Killing America

Steve Culley
August 5th, 2007


I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen president George Bush go on television and argue for some new domestic spying law that he desperately needs to “keep Americans safe” from Al Qaeda or Islamic fascist. Always what he asks for is just another little bit of police state that chips away at the Bill Of Rights and Constitution. His requests are usually endorsed and touted by the political right like Bill Oreilly and Sean Hannity and acquiesced too by democrats in congress because they know that in the present political climate that if another 9 11 type attack happened anyone who didn’t vote to give George Bush the “tools he needed” to stop terrorism would soon be out of a job.

All of this reflects the sorry state of American patriotism we have today. Nobody in the mainstream media or for that matter few in the blogosphere seem to be able to distinguish between killing Americans and killing America. They are two different things.

Bin Laden killed Americans on 9 11. The communists killed Americans in Viet Nam and Korea. Nazis killed Americans in Europe and Africa and Japanese militarism killed Americans in the Pacific. Germans killed Americans during World War One. Spain killed Americans during the Spanish American War. Americans killed Americans during our Civil War. The British killed Americans during the War of 1812. The very first Americans to die in war were those Minute Men who stood on the greens at Lexington and Concord to be killed by the most power army in the world, the British empire. That’s when we started to think of ourselves as Americans. Americans died but America was born.

And what is an American? Is it people who live inside a certain geographical boundary? Yes we do or should have borders and a history and a tradition and unique laws. That is part of being American. Americans are the heirs of brave and involved people who decided they would pay the price of being free. You can live in America but America lives in Americans.

I say killing Americans is not the same as killing America. America is an idea that was spawned at those village greens where a “shot heard around the world” was fired. America is an idea. Something that came down from heaven in my view. It’s a simple idea. That common men can run their own affairs without the benefit of royal leaders born with the right to rule. The American way is one of independence from state and for that matter from each other. We might cooperate for the common good in some things like a national defense, some book keeping things for business like trade deals and such and in laws that ensure the rights of individuals against the state and the tyranny of majority rule. A republic if you will.

After the constitutional convention, where Ben Franklin, had looked at a carved wooden figure in the back of a chair of a sunrise or possibly sunset remarked to a man on the street, “what have you given us Mr. Franklin” said “ A republic if you can keep it”. Franklin, during the build up to the revolution that spawned the American idea also said that, “those who would give up essential liberties for a little security deserve neither”.

And now 200 and some years later here we are again. Giving up essential liberty so Americans don’t die even if it means America might die.

There was a time when slogans meant something and were understood by a large portion of the population. “don’t tread on me” , “live free or die”, “better dead than red”. American ideas. The idea that life isn’t so precious that we would slowly give our freedoms and condemn our children and grand children to lives of servitude and bondage just to stay alive.

Who’s killing America? Bin Laden? No it’s the politicians and pundits and lazy media news editors who argue for a tough anti terrorism laws even if it’s un-American. It’s the far left that tries to disarm the common man, those men who pledged to be ready in one minute, the Minute Men, who met the British on the Village green, the militia, the common armed man, long before any concept of a national guard who the left wing says are the sole people who have the right to keep and bear arms. Judges who are globalists before they are American who hand out rights to foreigners who arrived yesterday, illegally who never bothered to fight their own revolutions and the real anti Americans, those Americans who reap the benefits of being American but could not tell you anything about Lexington and Concord, The battle of New Orleans, Belleau Woods, Normandy, Iowa Jima, Bastogne, Inchon, Khe Sahn, The Gulf or for that matter Iraq and Afghanistan today. The far right pundit who argues for blind loyalty to a president and the politician who fails to stand up and say’ “ If I vote for this bill it will give the federal government the ability to spy on our enemies, but it will also give the federal government the right to spy on you. It might save your life but there is an equal possibility that it makes you part of a police state. Therefore I will not vote for it. You might die in an Islamic explosion but you will die American. You will die free and America, the idea will live.”

We are 300 million. How many could we lose and still be American? If one person is left who understands what America is, or was, then America lives. But if a majority votes away freedoms to be safe, then America is dead and gone.