What Freedom?

by D. J. Herda

"Freedom," someone much wiser than I once said, "never comes free."  And indeed it seems as if that thought were never truer than right here, right now.

Within the past several months, America has seen attacks on freedom of speech unequaled in U.S. history.  Two bills currently wending their way through Congress would allow for the immediate and permanent removal from the Internet of any site found to be in violation of copyright laws.  No trial, no hearing, nothing more than a governmental mandate--you know, our government?  Here's what one high politico had to say about the matter:

"Right now, China--the government--can disconnect parts of its internet in a case of war.  We need to have that here, too."

The source: Vice President Joe Biden.

In Pensacola, Florida, a Catholic priest was threatened with arrest for speaking out against the conduct of several elected city officials in an absolutely stunning example of governmental trampling of freedom of speech.  If you haven't seen it, you should check it out.

In Long Island, New York, four high-school students recently received day-long suspensions for "Tebowing" (after Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow) in the hallway after class.

In North Carolina, a pastor was relieved of his duties for offering an invocation in the name of Jesus.  "I got fired," Pastor Ron Bailey told a Fox News interviewer.  "I was made to feel like a second class North Carolinian when I was told that my services would no longer be needed if I could not offer the opening prayer in the manner prescribed by the House of Representatives, rather than in the manner my Biblical faith requires."

Last year, a Southern California high-school student was suspended for two days for talking about Christianity in a private get-together with friends.

Remarkably, the most stunning attacks on our first-amendment freedoms come from none other than Barack Obama, himself, who recently signed a new law that officially designates the United States part of a "battleground" against the war on terror.  This law allows the U.S. military to arrest American citizens if they are suspected of being "potential terrorists" and to detain them indefinitely without trial. 

When you combine that with the president's attacks on religious institutions--most notably the Catholic Church's hospitals, social service centers, and teaching facilities--by mandating them to provide contraceptives to anyone who demands them, you begin to see a chilling pattern radiating from the Oval Office.

But that's only the tip of the iceberg.  Under Obama's "watch" (an appropriate term for his presidency), Americans have been stripped of $5.3 trillion of our money in less than three-and-a-half years, and the debt is rising.  We have been denied our right to choose our own health-care programs.  We have seen billions of dollars and thousands of jobs evaporate with Obama's nixing of the Keystone Oil Pipeline from Canada, insuring U.S. dependency on Middle Eastern sources for decades to come.

And that's not all.

During his run for the presidency, candidate Obama promised to drastically overhaul the nation's woefully lacking immigration policy; but president Obama has failed to do so, placing the right to life of millions of Americans in constant jeopardy.  Obama's mandatory school-lunchroom program is an unwarranted interjection of political ineptness into the American family.  His "financial reform" programs are disastrously ineffective and unbelievably costly for all.  His saddling of American taxpayers with an ever-growing burden of debt is unconscionable, even as the number of American taxpayers dwindles.

The national debt, presently at $15.3 trillion and growing, is perhaps the greatest blow to our' personal rights: with increasing debt come increasing prices, decreasing jobs, escalating taxes, vanishing opportunities, an eroding dollar, and unending reliance on governmental support.  First Uncle Sam creates the monster, and then Uncle Sam feeds the monster.  How convenient.

Or is it?  What are the results of Americans' dwindling personal rights?  When a single politician can stifle so many of our individual freedoms within the course of a few short months, you have to ask yourself if a democratic society's very existence is being eroded from within.

Of course, the answer to that is painfully obvious.  When one man sets out to deny our First Amendment rights today, he could well end up destroying a Democratic Republic tomorrow.  In fact, one man did just that.  His name: Adolph Hitler.  He did it  to Germany in 1942.

Seventy years ago today.

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