“There is perhaps no greater threat to freedom then complacency. We now have a generation of people who know very little, if anything, about the severe struggles endured and the high price paid, in blood, to gain the freedoms which we now take for granted. And so, another threat now raises its ominous head.

The generation entering the twenty first century will be the freest in the history of all world. But not only that, they will also be the greatest abusers of freedom in the history of our world.

When a people who have forgotten the price of freedom begin to abuse it, there will be those among them who will suggest that the only way to curtail the abuse of freedom is to restrict it. It is an argument that sounds good but only at the superficial level. It is an argument that sounds compelling to those who are in a panic over the increasing crime, lawlessness and corruption now rampant in society. And it is an argument which gives an easy way out for those who fail to see how people can be changed for the better without coercion of conscience.

In summation, then, as we enter the third millennium, we do so with two enemies to freedom. The first, is the reality of our taking freedom for granted; the second, is our abuse of freedom.

It will be an easy matter for most people to accept a restriction of liberty of conscience if they are persuaded that it will make the world a safer place. But will it? Or can it? “ (Elliot Douglin, The New World Economic Order, 1997, p.31-32)