Over the weekend, the Democrats caved to fear again.
The changes to FISA, while temporary, are being handed to a president with no respect for the law and an Attorney General with no support from anyone but that president. And so many Democrats defected because they are afraid of being painted as "weak on terror" by a president and a party that only 1/4 of this nation supports and that has no majority support in any state in the union.
We are all left to wonder why they did this, but ultimately, it comes down to one thing: the courage of one's convictions and fighting through fear.
Jumping......
For six years, fear was used to keep the American people in line. Fear was used to justify the stripping of basic rights we enjoy as Americans. Fear was used to launch a war we should never have been fighting, and fear was used to defend that very war.
After six years of exposed lies, unnecessary troop deaths and maimings, untold damage to a nation halfway around the world, and a record low in support for a president, there are still many of our representatives in Washington who are afraid. These are people who stand up for us in so many ways, yet when it comes to something that the most unpopular president in history wants, they quiver in the corner and hand it to him like the scared kid gives the school bully his lunch money. They justify these actions by wrapping them in words like "security" and "important anti-terror tools."
As the title of this diary says, though, freedom is our ultimate security. My sig line here for a long time was Benjamin Franklin's adage about those who sacrifice freedom for safety deserve neither. He was right. Our security lies in our freedom, in being the last best hope for mankind, as Abraham Lincoln said. It is our diverse nature, our religious tolerance, our can-do spirit, and our dedication to the idea that we are a free people who are capable of self-determination. America has largely been immune from attack because the peoples of the world wanted to be American, to live free, and to be successful. The terrorists did not attack because they hate our freedoms. They attacked us because they want what we have, but what they do not understand is that we possess our material greatness because we have freedom.
Our freedom gave us the ability to succeed, to become a great nation, to become the shining city on a hill to the world. Our freedom won us the Cold War, World War II, even the War of 1812, because we fought for our right to determine our course in life. And in return, we had secured our national security.
The actions of the President and the fear that he and his administration uses are not hallmarks of freedom, but instead the weapons of fascism. Fear was used by Hitler, by Mussolini, by Stalin. It is used today by the Communists that rule China, and it is used by the terrorists. Fear is unworthy of our great nation, and it is unworthy of freedom. It is unconscionable that the "leader of the free world" should stoop to using fear to retain some semblance of power when the reality was that we never had to be scared, merely determined. We only needed to use our freedom, our liberty, and our capacity to be the beacon of hope in a dark world to repel the challenge that terrorists laid on our doorstep. When freedom is matched against terror, fear, and fascism, freedom will always win. Freedom loses that fight only when those entrusted with defending it lose their nerve and give in to fear.
Too many Democrats lost their nerve last Saturday. It is a stain on our cause. But the cause we serve is just, and it is incumbent upon us to find better defenders who will not quail at the mere hint of fear. I believe in these United States, as do all of us, and it is our duty to make sure that the ideals that formed this great nation do not perish in the face of the few who seek to destroy them.