What do I believe?

I am an American, and I love my country. That does not mean that I support my government in every thing they choose to do. One of the wonderful things about being a United States citizen is that I have the right, and indeed, the duty, to think for myself, and to speak out about what I believe the correct course for our government should be. Every American citizen has this right and duty. We do wrong when we follow our government mindlessly. The brillian founders of our country counted on its citizens to continue thinking for themselves and to oppose the government when it wandered off course. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." (Wendell Phillips) and perhaps more to the point in this post 9/11 world, from Ben Franklin:

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety

Thomas Jefferson said

"I know of no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power."

Let us then continue to educate ourselves and our fellow citizens, both about our constitution and about the current abuses of it. I do believe that when enough of my fellow citizens know and recognize how our government is seizing power away from its people, that they will finally object and take it back.



The image of the famous painting, Spirit of '76 came from www.sheppardsoftware.com