Lately, I find myself waffling back and forth on how much liberty I'm willing to give up. Right after the attacks on 9/11/2001, I thought the Patriot Act was a good thing. It seemed that people with something to hide should be worried about the monitoring and intrusion. The rest of us would be safer.
Then, about seven years later we had a new president. During his term, we have seen our freedoms eroded. We've seen groups that disagree politically with the president punished by the IRS. Certain news organizations are roundly vilified by the president and his minions, and some members of the press have been monitored while doing their jobs. Some have even been considered for prosecution for publishing or reporting classified information. When General Motors and Chrysler received bailouts, the government forced them to cancel the dealership agreements with some independent dealers. Some of these dealers were scorned in spite of the fact that they weren't in the throws of bankruptcy. It was speculated that some of these dealers were being punished for their political contributions to the "wrong" side.
When you hear about these sorts of actions, it doesn't take long to decide that giving up our freedoms was a bad idea. Maybe that "slippery slope" we've heard mentioned could be real. Americans may be sliding down the slope today.
At one time, we had a press that would keep the politicians honest. They were always looking for a story to use against a politician. Today, that press is very one-sided. They are almost all liberal leaning. They look for any dirt on a conservative politician, and they will stretch the truth to unbelievable lengths if that's what it takes to make a story. Twist it or bend it or turn it around until anything done by the other side is awful. Then, if their favorite liberal politician gets in hot water, they just look the other way. Don't report it at all or blame someone else or minimize it. Today, there is a lot of dissenting press out on the Internet, but not everyone follows it. Too many Americans still get their news from the big three network nightly news or a newspaper (if they can find one).
Growing up, I remember most cities of any size having two newspapers. There would generally be a morning and an afternoon paper, one of which would be liberal and one conservative. Now that is talking about the editorial pages. The news pages were supposed to be unbiased. Compared to today, I think they were a lot better.
So, now we are left to trust the politicians. There are a few that I trust, but the number is shrinking every year. I believe the press is to blame for this reality. Any conservative politician must be squeaky clean to make it past the scrutiny of the press. Even ones that are this clean face the probability that their good name will be drug through the mud, and their entire family will be drug right along with them. Who would put themselves and their families through this much aggravation and discomfort to get a public service job? The answer is that very few would do it, except those folks that want to be career politicians. Career politicians are doing the job to earn a living. They need the job and will do anything to further their career. THIS IS NOT PUBLIC SERVICE. IT IS SELF-SERVICE.
We are still left with a serious choice between giving up increasing amounts of liberty or dealing with loss of our homeland security from terrorists. We need to be able to trust the government to take certain actions that will make us safer without stealing our freedoms. How do we fix this MessAPolitico? We need better public servants that will work for the good of America. When the press vilifies a conservative politician, we should take it as a sign that the liberals are afraid of that candidate. Maybe we should go out and vote for this person. The liberals have certainly been willing to overlook some indiscretions in the backgrounds of their favorite candidates. Why do we conservatives have such a hard time with this? Why do we let the liberal win because the conservative isn't perfect?
At the present time, we need all of the constitutional protections that we were given by the founding fathers. Until we fix this MessAPolitico, I have to pick liberty over safety. America can right the ship within a few election cycles. We also need to have some entrepreneurs out there starting newspapers and other media outlets that provide a conservative point of view. I pray that God will get our country back on track very soon as the best, greatest, and most free place to live on this planet.
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