Freedom

Across the United States, in two days people will be voting (some, with vote-by-mail, like Oregon or absentee ballots, already have). We will mark our ballots with the belief that it makes a difference, that we owe it to those who have sacrified to make it possible for us to live in a country that has this right.

My month of only writing about politics, politicians and policies ends with this blog. To those, who support the Republican message and President Bush, I have probably seemed pretty hard on him and those who support him. I understand the desire to think the best of our country, of the leadership that governs it. I wish I could feel that way about this current administration, but what I have seen them do seems a threat to what I value most.

Where people who support Bush must see a good man, I have seen increasing corruption, intellectual laziness, a desire to take our freedoms to gain power at any cost.

Our nation is governed by majority vote, but that doesn't make the decisions of the majority to be correct ones. We know at one time a majority thought slavery was okay. In another era it was all right to have children working in factories. Yet another time justified abuse of Native Americans and a confiscation of their lands-- even those with signed treaties.

Majority doesn't guarantee anything in a mob or in a country. It does mean they won. Right now winning seems to be all some care about, but some of those caught up in a desire for victory can lost track of the price they are paying for that victory.

I ask for those of you who are gung ho on the Republican party, please look at what this president has done, is doing, and what the people who are behind him want. For a moment, forget your dislike of Clinton. Don't go just by what Bush says, look at his actions; and when you go to the polls, be sure you have really thought through where we are heading if we stay on this path.

It's worth all of us taking some time to consider how much is security worth? It's hard to believe this nation which was founded by pilgrims, emigrants and pioneers, who braved the unknown and faced hardships most of us can't even imagine, would be so fearful a few generations later that we wouldn't mind throwing away freedoms that others fought so hard to gain.

Hopefully when we vote, we all vote our conscience, not our pocketbook. I worry when we hear from those who justify torture in the name of personal safety. I don't understand those who are willing to throw away their right to a trial based totally on faith in the Bush people or their hope that Republicans are godly and will keep them safe.

I hope we all keep in mind the goals on which this country was founded. We haven't always lived up to them, but they are grand goals. This is such a beautiful land, with a proud dream behind it. We can have that but not without cost. It has never come without cost.

Devil's Tower, Wyoming was not chosen because I think Bush is the devil. It was because freedom and good things are not free. They require vigilance and courage to hold onto them because there is always someone willing to take them away. This huge chunk of rock seemed like a good reminder of the dream with which our nation began.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. -- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

from the Declaration of Independence. Some might even see those words as Revolutionary today!