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In honour of Guy Fawkes day, I present an essay, written for my Grade 11 English class, on why I do not trust governments.

My grandfather died in October of 2004. Up until five years prior, there was no cable television allowed in his house. Like so many of his generation, my grandfather was an avid reader. His favourites included the works of Jeffery Archer, Ken Follett, Tom Clancy, and George Orwell. And like so many that read Nineteen Eighty-Four, he developed a fear and mistrust of the government. Cable television wasn't allowed because he was sure of the fact that he and his family were being monitored through the TV. And while these particular fear seems irrational, it's origin is not. While I may not agree with his methods, I do agree with the underlying theme. Governments are scary. They are benevolent organizations, riddled with hypocrisy, corruption, broken promises and hidden agendas. They are comprised of men and women who I find myself unable to trust, resulting in my inability to trust the organization as a whole.

Just as in the world Orwell created in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, world governments have begun the invasion of our daily lives. In the days following the September 11th terror attacks, the United States government introduced the Patriot Act. This bill allowed government organizations such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA to reach into both public and private organizations and procure information about patrons at will. Another example of this level of invasion is Facebook. When the company was in the process of raising capital funding, they approached a venture capital firm which eventually invested in Facebook, receiving, in exchange, a sizable amount of the company's equity. In the months following Facebook's arrival on the mainstream, it was revealed that the aforementioned VC firm is owned by the Central Intelligence Agency. Meaning, of course, that the CIA has access to every byte of information that users place on their Facebook pages. Of course, all of this is done in the name of security. Let's say that the US government is looking for potential terrorists. Under the Patriot Act, it has the ability to go to a grocery store and find out the names of any purchasers of hummus. Or the addresses of people who check out books on communism from the library. Doesn't that make sense. No. What purpose does reading people's grocery bills serve? So what if they read about communism. My family and I have engaged in both of the "suspicious" activities described above. Does that make us a terrorist cell? Are we suddenly the enemies of capitalism? The Junior Antichrist Brigade? Again, no. The only purpose this type of law serves is to aid in racial profiling. None of this information is relevant to tracking down terrorists. And even if it did, it removes the privacy of the normalized many to track down the radical few. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Those willing to sacrifice a lot of privacy for a little security deserve neither privacy nor security."

Another, more obvious side effect of the attacks on September 11th was the invasion of Iraq by American soldiers. President Bush, recognizing the opportunity presents to him, quickly assembling the armed forces and sending them into Iraq, supposedly in search of Osama Bin Laden. Unfortunately there was one, itty bitty little problem. Bin Laden wasn't in Iraq. It was public knowledge that, at the time of the invasion, Bin Laden and his followers were hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan. Bush, using the opportunity presented by a "War on Terror", began nursing his own private agenda. Bush was not the only leader who has exploited a situation to achieve personal ends. Indeed, governments across the globe have used these tactics since the days of Christ. Governments, while meant to serve the people, place vast amounts of effort in serving their own means. I cannot support this. I cannot stand behind a system that pretends that it cares about my needs and concerns, while working only to achieve those that the politicians want met or filled.

Take a look at newspaper archives from the lead-up to one of the more recent elections. Throughout the month of campaigning, the candidates made a myriad of promises, each made to counteract and discredit those of their competitors. The different parties promised tax cuts and the like, while claiming the others wanted to perform actions the population would find unfavourable. One of the most prominent Canadian examples of this was the 2004 Ontario Provincial election. Dalton McGuinty, leader of the Liberal Party, made dozens of promises about lowering taxes, ranging from those supporting education to those supporting healthcare. The public took to the promises like an obese child to a Big Mac, with similar results. As McGuinty and his Liberals entered office, still holding these promises in full view of the public. And yet five years on, the taxation has only gotten worse. It seems as though McGuinty had discovered the power of lies. By manipulating the views of the public, he has been able to secure not one, but two terms in the office of the Premier. McGuinty employed hypocrisy and deception to create a guise of good intentions and receive goodwill. Mr. McGuinty is not the first to employ this technique. For generations, politicians have lied to their constituents, with mixed results. None the less, it is clear that these tactics are ground into the DNA of those who dream of a career in government. Why would we trust these people? These people who make a living off perfecting the art of lying. These politicians, whatever party they may belong to, do not promote themselves through honesty. I do not believe in a system that works like this.

The goal of a governing body is to serve those who fall under it's authority. Decades ago, there were many governments who worked to achieve the goal of this statement. Today, you'll be hard pressed to find this attitude from anyone, save small town mayors. The world is rampant with examples of the government working to serve their own ends rather then those of humanity, or simply their own citizens. In the late 1980's the then Soviet government created a nuclear fallback system called Perimeter. In the simplest terms, Perimeter is designed to strike back when all other components of the Russian military failed. During a scenario in which major Russian command centers have been destroyed, the Perimeter sequence can be activated by any employee of the facility. After that point, the launch of Russia's 12,000 plus nuclear warheads is controlled entirely by computer, with heavy offensive concentration toward the United States. Perimeter is still operational today. This is not a defence mechanism approved by the now democratic population of Russia. This was a system created by the Soviet government to serve the wishes of the bureaucrats. This is not dissimilar to the Iraq War. The American government, meant to be "for the people, of the people, by the people", is acting in a manor that is frowned upon by the majority of "the people". And yet what power do the people have to change this. Sure, there is the quadrennial election, and yet we have already seen that these politicians are experts in the field of appealing to constituents during these periods. In reality, the people hold no control over the goings on in a government, even one of the democratic nature. The powers that be are going unchecked, serving only to create more chaos then had existed before.

I have never understood how governments can act in such a manor. These are the people who are supposed to be working toward the betterment of mankind, and yet have served only to cause so many to lose hope in the goodness of people. I do not trust organizations that require a mask of deception to get by under the scrutiny of today's public. I cannot trust governments, and I fear the lengths that they will go to in order to achieve selfish ends.