Our government leaders, caught up in the patriotic furor that followed the September 11 attacks, merely had to see the word “Patriot” in order to pass the USA PATRIOT Act without reading it.

There is nothing good about any person who insists on keeping secrets. Secrets give cause for mistrust, and if there is one thing that all people should strive to be, it is trustworthy.

This same rule applies to our government. Over the past few years, there has been a great deal of talk about the USA PATRIOT Act, which in theory is meant to better protect our freedoms by taking some of those very freedoms away from us.

There are those who love to say that if it will benefit the well-being of the United States, what is the harm? The question that you must ask yourselves is, “Exactly when will these rights that we lose now be restored to us?”

A terrorist threat, like the one cited by the Bush administration to justify this act, is a threat that we will never, ever be rid of. People who are enemies of life and justice will always exist; however, fighting them by stripping the people of their rights is not the way to accomplish a lasting freedom.

A government that has nothing to hide will hide nothing, and this is as it should be. John F. Kennedy once said, “We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it”; these words apply perfectly to our current situation.

The danger of concealing facts is the first brick on a very short road to a tyranny. Our government leaders, caught up in the patriotic furor that followed the September 11 attacks, merely had to see the word “Patriot” in order to pass it without reading it. I am proud that the only senator who did read it, in its entirety, was our own Russ Feingold. Naturally, he voted against it, and while I would love to believe that others would have followed suit, the darker, pessimistic side of me does not allow me to do so.

The fact is, the cage that we are now in is one that we built with our very own hands. The lesson here is that we cannot afford to become apathetic about our government. We complain that there are nothing but crooks in our government; I say that the crooks are in because we allowed them in. In fact, we put out a welcome mat for them.

If a people lose their concept of real freedom and then trade it in for the niceties of life, we cheat not only ourselves but the people who are going to follow us. Will our children really believe that cheaper oil was an adequate trade-in for their freedoms?

Some of you may feel that I am being too doom and gloom, that such things can never happen in the United States, and while I pray that it doesn’t, the evidence before me does not speak against such an outcome. We are still a very adolescent nation. We are awkward, we fumble, and we are unsure of ourselves. These crises of faith are trademarks of adolescence, and a country is not exempt from them. It is this time in which people, and nations, decide their fates. If we as a country not only allow erosion of basic freedoms promised to us, but encourage their destruction and allow them to fade away, we will be left with much to answer for from future generations.

This coming election will be a divisive one, and it will be a very ugly battle. All those planning to vote must consider these things. The economy and things of that nature can wait; this election will very likely determine the destiny of this country for the rest of its existence. We must ask more of our candidates. We must ignore the mudslinging, the dodging of pertinent questions, and we must stand firm that this country belongs to us, the people, and not to the people that we have appointed to safeguard the sacred trust of the United States. They are, in the end, merely trustees. We are the owners, and we must not let them forget that.

> Comments