By Mark David Blum, Esq.
No number of homicide bombers or falling airplanes can change us as a people or end our government. Ours is a nation that to the last person, will carry the spirit of the constitution and battles for liberty fought over the centuries. Killing three thousand of us in one day proved that we are just too big in spirit, size, and power to be destroyed militarily. Even Abraham Lincoln early on recognized that no foreign power will ever have boots on the banks of the Ohio River; that which will destroy us will come from within.
But the terrorists use weapons far more effective than any dirty bomb. They use fear. Where they fail through violence, they win through legislation. Freedom has been lost not because the Pentagon was attacked but because freedom was attacked through such entities as the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, closing the borders, the Gitmo and Abu Ghraib sagas, airport searches, and invasions of privacy at every level of government. This is all done in the name of security. These are the weapons of terrorism; attacking one’s own people.
It is not the terrorists, but we who have changed our society. We are allowing the poison of the extremist ideology to infect our hearts and souls. What we call “terrorists”, are nothing more than extremists of one political ideology or another. Be they Islamic Terrorists, IRA, or Rudolph and McVeigh; it is the extremist who is the enemy of freedom loving people. Extremists in government do not get a free pass. Having learned from the Senator Durbin fiasco; not being as bad as Adolf Hitler or Pol Pot or Josef Stalin has become the new standard for who we are as a People. Now we are apologizing for our First Amendment freedoms to appease the feelings of those who desire our demise.
What extremists can not do with their bombs, we have done to ourselves. We are surrendering our rights. We are starting to factionalize and mistrust our own. Half our nation hates the other half. Few trust the government or the media or academia to tell the truth. We are closing our borders to our oldest friends and building giant fences guarded by the militia. We are isolating ourselves from the world community. What was once the bright shining star of nations is dulling from the tarnish of blood and despair.
If we are indeed that Shining City on the hill, then our glow emanates from the warm fires of the Constitution and the rights she protects. Storming embassies and killing Americans by halfbreed halfwits because their sensitivities are offended shows the weakness of the terrorist mindset. Let us never forget who we are and what makes us exceptional. It is our foundational principles that give us our moral authority. We should never surrender the high ground to appease those who will hate us no matter what we do.
The Middle East is aflame and hatred for America burns in the same hearts that American bombs recently saved from being burned alive. Let them torch their buildings. Those scars will remain on their soul and in their hearts. We are not them. We have no reason to fear them. Least of all, we do not turn on each other because they are cowards. Thomas Jefferson and not Cecil B. DeMille gave Birth to this Nation. Our legacy is freedom and liberty. We must never let that go.
