It is becoming very clear to me that we Americans are surrendering our most precious freedoms, the things which make being an American special, simply to assuage our fears.
The Patriot Act is the most despicable example of this new trend, but there are other signs of the coming collapse of genuine freedom, all in the name of fighting terrorism.
Two weeks ago, in Hamilton, N.J., a distraught mother wearing a T-shirt with the words president bush you killed my son and a picture of the deceased 24-year-old soldier, was detained after she heckled First Lady Laura Bush.
The woman uttered no threats. She hollered out - an offense one might think allowable to a mother whose son paid the ultimate price while in uniform. The woman, whose son died in February in Iraq while attempting to disarm a bomb, was hustled from the area, handcuffed and placed in a police van, taken to the station and charged with defiant trespass before being released.
Defiant trespass.
People attending most of the Bush campaign rallies across the country are now asked to sign a piece of paper avowing they will vote for the Republican candidate before being allowed into the arena to hear either of the Bushes speak.
If your mind isn't made up in the "right" way, you aren't invited inside.
This in a country the same Bushes claim repeatedly is the freest country in the world.
In New York City many local residents were mistakenly arrested as protestors during the recently concluded Republican National Convention.
The mayor of the Big Apple was quoted as saying that every police officer in the city did a great job, and that if a citizen was in an area where there were protestors, that citizen risked arrest - evidently even if the citizen was just going home or walking the dog. Stay in until the Bushes leave town, yo!
Closer to home, a former Seattle Times editorial writer who now lives in the Washington, D.C., area recently came to Bothell to defend her thesis that the internment of Japanese citizens all up and down the West Coast during the Second World War was necessary.
Michelle Malkin, who calls herself an author, went further, according to reports in her former employer's newspaper.
It was reported that Malkin told the Bothell crowd that "the use of profiling based on race, ethnicity, nationality or religion" is necessary in a time of war.
There was some disagreement in the audience, but it was reported that the suburban crowd "overwhelmingly supported" Malkin's contentions.
When white men blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, there was no mass roundup of Caucasians.
When Lee Harvey Oswald did or did not shoot JFK, there was no roundup of Caucasians in Dallas.
And in fact, during World War II, there was no roundup of German Americans or Italian Americans.
America is a country that has proclaimed itself to be the Land of the Free for more than 200 years.
It is the same place that barred blacks from certain public places in Cincinnati, Ohio, when I was a child.
I am no politically correct, limousine liberal. Anyone committing a violent crime should be arrested whatever his or her ethnicity or race.
But all folks of one race shouldn't be pulled over more often just because they aren't white.
And this principle is even more important in matters of national security.
As someone who flies around the world on occasion, I want the folks screening my fellow airline passengers to be diligent in their duties. And if someone is found holding weapons or explosives, I want such persons arrested. I don't care if they are friends of the Bush family or mullahs in their mosque.
But that is different from interning people without charges for years - something we did in World War II, and are now doing again in Cuba.
We are a country that was attacked by terrorists who lived and worked in Afghanistan. Within months we attacked Iraq and gave up the search for the architects of the evil 9/11 attack, believed to be in Afghanistan, where only a handful of troops remain.
We are in danger of losing the hard-won freedoms this country claimed to be based on but only started really implementing for all people of all races about 50 years ago.
There is a difference between freedom and license, just as a strong defense is not necessarily allied with mass arrests, internments and domestic snooping on citizens by Big Government.
A citizen who is unarmed should be able to attend any political rally and express himself as long as he isn't resorting to obscenities.
A citizen of Middle Eastern ancestry should never be arrested without charges unless there is a proven connection to a terrorist organization.
There certainly shouldn't be mass arrests and mass internments for little or no cause other than the arrestee's religion or original country of origin.
I supported the invasion of Afghanistan, and I wish we were still truly looking for Osama.
I support the arrest of real terrorists.
America needs to walk its own talk and honor the rights of free assembly for starters.
We owe it to all the people who have died over the years for what we keep being told was more freedom than is available in any other country in the world.
Smart people judge other people, and countries, by what they do, not what they say.
Saying black is white, even over and over, doesn't make it true.
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