); and what appears to be a concensus, or at least, a tacit support within Islam for these atrocities which include not only attacking a clearly-defined enemy, but wanton murder of innocent strangers.

By the way, Dandy, I'd be interested in knowing what you mean by "the rest of the world"?

Um, like everyone not still living in the 14th Century.