The real danger

Re “Zero Consensus on a Tribute,” July 6

The head of New York’s planned museum for the World Trade Center site, dubbed the International Freedom Center, explained its name by saying: “Our freedom was attacked on 9/11.” I’m sick of the “f” word.

Our buildings, our people, our nation were attacked. But the attack on our freedom has been an inside job.

The Bush administration has used this tragedy to curtail countless personal freedoms -- allowing arrests and investigations without just cause under the Patriot Act, punishing both the media and intelligence professionals that do not parrot the right-wing story, and infusing conservative Christianity into our public policy via faith-based social services, to name just a few examples.

Let’s stop talking about freedom as if it’s a commodity that someone can sneak in your house and steal.

The real danger to our freedom is the false patriotism that tricks us into surrendering it willingly -- and whether or not we build a concrete and steel monument to it is somewhat irrelevant.

Carolyn Almos

Los Angeles