It’s your choice, and it always has been. If you like the way the United States is going; if you really don’t miss your constitutional rights; if you really don’t mind the possibility that you may have to explain your reading, Internet surfing, radio, TV, and movie choices; if you really trust those who walk the halls of power to take care of you, then you don’t have to do a thing. You can let things ride. Don’t vote, don’t participate in your government. In fact, you can stop reading here, because for you, everything is fine.
Personally, I miss the ability to hold a sign that expresses my opinion on the president’s parade route. I don’t care for the idea of “free-speech zones,” placed out of the way, so that my speech is effectively silenced. I do not want a Real ID; my plain ol’ Texas driver’s license is fine with me. I want my reading surfing, listening, and viewing habits to be my own personal business. I want to talk to the people I want to talk to, and I don’t want my home, my computer, or my person searched without probable cause accompanied by a legally executed warrant. I do not like it that I can be told not to wear certain clothing in certain places or that I own a T-shirt that is illegal because of what it says.
I am not pleased that we’ve been losing upwards of 1,000 service persons each year fighting an amorphous enemy whose only clearly definable characteristic is that he or she lives where there is lots of oil. I do not like having my bags and my person scanned and x-rayed whenever I travel. I do not think any of this is the “price of freedom,” nor do I believe that any of it is for my own safety.
I don’t like the idea that our legislators pass laws, which the president has sworn to enforce, and he instead attaches “signing statements” that tell how much, what parts, and whether he will do as he promised in a sacred oath on his inauguration day. Furthermore, I am really unhappy that I have told my legislators repeatedly that there is something rotten going on in the White House, and they have declined to look into the matter with any seriousness.
I want the government to stop spending billions of dollars to kill people and spend it on our own citizens, by making sure everyone has healthcare. I want our government to stop manufacturing "enemies" and start addressing education. I want the government to function the way it was designed to do, in the constitution that it keeps trying to abandon. I want the checks and balances back that many presidents since LBJ have been trying to short-circuit. I want a government that protects the weak from the strong, not the other way around, and I fail to see anything wrong with the things I am asking for.
Maybe you disagree. Maybe, by whatever mental twist or turn, you are able to follow the twisted logic that we must become less free to remain free, or diminish our own moral fiber to keep our country strong, but I personally am not buying this bill of goods.
And I wonder how long it will be before I become a “person of interest” because I am willing to say so.
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Comments: 46
What I want are less "Ask not what I can do for my country but what can my country do for me" attitudes and more "If I can't say anything nice I'm not going to say anything at all."
Yeh, I know, I know, that's not going to solve all of our problems but neither does bemoaning them. Offer to pay the health insurance premium for someone who doesn't have health insurance. Now that's something that would make a real difference today.
PAY IT FORWARD
I assume that that means you don't think there's a threat. I look at articles like this as suggestions for making America a better country. You can call it whining but it seems to me like a list of serious problems we need to solve. Talking about the good things about America won't make the bad ones go away.
I am ashamed that our elected officials take bribes and kick backs to make life easier for large corporations (and themselves) while allowing the average citizen, the ones who voted them in, to be trampled by the heavy boots of those same corporations.
I want the United States of America to be able to raise her head high when talking to other leaders around the world of Freedom and Liberty For All, which is something we will not be able to do for a very long time.
I want a President that can talk from his own mouth, in his own words and from his own heart and who doesn't make the United States a butt of jokes around the world.
I want our borders sealed not so much because of illegal Mexicans but because of the thousands of other illegal people who come here from all over the world who never even try to get citizenship.
I also want to win Mega Lotto, like I have a prey of a change with that too.
I want the United States of American to be proud again.
People don't want to have to open their eyes to the manner in which the executive branch has hijacked this country off the path of Democratic principles and exchange those principles for the seeds of Fascism.
These people have broken the Oaths they took to uphold the constitution.
Who said that, Spartan?
As for (see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil)...Kieran, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore. You're a good little Stepford child...of yes you are...yessss...tickle-tickle-tickle.
Congratulations you are a real patriot, though part of an endangered species solely by disinterested citizens and non-vocal voters.
My attitude towards voting changed as I got closer to thirty. I decided to be part of the process instead of just a bystander because I realized that the ocean is made up of individual drops of water all working together.
I'll be voting today on local issues; and I'll be voting one year from today on national candidates and issues.
Thanks for this article, Amy. The way things have been going in this country, we may end up being cell mates. 10
Spartan - I may only have a few brain cells left, but I'll throw in an Amen!!
The "free-speech" zones has been the biggest farce of all. How can you call it free speech when everyone is in a fenced in pen away from the action? These are not issues to be taken lightly. I know some think that giving up some rights because the country was threatened seems a small prize to pay, but I think that it is a huge price to pay since it degrades everything we are supposed to stand for as a people. Even if you believe we belong in Iraq, I wonder how we can be trying to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq if we are losing it here?
Great article.
So many well-said and accurate statements. The author of that other quote:
"It is the duty of every patriot to protect his country from its government" - Thomas Paine
Ron Paul is the only one willing to stand up for these ideals. People say he hasn't got a snowball's chance, but I'm still willing to bet he can do it. I'll be voting for him in the primary election... and doing the best I can to educate the public in the meantime.
I don't have money, but I do have time, a computer, and and Internet connection. That's all I can do to make a difference: write. Write a lot.
John Edwards has a real chance of upsetting Clinton in Iowa and that is exactly what MUST happen. Otherwise, we may actually end up with our first woman president, unfortunately this one will NOT represent change as the country wants, but more of the same corporate controlled governance we've been subjected to since Reagan.
FYI if anyone thinks our country is THAT bad, try living in another one for a while and see.
Dr. Samuel Johnson reputedly called patriotism the last refuge of a scoundrel. Ben
Franklin reputedly said that those who would sacrifice liberty for safety deserve, and will get, neither. George Santayana wrote that those who do not study history (presumably to learn from it) are doomed to relive it. all these aphorisms are applicable and true.
Real change will require more than a majority of Democrats in the House, more than a 60% super-majority of Democrats in the Senate, more than a Democrat as President running things from the Oval Office. It will require three things more - a commitment to govern from the center instead of the partisan extremes, constant and skeptical vigilance over the government by the people and the free press, and the revival of the purpose of the Constitution, whose preamble my generation was required to recite: "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." Get that - no national security, no free enterprise, no world police, no spreading democracy to nations that did not ask us for it. The Federal government under recent Administrations has done too much that it is not supposed to and failed to do much of what it is supposed to.
Time for another populist revival.
From the comments above (and yours) I would say that few have studied our history.
How about something like letting non-lawyers get voted into office and have all low paying short terms for all? While we are at it, lets get a law passed that everyone has to take a test for the position of office he or she is running for? Just think about what this small change would do for our country?
I was ready to fight and die for my country, but I was one of the lucky ones that came home again. If someone is not ready to provide us defense when called, they should think back why they can go from on city to the next without permission.
I want our government to stop taxing us to death to pay for dozens of un-needed social programs. If we didn't have to pay so much in taxes, we could afford our own health care.
Do you REALLY want the government to tell you which doctor you can see and which medical procedures you can and cannot have?
Why pay the government 10 dollars to do it for you, when you can spend 1 dollar and do it yourself?
As for the people who think it is unpatriotic to question our President and government - it is our job! And as Lydia quoted Thomas Paine, it is our duty to keep an eye on our government.
Jamie, don't worry, the way America works hurts our heads too and we were born here!
C'mon election day!! Vote early and vote often!
See my blog today on the Bill of Rights here at Gather and at my daily blog www.ExploreLifeBlog.com
Joseph