The Patriot Act

Patrick Henry

April 07 2005

How dare them take so long. When I think of a Patriot, the name Patrick Henry with his ideas of Liberty and free speech comes to mind, but when I think of the Patriot Act I see “Thought Police” and “Double think” . The founders of this country knew the first thing a dictator must do is hush voices of descent by intimidation . They also knew our biggest danger is not from backward nations but from our own over ambitious leaders.

The Patriot Act is Unpatriotic. Just the threat of having a “spy” on my computer bothers me. I catch myself thinking “What if a “cookie” has been placed on my computer by an ambitious G-man looking for an easy promotion? What could be found or planted while he snoops around in my house? I am small a target, but intimidation works on mental giants and suffocates their latent voices too. And when this happens, we lose the free exchange of ideas that is the central element in freedom of speech. Many soldiers have died in war and many citizens will probably die by sabotage for the freedom to speak our minds and live in privacy from Government.

The fear of appearing unpatriotic silenced the rational voices of descent in 2001 when the cries for war began. As a result thousands have died and the world will scratch its head for hundreds of years. I can hear the introduction on Ripley’s Believe it or Not (broadcast from India in 2105), “Can you believe it? In 2001, the UNITED STATES, the most powerful nation in the world surrendered its freedoms because a couple of dozen crazy Arabs with box knives high jacked planes and flew them into buildings in New York City. The U.S. then sent an armada of ships, planes, tanks and men across the seas to make a mess of Mesopotamia. Then to top that off, their Congress wrote the ‘Patriot Act’ to permit government agents to secretly sneak and peek into private homes.

Allen Wilson
Columnist

About Contact site map