Unfortunately, you’ve grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that’s at the root of all our problems; some of these same voices also doing their best to gum up the works. They’ll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices. Because what they suggest is that our brave and creative and unique experiment in self-rule is somehow just a sham with which we can’t be trusted.
These were President
Obama’s poorly-chosen words in his recent commencement address at Ohio State
University (for more on this, see: American Thinker Comments) … during the time it was being revealed (and reviled)
that his administration had an extensively wiretap dragnet out for the Associated
Press and Fox News reporters, a clear violation of our Constitution’s First
Amendment … and had also given, since 2010, extensive jackboot power to the IRS to suppress conservative activists … probably with the intent of affecting
the outcome of the 2012 election (see: Bad Apple). Frightenly, this actual tyranny may have succeeded.
And, in the last
few days, we have also learned that our National Security Agency (NSA) has
acquired years of phone and Internet “metadata” (phone numbers, URLs, times,
and durations) of virtually every American (for an interview with the leaker of
these revelations, Edward Snowden, see: Guardian Story). I strongly suspect that we will someday discover
that the extent of these government intrusions on Americans’ privacy actually
went much further than has been reported.
Now, to use Obama’s
own words, this “sinister entity,” our government, also does have the
obligation to protect its citizenry ...
and so there is some rationale for them to monitor extremists on both sides of
the political spectrum … those who might be trying to do us evil.
But, it seems, to this commentator, that the Obama administration is seriously unbalanced in its approach to such threats. When the Director of Homeland Security (and, possibly, our next Attorney General), Janet Napolitano, was a tyro in her current office, she specifically fretted that those on the right were the greatest threat to our national security … see: Washington Times Story. Boy was she off the mark! Despite all these NSA communication intrusions and Justice Department First Amendment tramplings, every actual or attempted serious assaults on Americans on our soil over the last 4 ½ years have come from Islamic extremists … see: Washington Times Story
But, it seems, to this commentator, that the Obama administration is seriously unbalanced in its approach to such threats. When the Director of Homeland Security (and, possibly, our next Attorney General), Janet Napolitano, was a tyro in her current office, she specifically fretted that those on the right were the greatest threat to our national security … see: Washington Times Story. Boy was she off the mark! Despite all these NSA communication intrusions and Justice Department First Amendment tramplings, every actual or attempted serious assaults on Americans on our soil over the last 4 ½ years have come from Islamic extremists … see: Washington Times Story
I guess I now classify as one of
those voices against whom Obama was railing to the Ohio State
Afterthought: With all of NSA's uber-extensive monitoring of U.S. citizens' communications traffic, not only did it miss the Boston Marathon Bombers' intrigues ... but it also dropped the ball on Ed Snowden himself's mischief making. Perhaps it only is interested in our e-mails that contain phrases like "Don't tread on me"?
Afterthought: With all of NSA's uber-extensive monitoring of U.S. citizens' communications traffic, not only did it miss the Boston Marathon Bombers' intrigues ... but it also dropped the ball on Ed Snowden himself's mischief making. Perhaps it only is interested in our e-mails that contain phrases like "Don't tread on me"?
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