Enemy of the State
12.07.2001
The President and the Attorney General of the United States have declared me, and others like me, an enemy of the state. Why?
Because we speak our mind when we disagree with the policies of the President.
In a widely applauded speach on November 6, 2001, President Bush declared that, "Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists." He was speaking of other nations; however, in an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee on December 7, 2001, Attorney General John Ashcroft stated,
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"We need honest, reasoned debate, not fear mongering... To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends... We are at war with an enemy who abuses individual rights as it abuses jet airliners: as weapons with which to kill Americans."
(As a side note, so what does he want to do about it? Make us go through a three hour wait, strip searches and semi-random questioning before we enjoy our liberties, just like we now do when we board an aircraft?).
Thus, anyone who, like me, has criticized the Federal government for the way they are conducting themselves during this so-called War against Terrorism is an enemy of the state, somehow aiding and abetting the enemy. And yet this idea flies in the face of the words of some of America's greatest leaders, speakers and writers...
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"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the President or any other public official, save exactly to the degree in which he himself stands by the country. It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the extent that by inefficiency or otherwise he fails in his duty to stand by the country. In either event, it is unpatriotic not to tell the truth, whether about the president or anyone else..."
- -- Theodore Roosevelt
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"Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel."
- -- Patrick Henry
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"The legitimate powers of government reach actions only and not opinions."
"The error seems not sufficiently eradicated that the operations of the mind as well as the acts of the body are subject to the coercion of the laws. But our rulers can have authority over such natural rights only as we have submitted to them. The rights of conscience we never submitted, we could not submit. We are answerable for them to God."
- -- Thomas Jefferson
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"A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government."
- -- Edward Abbey
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"Liberty has never come from government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance."
- -- Woodrow Wilson
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"...there are natural duties which precede political ones, and cannot be extinguished by them."
- -- Benjamin Franklin
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"For in a Republic, who is "the country?" Is it the Government which is for the moment in the saddle? Why, the Government is merely a servant - merely a temporary servant; it cannot be its prerogative to determine what is right and what is wrong, and decide who is a patriot and who isn't. Its function is to obey orders, not originate them."
"I would teach patriotism in the schools, and teach it this way: I would throw out the old maxim, 'My country, right or wrong,' etc., and instead I would say, 'My country when she is right.'"
"The Gospel of the Monarchical Patriotism is: "The King can do no wrong." We have adopted it with all its servility, with an unimportant change in the wording: 'Our Country, right or wrong!'"
"It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.
"That government is not best which best secures mere life and property -- there is a more valuable thing -- Manhood."
"My kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter, disease, and death."
- -- Mark Twain
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"You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for independence."
- -- Charles Austin Beard
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"Make your life a friction to the machine"
- -- Henry David Thoreau
Remember, too, that Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Adams, Benjamin Franklin and their like-minded contemporaries were considered by the King of England to be enemies of the state, people who were, in the words of AG John Ashcroft, scaring "peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty."
An enemy of the state? Very well, then. If I am so charged, so be it - as you can see, I am in good company - but regardless, I am, and always will be, a friend to the People of this great nation, our Liberty and our Constitution.
Agree? Disagree? Think I'm full of it?
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