This one's gonna be a bummer

When I was younger one of my laments was that my generation had no single event to define its existence. My grandparents had World War II. My parents had Vietnam. And what did we have? Diddly squat. It was my belief (at the time) that the lack of a catalystic event left us somewhat lost and wandering as an American generation. Of course that was 10 years ago. Be careful what you wish for.

In a few days we will be coming up on the 5th anniversary of 9/11. Like it or not, this is the moment that defines my generation as well as almost everything that has happened on a worldwide level in the last 5 years.

The fact is that in the last few months I've heard and amazing amount of fear based rhetoric from the current administration and the various conservative media outlets in this country. As someone who likes to think of themselves as a fairly logical person this concerns me to a great extent.

The latest tendency of the administration is to compare terrorist organizations to the Nazi regime of the 30's in Germany. Suffice it to say that any casual student of history could knock holes in that analogy all too quickly. First and foremost, National Socialists in Germany were a political movement within a industrialized state in the 20th century Europe. Today's Anti-American terror organizations are nebulous movements that ignore geo-political, national, and social boundaries worldwide. And that's the most obvious difference.

Yesterday the President gave a speech officially announcing the existence of secret CIA prisons outside of the United States. Prisoners who were held in the bases were not formally charged with any wrong-doing, they had no legal council, or for that matter legal status what-so-ever. This is a dangerous precedent to set, if for no other reason than it gives other countries the de facto excuse to do it themselves to our citizens. Imagine being held in a Chinese or Russian secret service prison without any contact with the outside world for years. YEARS! No trial, no defense, no basic human rights. Scary, huh?

If anything, this is the perception that we should be fighting against. Rightly or wrongly it is by actions like these that the rest of the world view America by. If we truly are fighting for freedom. Then it's about time we started putting our money where our mouth is. Is it possible that we are opening ourselves up to more attacks by having more freedoms in our society? Yes it's possible. But is it more likely that we are creating more enemies for ourselves by heavy handed and immoral tactics like secret CIA prisons? Most definitely. Many would have us believe that the only way to be safe against attack is by locking down
our lives and having the government become a more intrusive part of our daily lives. On the contrary. True freedom means having less of our daily lives affected by the threats others pose to us. I'm willing to take that chance for freedom. Are you?