How important is freedom and liberty to you? What is your definition of freedom, of liberty? What role does government have in determining those freedoms and liberties? Which of those liberties or freedoms are you willing to forfeit to the government and for what reason?
Is it acceptable to give away a reasonable expectation of privacy if you are calling a known terrorist overseas?
Is it acceptable to give away a reasonable expectation of privacy if you are calling your cousin Faid (not a terrorist) in Lebanon?
I accept that we have a line here that is very blurry. I am at heart a libertarian (not the Libertarian Party). I want very few things from my government. I want them to protect me from enemies, foreign and domestic. I want clean water and good streets. I want a fire department to help me if my house is on fire. The question here is, is listening in on phone conversations with known terrorists protecting the nation (me) from enemies foreign and domestic? I believe that yes, it is, and therefore I am willing to waive that liberty, with certain checks and balances in place. I am not naive enough to believe that my government does everything perfectly and never abuses its power, more directly that the men and women of the government abuse their power, but I do believe that with the right oversight we can strike the proper balances.
I am concerned about how we as a nation have been gradually giving more and more of our liberties to the government since the 20’s and in greater speed since the 60’s. We provide social security, assuming that our citizens are too dumb to provide for their own retirement. We provide welfare with very little if any incentive to get off of it. We have a drug prescription entitlement. Our government has agreed to spend over 3 trillion dollars of our money to float companies that have made bad business decisions. That’s $3,000,000,000,000. TWELVE zeros!!! We now have a president-elect who has stated that he wants a citizen’s defense force similar in size, funding and stature to our military. I’m not sure what that means yet, but I do know it is worth watching. He speaks of “spreading the wealth”. Unfortunately, our government is already way too good at that, but he doesn’t think it is good enough.
I love my country; I love being from the United States of America. In the past we were looked down upon because we didn’t meet the standards of Europe, even after WWI. After WWII that seemed to change, and the world at large began to respect and even fear us (as formidable advisories). Now, due to poor foreign policies we are not only not feared, but not respected except by a few. Why is that? I think that is because as a nation we have a short memory. We cannot remember the effort and blood that has been required in the past to preserve the freedom and liberties so many of us willingly hand over to our government. We have people in our country who feel we must cave-in to external pressures and be like everyone else in order to regain that international respect. I strongly disagree. We, as a nation, must continue to preserve and defend freedom around the globe. We must stand strong to our own internal politics of defeat and socialism. We must act as though we are worthy of being respected as a formidable foe or we are doomed to be attacked again and again both from outside and from within.
Pray for our country, pray for our leaders. Pray that we will have leaders who are willing to do what is needed to keep our country free and maintain our liberties.