Freedom Is Not Free
Freedom is not free. It never has been and it never will be. That old saying isn’t just some overused cliché, worn out patriotic banter, or the unsettling mantra of unstable nut jobs. It is the truth. We may be born free and endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, but to keep that freedom, at some point someone must make the conscious choice to deny challenges and attacks on our reasonable, well defined, and traditionally accepted God-given liberties. A partial list of these essential and protected freedoms can be found in the first ten amendments to the US Constitution, The Bill of Rights.
The cost of freedom can range from a proudly paid minor inconvenience to life itself. It can be paid by a soldier, a farmer, a politician, or even a child who instinctively rejects the notion that someone can just come and take what they have.
In our country’s brief 234 years, the United States of America has become world renowned for our unwavering determination to remain free. Our own Declaration of Independence is so revered that it is enshrined right along side our founding Constitution in the Rotunda in Washington DC and memorized by school kids from sea to shining sea. We believe in freedom so staunchly that we have gone to war in other countries on multiple occasions to secure it for others who would have surely died without our help. For all their bravado, dictators and rouge nations the world over know that just one Nimitz class air craft carrier anchored off their shores is an unmistakable reminder of how serious we are about freedom… and we have 11 of them.
Here at home we have worked so hard to secure our own freedoms that if a criminal caught red handed isn’t read his Miranda rights, a simple recitation of words; that they can and do win their court cases and get off Scot free. Criminals routinely win court cases when the details of how police discovered incriminating evidence reveal that there was no warrant issued or probable cause for the search that discovered their crimes. It can get frustrating and ridiculous at times, but we love our freedoms so much that our whole legal system is set up to err on the side of freedom and innocents even if it means that some criminals may go free.
Enter the Transportation Security Administration. In the name of simple public safety, the TSA has defied the 4th amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure without probable cause. They are now conducting electronic virtual strip searches on any and all would be passengers. Those who refuse this violation of personal security are required without option or consent to submit to invasive, morally disturbing, hands-on contact with areas of our bodies so sensitive that most people avoid even talking about them.
Not even small children are immune. People with highly personal prosthesis have been ordered to remove them for inspection. Would you allow a total stranger to put their hands on your 4 year old daughter’s private parts? Would you allow a total stranger to demand that your cancer surviving wife remove her artificial breast? This is what is happening right now in the land of the free and the home of the brave.
The TSA is not elected by the people and their policies are not approved by the congress of our representative republic. They are completely unaccountable and answer to no one. We use to call what they are doing now tyranny. We use to call unelected tyrants who abuse their power and show utter disregard for civil liberties dictators. We use to ridicule the Nazi Gestapo officers of WWII for stopping innocent people at check points to demand their papers. Now, here in America, the TSA has one-upped them. After showing official and duly authorized papers, Americans are virtually strip searched and publically inspected like cattle. Oh how the mighty have fallen.
God help us. History has proven over and over that if the barbarians get inside the gates, even the bravest warriors are in grave danger. Once a great society abandons its core principles and beliefs, it’s over. America, we have allowed tyrants and dictators to assume control within the gates. This time, they have done so in the name of security. They even have the word security in their name. Well, Benjamin Franklin had something to say to those without the stomach or spine to secure their own safety and defend their own freedoms. – “Those who would give up a little freedom for a little safety deserve neither freedom nor safety.”
America, the fight is at hand and it does not go well. Freedom is not free. It must be defended. It must be fought for. The longer the price goes unpaid, they higher the cost of redemption. Please pay now. You may not be able to afford it later.
