Trying to uphold the individual liberties of Americans

 

December 29, 2005 – In response to the December 24, 2005 report by The New York Times that the National Security Agency has been engaging in a much larger domestic spy program than the Bush Administration admitted to only a few days earlier, White House spokesman, Allen Abney, offered this response.

 

“We’re not going to comment on the news stories that may of may not focus on classified intelligence operations as part of the war on terror.  In a broader context, this administration has fought and will continue to fight the war on terror while trying to uphold the individual liberties of Americans.” 

 

If the government is trying to uphold liberty, than who controls your individual liberties?  The federal government; that’s who!  And if the federal government controls liberty, if it can suspend freedom whenever and wherever it wants just by waving its compelling interest wand, then I hate to break your heart here, but you are not free! 

 

Freedom demands that each individual should be free to do as he or she pleases so long as he or she does not directly harm others. In the view of our Founding Fathers, societies and governments infringe on individual liberties whenever they tax wealth, create penalties for victimless crimes, or otherwise attempt to control or regulate individual conduct which harms or benefits no one except the individual who engages in it. This type of deep respect for individual liberty is why our nation’s first Revolutionary War was fought. Freedom insists that the people control their own individual liberties rather than relying on the government to try to uphold individual liberties.  When the government controls and grants liberty, than it can suspend individual liberties and lock up the people, whenever it deems it in the public’s interest. 

 

I’m outraged by how many of my fellow Americans actually support domestic spying without probable cause.  The attitude of “if you have nothing to hide, why not let the police search you” has become so pervasive in the United States that I am becoming more convinced with each new day that I’m surrounded by enemies of authentic, constitutional freedom and liberty.  There are just too many apathetic Americans that are foolishly deceived by the tyrants in Washington DC who mimic freedom and liberty just often enough to pacify the masses while tricking the apathetic into believing that the federal government is inherently good, when it is the exact opposite.

 

Today, I consider myself a frustrated member of the irate minority that Samuel Adams spoke of when he said, “It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds.”  I’m frustrated because I fear that any opportunity to reclaim liberty peacefully has been permanently lost in the United States.  The people’s Heartland has been hijacked by the government’s Homeland, and most people who call themselves Americans, simply do not give a damn.  By the time they wake up to the true nature of the government’s intrusion into their lives, the government they now applaud, they will surely abhor.