Excellent, Roger, thanks for the post!

"Roger Long" wrote in message ...
"Marco Leon" mmleon(at)yahoo.com wrote in message ...

Is this all "window dressing?" Sure it is. But it's a relatively small price
to pay to enjoy the freedom we have.

It's is NOT, NOT, NOT, a relatively small price. You've got it all EXACTLY backwards.

The terrorists could never take our freedom. Only we (or our government if completely ceases to become "we") can do
that. The terrorists are not powerful enough. They can knock down buildings, shut down city transit systems, kill
millions, and we will still be free if the country has the guts to keep ourselves free.

You are not talking about freedom but only the illusion of infinitesimally greater safety from violent acts that,
while they have a huge impact on the national psyche, are almost vanishingly unlikely to happen to any individual.
This illusion is created not by actually making us feel safer but by creating a pervasive atmosphere of fear such that
having freedoms taken away brings us back to where we were before. When something is taken away and then given back,
you haven't gained anything.

The price for this illusion is innumerable changes in small things that used to enrich our lives like parents stopping
along the airport runway to watch the planes with their children. Each may be inconsequential but in sum they make up
the essence of the freedom that this nation has always cherished.

The tragedy is that these changes have nothing, absolutely NOTHING, to do with increasing our safety and everything to
do with an illusion that is being increasingly manipulated by the government for purposes of achieving the power to
change the society in ways that would be considered radical if the party currently in power were not labeled
conservative.

Hitler, Sadam, and his ilk got their first grip on power by getting people to say, "Sure, the storm troopers are
obnoxious but they make the trains run on time and I've got a job now."

The increasing and widespread adoption of exactly the point of view expressed in your post is a far, far greater
threat to our nation than the terrorists will ever be.

No one can take freedom from a country as great as this one but we are free to give it up.

--

Roger Long