For the record, I don’t like talking about this. But it bothers me these days.

It seems these days that our freedom to speak our minds are increasing limited. From the backlash of the recent Dixie Chick comment on GW Bush, to wearing a shirt protesting war at school, I’m beginning to suspect that people are forgetting what the Bill of Rights are.

Everyone has a right to an opinion, right or wrong, good or bad. You can debate it in a forum, you can discuss it among friends. Maybe I don’t agree with you, but I’m not going to take your right to say it away. But these days, I see more and more people’s speech censored.

Couple this with the idea that somehow, by giving up basic rights and freedoms, you’ll have more security, it breaks my heart to see so many people blindly giving away freedom when they’ll never get their security. Of course, I’m not really the first to mention it. Ben Franklin said it. Give up freedom for security, and you’ll have neither.

I’ve got friends in the Navy and Army. They’re in the Gulf as I type this. I’ve had family in war’s including WWI, WWII and the Korean War, so I’ve heard the stories. But war now, it just seems so misconstruted, a play more for ratings on TV and abuse of power more than anything else. Everything just seems so messed up, the nationalistic behavior, opinions muffled and ignored, UN meetings and pre-emptive policy.

I read the papers, and listen to the news. It’s mostly deceptive, blythering loads of words used to inflame. There’s little truth in most of it, if you compare it to actual facts from government legislation, or other transcriptions from speeches. But now one ever reads those. So much misquoting and out of context writing. It’s a mess.

But who’s to say I’m right? No one. Who’s to say that President Bush is right? The vice president? The UN? Who’s to say they’re right? No one. It’s all a catch 22. Who’s to say? Who’s to say they have every piece of information, that they are all knowing? Any one who says that they are is more then likely lying, because one person can’t know such things. Philosphical debate. It’s own never ending battle.