Civil Rights versus Civil Wrongs.

Pause with me for a nanosecond to ponder these questions. Here’s my analysis:

This entire story has been launched in order to torpedo the renewal of the Patriot Act. The self-serving politicians (on BOTH sides of the asile) are endangering the safety and security of our country in order to score political points. Now understand this – I don’t want our government monitoring my emails or phone calls. It’s not that I’m up to anything illegal (I’m not). I just don’t feel like my communications are anyone else’s business. However, if this is what it takes to keep our country secure, I’m willing to temporarily allow the government this power. I’ll trade a little less privacy for a LOT more security any day of the week.

Everyone remembers where they were on September 11, 2001. It seems a lot of politicians have forgotten that we must take extraordinary measures in order to prevent that from happening again. To paraphrase Freud, sometimes “Big Brother” is just (acting like your) big brother.

A lot of people were personally touched by the events on 9/11. I’m among their number. Early that morning, my wife boarded a plane from Dallas to Washington D.C. She was over Virginia airspace when the attacks began. Her plane was instructed to return all the way to Dallas, then was grounded in Memphis. She was among the lucky ones. Had Dallas, Houston, or another southern city been a target, I could have very well lost my wife and the mother to our kids that day. Don’t talk to me about arcane civil liberties laws when our country’s security is at stake. I’m as interested in privacy as the next guy, but not at the expense of our very survival.

Here’s the deal, folks. The radical Islamic fundamentalists WANT TO KILL US ALL. They don’t want us to simply get out of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the rest of the Middle East. They want us to die. Painfully. Quickly. Totally. I take exception with this. I could care less if they live or die, but when they threaten me and my family, my lack of concern turns to my own brand of radical fundamentalism. I believe that if we can’t reason with them (and we can’t), it’s time (as we say in Texas) to thin the herd. I thank God every night for our President and our Military, and that they are willing and able to defend us. I’d much rather our troops be taking the fight to Iraq than wait for the fighting to break out here. Lest you think I’m willing to send our troops into harms way with no personal stake in the matter, be advised that my stepson is a Lance Corporal in the United States Marine Corps, and is scheduled to ship out to one of our war zones in 2006. This fight is VERY personal.

I’m getting REALLY tired of the left manufacturing these little tempests in a teapot in order to influence public policy. In her masterwork Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s hero, John Galt was behind a movement by the Captains of Industry to withhold their help as the country attempted to commit suicide by political correctness. When the country’s corrupt leaders captured him, their intent was to force him to endorce their own misbegotten policies. When they finally gave him a bully pulpit from which to speak, he said but one thing: “GET OUT OF MY WAY!” Would that the Liberal left in this country would take Galt’s words to heart, get out of our President’s way, and let him do what is necessary to save our country. May God Bless America. In spite of our enemies, without AND within.