Thursday is the designated time for our nation to offer thanks and gratitude for all it has been given, but I have decided to go one step further. I will prove my gratitude by offering a proposal that would, if properly implemented, accomplish the government’s main goal over the last two months — the reduction of fear among Americans. In many ways, it is merely an extension of what we are already doing.

The government is currently involved in the civil war of Afghanistan, having bombed and destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure and helped remove the decidedly anti-American government from power. This move was a good start. But we cannot find the dozens of people who might have been involved in the Sept. 11 bombings, and we may not even know them if we saw them, and our actions may have incited Islamic groups to future terrorism, and our bombing may plant the seed of revolt in the minds of millions of Middle Eastern children, and there is no way to gauge the potential for terrorism among these children. Therefore, more action is clearly necessary.

To alleviate these problems (and several others), I propose for our current military alliance to enslave all Middle Eastern Muslims for the purpose of Western economic benefit. When compared with the status quo, I find this proposal to be highly advantageous for all parties involved.

For the West, the benefits are obvious. With all potential terrorists under close watch by Western slaveholders, the chances of them perpetrating another attack on the United States are all but eliminated. With a firm grasp on the primary source of the world’s oil, as well as the labor to produce it, we can abandon those expensive “clean environment” energy ideas and work to repair our battered economy.

Slaves in states without significant oil, such as Afghanistan, could be put to work growing crops and raising livestock for consumption in the U.S. This would ease the burden on American agriculture and allow our glorious suburban explosion to continue unimpeded.

The proposal may also be beneficial — or at least not detrimental — to the enslaved Muslims themselves. After all, many of them are already our economic slaves, driven by American interests in everything from cheap Arabian oil to cheap Afghan heroin. Actual slavery by the West would only cut out the middlemen of OPEC and the handful of Middle Eastern billionaires like the bin Ladens.

This new slavery could ensure better work conditions for the Muslims as well. They would never need to worry about food, shelter, medicine and clothing as many do now. Though this may seem inefficient economically to the United States, providing these goods directly would eliminate the need for expensive and dangerous “humanitarian” missions like the one in Afghanistan — in which we found the need to blow up half the country in order to safely drop food to the people.

While this proposal so far solves the economic and social problems for America when dealing with foreigners, it has not dealt with the danger of terrorism and other crime at home. We have already thrown out due process and attorney-client privilege for some suspects, and we have passed an anti-terrorism bill that basically gives the FBI free reign in investigating anyone in the country. These are all excellent steps. But once again, the government has not gone far enough.

Based on the relatively minor outrage these violations of civil liberties have caused, it is clear that the words of Patrick Henry are outmoded; Americans today will invariably choose security of life over liberty. Therefore, I propose placing video cameras in every room of every home, workplace and public space in the country, along with microphones to capture any statements of sedition. Then we must erect giant billboards along every street and highway, painted with a stern portrait of John Ashcroft and the words “Big Brother is Watching You.” If the last two months are any indication, the public will blindly follow the government wherever it wants to go in this matter — or any other.

Thus, this proposal alleviates American fear, brings security to the Middle East and improves the Western economy. Some might say these missions are better accomplished through a kinder and more understanding foreign policy, through the punishment of the perpetrators of terrorism rather than the entire country in which they live, and through less economic greed and dependence on oil. They might say the best way to achieve lasting peace is through removing the causes of hatred, rather than creating more of them, to be benevolent rather than dictatorial.

Such people are clearly weak and unpatriotic, and should unquestionably be imprisoned for sedition against our great nation.

Matt Lynch ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in English and political science.