Too many Americans say:

"Disagree with me?
I want you dead!"

"Any time we deny any citizen the full exercise of his constitutional rights, we are weakening our own claim to them." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower 1963

People penned in "free speech zones." Arrested for wearing pro-opposition buttons. Fired on by police with rubber bullets and pepper spray filled "paintball" projectiles for protesting government policies.

Where is this un-democratic, repressive country?

It's here and now in the good old USA.

What's worse, instead of the entire population rising up in arms to protest these police state tactics and subversion of constitutional rights, many fellow Americans are saying, "They should have used real bullets."

Charming.

George Bush said, "I'm a uniter not a divider." He failed us there. We've been split into two bitterly polarized camps.

Three years and a little more than a month ago, after 9-11, this country was more united than at any time since WWII. People all over America wept with collective grief. Most of the world, too. The nation and world were together as one global family.

Where is it today?

How did we go from that unity to the point where some people want fellow Americans to be killed simply for holding a different political view in three years?

Where did we lose the ideals and principles of democracy? If they aren't gone, they're certainly in danger.

Free speech is guaranteed in our Constitution. That right was won and preserved for us with the blood of Patriots throughout the course of our history. We took pride in carrying on that tradition saying:

"I may not agree with what you say but I'll defend to the death your right to say it."

And now? We have started a new saying that goes, "I don't agree with what you have to say and because I don't, I want you killed."

The question is not so much how did we get here, but how can we get back? Can we return to respecting others' opinions that differ from ours? Can we return to the democratic vision in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution of our founding fathers?

We must again learn to respect each other as human beings, as Americans who love our country and want what's best for her.

If we disagree, we should be able to discuss it freely, without hate.
Let our votes decide. Let it be a fair election.

Let's not forget the men and women who died for our right to disagree and vote.


To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

--Excerpt from "In Flanders Fields" by John McCrae (1915)


10-18-04