Americans love their freedom. There is nothing in this world that so universally describes the American dream than freedom. It is the fundamental belief this country was founded upon. We are all entitled to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, or so the story goes.
It turns out that we are in a perpetual dance with those who want to take our freedom. It seems that there arise certain entities that would remove our freedoms from us little by little and leave us enslaved to their cause with no voice of our own. Often this takes the form of an outside enemy, radical ideology, or possibly a foreign dictator.
These days we sit securely in our isolation. We are comforted by the fact that we have few enemies capable of reaching our shores, we are complacent in our security. This complacency and comfort comes with a price: Our own paranoia. We see our own government as a threat, we analyze every action or inaction that comes out of the White House and asses it as a threat to our freedom. Generally these threats are evaluated on a party line basis. If we feel especially aligned toward one side or the other we are inclined to react accordingly. For example, my facebook feed is overrun with anti-Obama posts. I cannot go a day without reading about how he is stripping our freedom away while we sit back and watch.
The Drone debate hasn't hit my facebook feed yet, but I can assure you that it will. When it does I will have to wade through all the hatred and disgust in order to determine fact from fiction. On the same token, isn't this what our founding fathers wanted? Didn't they desire us to question our government in order to keep the power with the people?
The problem, as I see it, is that Americans see their rights being stripped in small quantities, and the trend is towards tyranny. Whether or not this is the actual intent is beside the point. Americans perceive their liberty threatened, and they will not stand for it. We have heard the debate over gun control, and now we see drones as a watchful big brother.
Let us presume that gun control and the use of Drones are, in fact, for our benefit, then why would we fight it? Simply put, Americans naturally do not trust our government. It is ingrained in us, our country was born from the hatred of tyranny and the love of freedom. We will fight for our beloved freedom at home and abroad, we will defend our constitution against all enemies until the last man falls. We love this country, every last one of us, and we don't want to see it fall to shambles. Too many men and women have given their lives in the defense of our most sacred freedom to call it quits now.
If the general assumption is made that all Americans love this country, and would do nothing to harm it we can also assume that the government falls into that same cast. From this we can then draw that there is no right or wrong in governing our country provided it is governed with freedom on the heart of every person who leads this country. The trick is to push or pull those governing us towards what we want. On occasion our leaders will lean either left or right, but the middle ground seems to be the place where the most ground towards freedom is gained.
Are the drones necessary over our cities? Do they serve a purpose in war? Does gun control really make us safer? Is the second amendment still relevant? Those questions are all worthy of an answer, but in the end they all boil down to our beautiful democratic process. If we as a country, as Americans exercise our duty, we can rest assured that our voice will be heard. It sounds cliche, but when dealing with something as important as freedom, every voice counts.
So continue to blow up my facebook feed with your views on gun control, abortion, drones, immigration, foreign policy, Republican propaganda, Democratic evangelism, and disco rave invitations. I will not judge you in any way shape or form. I will, however, judge you if you do not use your God given right to freedom to let those who lead us know what you stand for by casting your ballot, signing a petition, or writing your congressmen.
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