We're Not as Free as We Used To Be

In a First Amendment Center/AJR survey, nearly half of those responding said they think the First Amendment goes too far in the rights it guarantees. And about the same number said the American press has been too aggressive in asking government officials for information about the war on terrorism. (AJR - Too Free?)

We don't need to invite the world's huddled masses; we ourselves are turning into a shivering, whining huddled mass...

The freedom celebrated on July 4, 1880, entailed a person’s right to live his life any way he chose — responsibly or irresponsibly, healthy or unhealthy — so long as his conduct was peaceful. Drug laws were nonexistent because freedom entailed the unfettered right to ingest harmful or unhealthy substances.

Unfortunately, in our time Americans have rejected our ancestors’ philosophy of freedom in favor of a “freedom” in which the state’s primary role is a paternalistic one. Today, the “freedom” celebrated is the collective power of the state to take care of people in society by taxing them.

John Quincy Adams’s statement to Congress on the Fourth of July, 1821, that America does not go abroad “in search of monsters to destroy” is now considered a quaint and obsolete philosophy of foreign policy. “Freedom” now entails an enormous standing army whose mission is to invade and occupy foreign nations with the supposed aim of taking care of their people, protecting them from tyranny or oppression.

How is the domestic policy and foreign policy celebrated as “freedom” by Americans today different from the philosophy that guided King George in 1776? (FFF-Hornberger)

A government vested with the power to fix everything also then has the power to break everything

Crashing around with impunity overseas acts as a societal corrosive that eventually eats through the firewall of us and them, here and over there. A government that can get away with it “over there” will eventually bring it home and turn the technology and tactics on its own people.

Also, when you allow government to advocate for certain protected groups instead of for the good of all, and when you cheer when government tramples the rights of your hated political enemies, how can you complain when that monster goes rogue and starts goring your sacred cows?

Jonathan Turley gives us 10 Reasons Why The US is No longer The Land of the Free.  It's full of good civil liberties stuff, and although he's a liberal, he's an honest one with a strong libertarian streak.  

The kooks at MSNBC and Daily Kos stood up on their hind legs and cheered him when he was calling for Bush and Cheney to be tried for war crimes.  They changed their tune when he lambasted Obama over his serial violation of our civil rights.  Those same lefty loons now resemble a horde of rabid Muslim nutballs screaming and burning over a flushed koran when his name is mentioned.

Here's more from a website called End of the American Dream...

In America today, you do not have the right to say whatever you want. If you say the wrong thing on a blog or a website it can have dramatic consequences.

In America today, you do not have the right to raise your own children as you see fit.

In America today, you do not have the right to grow whatever food you want and you do not have the right to eat whatever food you do grow.

In America today, you do not have the right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

In America today, you do not have a right to privacy. In fact, you should expect that everything that you do is watched, tracked, monitored and recorded. (12 Signs)

For those misguided souls who think this started with Obama, here's an article from 1994:  FFF – Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberties