A Plea for Americans to Embrace Terror

Every month we Americans lose more rights, and it's because we're asking for them to be taken away. Fear of death has caused many in our society to turn to the government for protection.

Being an American isn't about being able to exercise your rights in absolute safety; rather, a true American understands that certain rights are so important that they are worth dying for.

If the consequence of not permitting my government to scour my library records is that a terrorist learns to build a bomb and kill two thousand of my fellow citizens, I say so be it. I would rather die, my wife die -- my entire family die -- in a nuclear fireball, than give up my right to privacy in exchange for a safer life.

We Americans have become complacent. Our children are raised without an understanding of how important it is to protect the rights we have. Immigrants arrive here, not with the hope of joining up in the great fight for civil rights, but with the hope of being coddled by a government that will keep them safe from harm.

Muslims are amazingly dedicated individuals -- we Americans have much to learn from them. How willing they are to go to their deaths for what they believe in; those lowly causes their clerics have put them to! Yet, how effective they are in their misguided tasks. Terrorists attack us the way they do specifically because they know we fear death while they do not. If we can take away this belief, we can strip them of their power.

The callous truth is that even 1,000,000 deaths in this country, with its 300,000,000 strong population, is a drop in the bucket compared to the terrible loss we would suffer trying to prevent those deaths by becoming a police state. Eventually everyone must die: it is better to die in honor than to die in cowardice.

We all have a responsibility to stand up to our representatives and tell them we do not want our rights sacrificed in some misguided attempt to keep us safe.

"Give me liberty or give me death" is a phrase that seems anachronistic to today's populace, but it is an idea that has more merit today that perhaps it ever did have. If we wish to preserve our rights and continue to be a shining light to the world, we must first stop being afraid of death. Should we again experience mass destruction on our soil, we must not give in to pressure to change our society, but instead stand fast, hold our chins high, and shout, "We are Americans; you cannot destroy freedom by killing us."

-- ThoughtKeeper - 05 Feb 2007