The following is an e-mail I received from my friend and fellow blogger, Brian McLaughlin. I liked it a lot, and with his permission, I am posting it here.
Back on the 11th, you shared this picture on Facebook. I prompted me to write this.
There he is, good 'ol Uncle Sam pointing at me telling me that he wants me to stop being afraid of of other Americans, religions, classes, nations and speaking out. Saying that we are Americans, act like it.
Kinda funny when you consider that it has been our government that has been doing their utmost best at keeping us on the edge of panic concerning other nations. The fear mongering concerning other religions is coming from our churches, especially from the evangelical fundamentalist Christian side of the house. The department of Homeland Security with their terror alert does not seem foster any confidence in the people of our nation that all that money that goes into our military complex is doing anything to keep us safe at home.
Don't be afraid, but that is the very direction of emotional travel they point to us as where we should be living our lives. I remember back to the 9/11 episode where immediately after the twin towers came down, the pentagon was flown into and the passengers forced the terrorists to fly the last of the three planes into the ground rather than taking out another target. The very next day the skies were empty of planes and it stayed that way for a week or so. Yes, it may have been necessary in a need for security of our airways but my emotion was such that our freedom was taken away that day and has yet to actually been returned. Our government on that day told us that we were Americans and that we should continue living our lives as normal while they shut down. Our leaders that day chose to protect their own back sides by closing down as to not be a target while telling the population to get out there in plain sight and keep the country moving. There was too much money to be lost if the the people themselves all of a sudden stopped working and purchasing the products of the wealthy businessmen.
The following weeks and months brought us to a point that all citizens became and were treated as suspects of terrorism. The patriot act was born and our basic right to privacy was attacked by our own government in the stated need of security of our country. Ben Franklin said “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.” We all look at Ben Franklin as one of our founding fathers and an important member of a group that helped us establish a nation that people of others nations respected the freedoms that were offered to its citizens, who knew he was also a prophet. He sure seemed to hit that nail on the head when he made that statement, because here we are in that exact place. Trading liberty for security!
The fourth amendment to the constitution reads “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
The Patriot Act violated the constitution when I put a blanket warrant over all communication in this nation. The replacement USA Freedom Act hasn't really changed a thing. Today we live in a country where the government feels no loyalty to the constitution that they vowed to protect and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
We have met the enemy and he is US !!!!!!!!!
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