In the United States we are proud of our freedom. We salute our flag to honor those who have sacrificed to win it for us. We say a pledge to a flag which stands for the ideals upon which our nation was founded. We teach our children that they live in a free country and can grow up to do whatever they want.
Sure, ours is not a perfect country. Its founding ideals have never quite been matched by its behavior. In its early history this was most obviously marked by slavery, followed by genocide of the continent's natives, and discrimination that persists in some forms even to this day.
While these stories are old and well-known, the new atrocities committed by our country are in the same category: the infringement of people's freedoms. Just as slavery and the wiping out of native Americans was so broad as to be institutionalized, so too are today's misbehaviors. Let's consider just a few of them.
First is our government's incessant meddling in other countries. Yes, I understand that in many cases if the United States military weren't in some of those places (133 countries as of the time of this writing!) there would be anarchy and innocent people would suffer. I also understand the theory that our presence around the world is key to our security at home. However, our military is a weapon of destruction, and it is rightfully and thankfully good at it! Therefore, when it is interspersed around the globe at the whim of government officials over which the people of America have little or no control (and many times not even any knowledge), we are placing a match near the powder keg. The United States is not and should not be the Police of the world. We cannot afford it financially or politically. Thousands of incidents that go unreported to the American people serve to inflame populations against us. Some of these may arguably be necessary, but the vast majority are not. When an American G.I.'s life is in danger, and he or she has a near impossible task to distinguish friend from foe in a strange land, he or she cannot be blamed for the death of "innocents." The real question is whether or not the G.I. should be put into that position in the first place. If we are going to ask an American youth to be in such a precarious situation, we had better do two things: 1) be absolutely sure their life is worth risking by placing them there 2) defend them when they make the decisions we have trained them to make!
This brings us to the trampling of our ideals in the name of the fight against terrorism. Again, don't get me wrong. I don't believe in using kid's gloves when dealing with thugs. But once we suspend the rights of habeous corpus and start eliminating the rights of United States citizens to trials, representation, and the rule of law, we have become as bad as the terrorists we fight, and have surrendered our principles in the name of protecting them! The ends never justify the means. President George W. Bush has done massive damage to American freedoms by trampling all over the rights of individuals for the sake of fighting terrorism. When the government decides that it can do away with the rights of one group of citizens to protect those of another, how can we ever be sure they won't change the equation of who is protected and who isn't? I personally feel very uncomfortable when our government tells us it is exercising an extra-aggressive privilege for the "greater good."
Next comes the financial meddling by our government. The Federal Reserve "lowers interest rates" by printing more money. Each time this happens the money you and I have goes down in value. We can buy less with what we have. Meanwhile, the government contractors and financial institutions who receive this newly printed money get rich by receiving the money first and being able to spend it before prices go up. This effectively becomes just another "tax" on the honest, hard-working American who happens to NOT have access to government cheese. This same average American has to pay enormous taxes to finance not only the worldwide military complex mentioned above but to support the gigantic American entitlement-welfare state. This welfare state has grown up because politicians have gotten good at "selling votes" by promising special interest groups, campaign contributors, and inside dealers government programs that will "fix" their problems. Our federal budget is literally bulging with appropriations for things the government was never intended to do.
Laws, laws, and more laws. Taxes, taxes, and more taxes. And each and every day Americans lose a few more inches of their freedom. The "Republicrats" in Washington collude together to make it all work. Anyone who comes along and calls a spade a spade gets hammered down like a heretic in a religious cult.
Rome was originally a Republic. The structure of its government was able to contain its competing power factions for almost five hundred years. But finally, when the power struggle got too tough and dangerous, the people cried out for a savior. Tyranny to them was better than anarchy. So it became an Empire. Its people had traded freedom for security, and ended up with neither. Then the Empire collapsed, largely under the aggressions of populations it had surpressed, harrassed, and mistreated for centuries. At the same time its own people had lost their streak of independence and valor, having lived for centuries under totalitarian rule, til there was no population willing to fight for the preservation of something that had oppressed them in the first place. What began as a passionate Republic ended in tragic indifference. It is nearly impossible not to draw at least a small parallel between the history of Rome and the current United States. Such comparisons are not perfect, of course, but they offer warnings of at least some validity.
If we look to government to solve problems it has created, we are like a hypochondriac taking more and more medicines to counteract the side effects of others we have already taken. Eventually, we become addicted and numb, with barely enough energy to put on our togas and make our way to the Campus Martius to vote for yet another droid promising "change." It is time to stop medicating our symptoms by taking more of what caused our ailments in the first place. We must address the problem at its roots.
Freedom is under fire. Undefended, it cannot stand forever. Millions of Americans have died on bloody battlefields defending ideals we won't even protect at the voting booth. We have largely progressed from Republic to Empire. Now the "barbarians" around the world are agitated and spoiling for a fight. At the same time, apathy and gullibility are riding high at home. Meanwhile, the government grows in size and power, creeping, ever creeping . . . .
I want neither a Caesar nor a Hun for my master.
I want the Constitution. It was meant to restrain the government, not me.
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