Sand in my ...

Johnny Boy is absolutely right. I am pissed. I am just basically upset over the idea of freedom. What freedoms do we have? Speech, Religion, Assembly, Press? Which ones of those have we had to fight for? Well I will concede that at one time all of those were fought for, but what about now? When we say fighting, and even more, dying for the sake of our freedoms, what does that mean? Of those rights above and any other that you can think of who has the highest possibility to infringe on them...my best estimates say our very own government. When I want the right to free speech or the right to assemble, I tell the government to get off my back, yet I and millions of others close our freaking brains when the government ends a sentence with..."in the interest of our freedoms." We are not at war to protect "our freedoms," we are at war to possibly protect other's, for oil, for power, for world security. Any of those are possibilities and may be warranted and totally just, but for "our freedoms?" The best that I can see it, the main way to manifest our "freedoms" is to vote. Yet, less than 60% of Americans voted in the 2004 presidential elections. (By the way those were the highest numbers in 40 years) So, we don't want to exercise our freedom but we will close out eyes and ears to anything the government wants to do in the name of our freedoms. I guess that makes sense.

Maybe it is just me. I am a young, well off, southern, white, male. I don't have much to complain about in the realm of people withholding rights. So, my country better have more of an excuse than "we are going to war to protect your freedoms." I am not saying there are not good reasons. I am a pacifist, not that much. However, another right that I have failed to mention is one that falls in the Second Amendment. Don't I have the right to blow someones brains out if they infringe on my rights? Why do I need someone else to do that?

If the dozens of people that I have had tell me that "Muslims just hate our freedoms" are right, then why in the hell are we promoting democracy. A democracy is a rule "by the people." If "THEY" just hate our freedoms then wouldn't "their" beliefs be perpetuated through a democracy just as in a theocracy, a dictatorship or a failed state?

It is time that we drop these deep seeded illusions. Our "freedoms" are not being threatened right now. They haven't been since the maybe WWII and maybe the Revolutionary War. We will all go in a mushroom cloud before another country takes away a single one of my "freedoms." But I have seen our own country violate its own citizens right to vote, to assembly, to practice religion, to speak. Whom shall we fear?

I only have questions...I do not have answers. Well maybe one answer, it is time to cut through the bullshit rhetoric of fear and patriotism. We as a people need to be motivated to see what is going on in this world, and do something about it. Vote, assemble, Speak, Pray. Those rights are not being taken away unless of course we let our government do it. Do Muslims really hate our freedoms? If so, what freedoms in particular do they hate? If it is the right to vote, then they are pretty finicky. Is it the right to practice certain religions? That could be it, but could our radical theocracy have anything to do with that.

Now is not the time to be comfortable. If being afraid is what makes you shift in your chair then so be it, but now is not the time for young people to be idle. Economic Crises, Wars (plural), poverty, human rights. Just because I am nice an comfy in my apartment and my law school is paid for doesn't mean that I can remain quiet.

If I pissed anyone off, good. I have been wrong before and I will be wrong again. But the situation remains. That comfortable roof our have ancestors built, has reached it's warranty, and it is starting to leak. We better at least start patching before another storm comes. Or we may have to actually fight for those freedoms.