Liberty Is Not For Sissies

This is not the correct driving behavior.

Recently, I was conversing with The Vermont Farmer about issues he has against the Republican Party. He had made reference to GOP policies he viewed as “extreme”. As the conversation evolved, he mentioned the Patriot Act and said “Liberty is not for sissies”, calling it “risky business”. He’s right, and it got me to thinking.

When I was learning to drive, my dad was in the right seat and I used the horn for some reason I don’t remember. From the reaction of my dad, my reason for using it apparently wasn’t warranted. He simply said to me, “If you’re driving the car correctly, you’ll never need that horn.” It took a few seconds for that to sink in, but it did. He was right.



Here’s another one from my brother. He once got ticked-off when the ATMs started to show up. I asked why and he said, ” ‘They’ can track you. ‘They’ know that at that moment, you are there at that machine pulling money out of your account.” Falling back on my horn-lesson, I retorted with something like “So what? If you’re behaving properly, who cares who knows where you happen to be?” He only said something like “That’s not right. That’s intrusion.” I thought then and today continue to think it’s a very weak argument. The bank and authorities could “intrude” upon my withdrawal habits long before the advent of ATMs.

Smile, you're being surveilled.

Today, we see that ATMs and camera’s have turned out to be a valuable tool for law-enforcement making our society a safer one in that it helps authorities apprehend the perpetrator quicker.



Liberty isn’t for sissies, which is to say we have to be willing to stomach the actions of those who take their rights of liberties too far by robbing, killing and destroying.

The game has changed.


Today we live in a world where we have a stateless enemy we like to call “radical Muslims”. (Which is a joke, but that’s another topic) I won’t go into the reasons, but we know they have avowed to kill Americans from any quarter and in as many numbers as possible. They have demonstrated their mission on numerous occasions in our country and abroad. It is a hard fact.



If we know we have a stateless enemy who is submerged into our society, we would be irresponsible to wait for them to attack a refinery or another high-rise as in the recent case in Dallas (given simulated explosive and detonator which they pushed). That was stopped only because of broad surveillance methodologies. Many lives and millions of dollars in property were saved. They are now in jail.


You and I were never targeted by those surveillance methodologies. Know why?


We behaved properly.



My acceptance of these methodologies isn’t easy. It’s a hard choice for me, but it is also easy to see the price for not choosing this position is very, very high. Too high. Liberty is at stake. I will not tolerate another event on the scale of 9/11 and I am willing to be surveilled to avoid that. As I said, liberty isn’t for sissies and as we see, it’s a double-edged sword. To enjoy our liberty we have to be willing to make some hard choices. It isn’t going to be pretty, either.



In this video, Gingrich classifies America’s anti-terror strategy as weak.