I am going to go way, way out on a limb in this posting with the hope that, like in the children's fairy tale, everyone begins whispering to one another until shouts are heard across the land. Here goes:
Merriam-Webster defines the word traitor as 'one who betrays another's trust or is false to an obligation or duty.' Would someone please explain to me how that word does NOT apply to several members of the Bush Administration, the House, and the Senate?
As a product of the American educational system, I don't quite know what to do about the fact that our elected representatives are permitting our laws to be broken and the Constitution subverted. These are violations of their oaths of office. Do the American people realize that we, ultimately, are responsible for these actions? And, if we don't like them, that we are responsible for stopping them?
Great minds have been at work for more than thirty years in crafting the plan to get us to where we are today. I am calling on everyone to think about what our founding fathers would do if they found themselves in the clutches of a fascist dictatorship. I am calling on everyone to think outside the box; those in power now have shown no respect for process and I think it's time for the rest of us to take off our gloves and get creative, too.
Since I am questioning whether the word traitor might apply to the President of the United States, I expect to be deemed an 'enemy combatant' and renditioned to a Halliburton detention center without notification to my family or access to legal counsel, to be legally tortured. Which America do you want to live in? George W. Bush's, where the possibility of that happening to me and others like me is chillingly real, and where our 'elected' representatives use euphemisms for the truth and nod sagely to specious arguments while asking our permission to break laws and commit atrocities in our name (or just do it anyway) ...or the one where the words 'patriot' and 'traitor' had clear meaning?
I believe in a few things:
-to remain silent is to be complicit;
-when the people are afraid of the government, that's tyranny, but when the government is afraid of the people, that's liberty;
-dissent is the highest form of patriotism; and
-it is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from the government.
Let's try to bring that back.
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