At Rescue the other night, someone mentioned an Abraham Lincoln quote when we were talking about the $700 Billion bailout of the financial industry. I wanted to look up that quote but found a few more that were appropriate, and show just how much the United States has drifted from its roots, and of course I think about the pointless war in Iraq, and how President non-Elect Bush has lied to us. The quote he was referring to turned out to be from Davy Crockett, but it was still very fitting.

"Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have." ~Davy Crockett

I sit sometimes and think about how freedom has been, I want to say stolen from us, but it hasn't been. Freedom has been handed over to the government without question since 9/11. Nobody seems to want freedom, but rather for the government to provide everything. How am I more safe when police do random bag checks on the NYC Subway system? Sure would be nice to randomly stop a crime, but why does it have to feel like a police state? How could they possibly stop a planned attack with random checks? I'm no rocket scientist but I see the Police sitting at one end or the other of the turnstiles. It's not hard to figure out how to enter almost any NYC station without the Police checking your bag.

"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~Abraham Lincoln

Why should I have to open my bag to ride the Subway anyway? Is this a Police state? Do I not have the freedom to move about the country without being hassled by Police? How about no-knock warrants? Random Police roadside checkpoints? Wire taps with no warrant? Why should I feel like a criminal in my own country? I would rather live each day a free person than live under constant watch. I don't need the NYPD / FBI / CIA / NSA to run my life. If our government wasn't composed of assholes who randomly attack others in the world maybe we wouldn't be such a target. What exactly did Iraq do to justify an invasion? Was it the dictatorship? Why haven't we invaded Cuba other than the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion?

"I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends." ~Abraham Lincoln

I understand that 9/11 happened and changed everything, but it shouldn't have been a shock that it was going to happen. The fact is that in the relaxed security before 9/11/2001 the FBI knew in advance that there was going to be an attack. The FBI fell down as an intelligence organization, and now we all have to pay for it every day instead of fixing the FBI. Why does the government need more access to private information when under the old rules they had less information, still knew about the problem, and either did nothing to stop it or were unable to stop it?

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised "for the good of its victims" may be the most oppressive." ~C. S. Lewis

The United States has become a nation of people unable to think for themselves and happy not to take responsibility for their actions because the government will take care of them. How far have we come in only 232 years? Imagine what we will have given up in the next two and a half centuries all to protect citizens from the evils of the world.

"Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose—and you allow him to make war at pleasure." ~Abraham Lincoln

"Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." ~Benjamin Franklin

"A highwayman is as much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when single; and a nation that makes an unjust war is only a great gang." ~Benjamin Franklin

"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth." ~Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing." ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

"May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion." ~Dwight D. Eisenhower