Normally, this would be the beginning of yet another column that would lead the masses to accusing me of being a communist, a liberal, a fascist or possibly a nice blend of all three. Today, however, it’s the beginning of a new me, a me who is suddenly a big-time supporter of guns and the National Rifle Association.

As much as I’d hate to admit it, those guys were so amazingly right. The Bill of Rights may be pretty unclear as to what the right to bear arms really means and to whom it is granted (militias or regular old citizens), but regardless, I think we should all listen a little closer to Charlton Heston.

So why am I suddenly on the side of all things unholy? Well, perhaps because sometime in the last nine months, I’ve been relocated from boring old Iowa to the middle of the Soviet Union. There are now demands from President Bush and director of Homeland Security Tom Ridge to look into the laws preventing the U.S. military from acting in police capacities.

They are in agreement that the possibility of needing such a performance from the military is remote, but there’s one problem.

The concept of remote doesn’t seem to mean a whole lot these days. We’ve reached a point where the mere threat of terrorism has led to silent amendments to the Bill of Rights, restricting the Fourth Amendment rights of suspected terrorists (read: minorities and political dissenters) and virtually obliterating due process in America’s courts.

What America is morphing into is downright Egyptian.

In 1981, Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was assassinated and was immediately replaced by Vice President Hosni Mubarak. The name should sound familiar because Mubarak is still president. The reason for this is essentially what President Bush is calling a “remote” possibility – the beloved tool of the dictator: the state of emergency.

After Sadat’s assassination, Mubarak declared Egypt to be in a state of emergency, giving the president all sorts of shiny new powers and the ability to restrict the press, imprison people without trials or habeas corpus, hold rigged elections, postpone them indefinitely or just rack up points on the pinball machine of evil in any way he wanted. These powers are protected primarily by the ability of the military to coerce citizens – the same possibility Bush and Ridge want to “look into” for “remote situations.”

It sounds like a good reason to start paying more attention to the NRA or even your local militia movement. Bush’s plan, remote as it may be, is a plan for autocracy and martial law. Autocracy and martial law are things that could be absolutely essential to protecting my freedom?

If that’s the case, I’ll move to Iraq or Egypt. I could be free all of the time. If only civil war was beneficial to my freedom, I could just hop a flight to the middle of the Sudan and wander around free as a bird until I got blown up by a land mine.

The emergency powers President Bush wants are the kind that virtually no one can be trusted with. We managed to get lucky with Abraham Lincoln breaking the rules in wartime, and as a general rule, we’ve managed to avoid dictators, although my new conservative friends would probably savagely pummel me for excluding Franklin Roosevelt, another emergency power recipient.

FDR might be the best example of why we should not even look into expanding the military’s power to engage in domestic law enforcement. After all, look at the results of the New Deal. You don’t even have to look into history, because many of them are still with us. What better reason to avoid expansion of powers than the threat of them lingering for years? Who really wants the military to be policing us for decades to come?

Power corrupts, regardless of who holds it. So NRA, you might want to keep a close eye on those guns of yours. I’m not saying you’ll need them, but I am saying that whole “last line of defense against tyranny” seems to be getting a lot closer to the top of the national page.

President Bush and Tom Ridge, please stop. Looking into expanding these powers is like peeking inside of a Christmas gift the night before you unwrap it. Why stop at one? If we start ignoring restrictions on the military, how long until the Third Amendment goes out the window, and I have to spend my night with soldiers in my apartment?

If giving the government ungodly powers to restrict everyone’s liberty is the only way to secure our freedom, then we’re inhabiting a paradox.

By restricting the rights of your own citizens, President Bush, you are letting the terrorists win.

Tim Kearns is a senior in political science from Bellevue, Neb.