Americans are obsessed with safety. This has become even more of a concern after the horrific attacks of September 11th, 2001. The problem is, a concern for safety does not ensure morality or virtue. Quite the contrary, people have been known to sell out their very souls for safety, and that is truly immoral. Benjamin Franklin, one of the founding fathers of this nation, wrote, “They that can give up their essential liberties to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” What does this say of the nation today? America as a whole allowed President George W. Bush to basically tear the Constitution to shreds with his Patriot Act, which was anything BUT patriotic. America as a whole allowed President Bush to intimidate some dissenting voices while imprisoning others. And America as a whole allowed President Bush to invade foreign nations for oil in this nation’s collective name. And these questions remain. Will the American people behave any differently under a new President? Will the actions of one man as noble as Barack Obama truly make up for the collective sins of an entire nation? Is Obama’s cross really that big?
As noble a man as Obama may be, in this author’s opinion, he is still just a flesh-and-blood man. However, his words and ideals of justice, basic liberties, human rights, American values, and the empowerment of the people are of more importance. That is because they were words and ideals that this nation was responsible for upholding even before Obama ran for the Office of President. The problem is, for the past eight years (and, some may argue, earlier), this nation miserably failed to uphold them. This nation failed to uphold them when Bush and his cronies usurped the Presidential Vote in 2000. This nation failed to uphold them in the face of terror, namely, after the alleged terror attacks of September 11th, 2001, which claimed the lives of thousands of innocent victims on the airlines, at the former World Trade Center towers, and at the Pentagon. And instead, this nation gave President Bush carte blanch authority, authority to invade both Afghanistan and Iraq (primarily because those two nations were drowning in oil, and big oil corporations like Vice President Cheney’s Halliburton had to have it) and to violate the American people’s rights to privacy and a fair trial. If you were declared unpatriotic or a terrorist, then you could be jailed without trial, plain and simple. (This is nothing more than a recycled version of McCarthyism, with the word “Communist” replaced by the word “Terrorist.”) Furthermore, evidence has already surfaced that the terror attacks of September 11th were an inside job, and had absolutely nothing to do with “Middle-Eastern terrorists successfully evading America’s redundantly heavy security protocols.” (See http://www.loosechange911.com/blog/ for more details.) Nevertheless, that the American people already knew these things by 2004, and then granted Bush a second term in office, demonstrated just how much all Americans, even the most politically aware, would sell out for the sake of conformity, economic luxury, and “a little temporary safety.”
Obama cannot undo the repeated sins of over two-hundred-and-fifty-million people. No one man on this Earth can, and to suggest that Obama can is a suggestion based on abject laziness, heinous avarice, and pathetic stupidity, the same things that depleted democracy in the first place. America desperately needs to learn what her founding fathers already knew centuries ago, that anything of moral value worth living for must also be worth dying for. And no matter how you try to rationalize it, a fear of dying will inevitably result in a fear of living, because fear is fear. As long as Americans continue to cower and tremble in a corner every time the government shouts “BOO,” democracy is basically dead. And if that death has already transpired, then what ominous thing has taken its place in Washington, D.C.?
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As noble a man as Obama may be, in this author’s opinion, he is still just a flesh-and-blood man. However, his words and ideals of justice, basic liberties, human rights, American values, and the empowerment of the people are of more importance. That is because they were words and ideals that this nation was responsible for upholding even before Obama ran for the Office of President. The problem is, for the past eight years (and, some may argue, earlier), this nation miserably failed to uphold them. This nation failed to uphold them when Bush and his cronies usurped the Presidential Vote in 2000. This nation failed to uphold them in the face of terror, namely, after the alleged terror attacks of September 11th, 2001, which claimed the lives of thousands of innocent victims on the airlines, at the former World Trade Center towers, and at the Pentagon. And instead, this nation gave President Bush carte blanch authority, authority to invade both Afghanistan and Iraq (primarily because those two nations were drowning in oil, and big oil corporations like Vice President Cheney’s Halliburton had to have it) and to violate the American people’s rights to privacy and a fair trial. If you were declared unpatriotic or a terrorist, then you could be jailed without trial, plain and simple. (This is nothing more than a recycled version of McCarthyism, with the word “Communist” replaced by the word “Terrorist.”) Furthermore, evidence has already surfaced that the terror attacks of September 11th were an inside job, and had absolutely nothing to do with “Middle-Eastern terrorists successfully evading America’s redundantly heavy security protocols.” (See http://www.loosechange911.com/blog/ for more details.) Nevertheless, that the American people already knew these things by 2004, and then granted Bush a second term in office, demonstrated just how much all Americans, even the most politically aware, would sell out for the sake of conformity, economic luxury, and “a little temporary safety.”
Obama cannot undo the repeated sins of over two-hundred-and-fifty-million people. No one man on this Earth can, and to suggest that Obama can is a suggestion based on abject laziness, heinous avarice, and pathetic stupidity, the same things that depleted democracy in the first place. America desperately needs to learn what her founding fathers already knew centuries ago, that anything of moral value worth living for must also be worth dying for. And no matter how you try to rationalize it, a fear of dying will inevitably result in a fear of living, because fear is fear. As long as Americans continue to cower and tremble in a corner every time the government shouts “BOO,” democracy is basically dead. And if that death has already transpired, then what ominous thing has taken its place in Washington, D.C.?
