Op-Ed: Freedom of Oppression
The sights and sounds of the Boston Marathon bombings were met by all with shock and dismay. By all, I mean nearly all, aside from the Jordanians who reportedly were celebrating upon hearing of the successful terror strike along with, I imagine many other bloodthirsty Moslem extremists seeking daily to bring Israel and the West to its knees.
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness were not just three words uttered or written into the constitution of American society by our founding fathers, but the ideals and the bedrock upon which American life was founded. For time immemorial while America sought to put its best foot forward in forging and securing relations with the nations of the world we simultaneously knew deep down to distinguish between friend and foe. The Obama administration has blurred the lines between friend and foe on calls of Liberty for all and equality for the entire human race. This, in my estimation, is a perversion of Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness that our founding fathers had in mind.
Today the average American walks the streets in fear, and apprehension, looking forward and backward as if scared of their own shadows, hoping they won’t be blown up by an imposter who has reached these shores on a very different life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Today, mothers send their children off to school not just with a kiss but a prayer that they will come back laughing and playing looking ahead to another day of school and bright future of real Life, real liberty and the ability to pursue their dreams as Americans who seek a peaceful world, not just for themselves but peace for all people, races and ethnic groups.
Freedom is not just an external expression; it is a deep rooted reality. If someone is driven by criminal or terroristic intent he or she is by definition enslaved to those destructive impulses. So if that man or woman happens to be American there are ways to deal with them and to regulate his or her situation. There is community service, jail, therapy and other means through which a person could think through their misdeeds and if interested correct them going forward. But if a person succeeded in crossing the ocean to these shores on the basis of freedom to undermine the true freedom that our forefathers lived and died for we are being robbed of everything that we have been promised as Americans.
So if the perpetrators of these heinous acts hail from the Middle East and there are hundreds or perhaps thousands of other citizens who hail from that region who have established lives in this country based on the ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for themselves and their children and have adapted to these ideals then I agree that they have deserved their right to live peacefully on these shores. However, there must be a system in place to distinguish between those that have come here in search of a newfound life away from the oppressiveness and stifled lives that they and their ancestors knew back home and those that have come to impose their extremist views and wreak havoc, in essence compromising our freedom and undermining the openness of American society and using it against us.
We know just how touchy the subject racial profiling is and how it is against the Obama way of doing things. Having said that, just how does Mr. Obama plan on addressing the root of this issue, stopping these incidents before they change the lives of Americans indefinitely? Just how many sacrifices are we required to offer before we could close the door on this newfound sadness that has become a mainstay in the once free American life? Israel has long figured out a way to interrogate passengers without trespassing people’s privacy or not being considerate of people’s sensitivities.
Early reports following the explosions credited Israelis with briefing the Boston General Hospital to react in the face of mass casualties. There is no doubt that the manner in which medical personnel dealt with the wounded succeeded in stemming the numbers of fatalities. America ought to learn a thing or two from its ‘closest ally’ namely how to root out terrorists and ultimately improve the quality of life.
As it stands currently the freedom espoused in today’s America is helping terrorists live and operate in our midst and that is a direct affront to the life of Americans looking to live peaceful lives as we always have on these shores. It’s an oppressive freedom and it’s just unacceptable. Soon the dust on this tragedy will settle and the afflicted will have to adjust to their new realities. At the same time we hope that the current administration will be hard at work inventing ways to maintain the rights that we have always been afforded as Americans. For the time being though, we have been robbed of those basic rights.
There is an amendment for the rights of Americans to express themselves, it’s called freedom of Expression or freedom of speech. Last I checked however, nowhere does it state freedom of oppression – let’s see to it that our President enforces that and protects our basic rights to live happy, fruitful lives to pursue the abundant good that this world has to offer.
Andrea Schonberger
We can start by stricter background checks on firearms purchases especially on straws purchases and strengthening bans on large capacity ammunition magazines or better yet, stop their sales to civilians entirely, To be honest I’m more afraid of some person going dotty with a gun in their hands than I am of a bomb going off in a public place.
Gold
Drive for Gun Control Blocked in Senate
A Pretty Shameful Day for Americans
Milhouse
On the contrary, it was a proud day for Americans, and a wonderful defeat to the enemies of American freedom, such as Andrea Schonberger.
Straw purchases are already illegal; the law can’t get any stricter on them. Background checks are already in place at all licensed dealers, which is where the vast majority of legal guns are bought, and have done almost no good at all. They produce over 90% false negatives, and less than 150 prosecutions a year.
Standard capacity magazines are a necessary tool for self-defense. No honest person could ever want to restrict their availability; only a criminal or a would-be tyrant would want that.
Your paranoia is your problem, not anyone else’s, and it doesn’t give you the right to deprive other people of their fundamental freedoms.
Shamir the worm
The founding fathers would be rolling in their graves if they knew what America has become!It’s not the Country of freedom and right to happiness Painted so well by Norman Rockwell anymore!It’s a Nation that has its core ideals and values under siege by these savages;millions emigrated to the USA during the last two centuries in pursuit of happiness;now the new-comers hate the american way of life and wanna destroy it from within!
Lupe
“Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness were not just three words uttered or written into the constitution of American society by our founding fathers”
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness were written in the declaration of independence not in the constitution.
Chaim
Such depths!
Hard to follow, huge grasp of vocabulary, and expression
Well written though, thank you for sharing
Anon
First, it’s PRESIDENT Obama. He was elected into office, did not just walk in.
Second, these incidents cannot always be stopped. It is ridiculous to assume they can be and that the full responsibility is on one man’s shoulders. Homeland Security fields many threats every day and these incidents are noted in the news.
Racial profiling before there are enough facts should not be any President’s way because all it will do is add to resentment, suspicion, and violence toward innocent people (which will breed more hate) when this could very well be an act of domestic, non-Islam related terrorism, of which, the United States has endured much of:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States
“in search of a newfound life away from the oppressiveness and stifled lives that they and their ancestors knew back home and those that have come to impose their extremist views and wreak havoc, in essence compromising our freedom and undermining the openness of American society and using it against us.”
The same can be said for the more extremist sects of Judaism. Remember Skver, the man who was set on fire? Or the internet/cell/email/etc. surveillance the vaad in Willi does on its community? Where is the freedom?
Milhouse
Profiling, including racial profiling, is common sense, and rejecting it is dangerous insanity. Profiling means playing the odds; looking first where you’re most likely to find. Don’t pretend to be surprised that this bombing was done by Moslems. It usually is, and that means the search for suspects should concentrate especially on Moslems, while not forgetting that it’s also possible for it to be someone else.
And the authorities do use racial profiling, but only when the profile is white. When they were looking for the DC snipers, they actually stopped them and then let them go because they weren’t white and so didn’t fit the profile! That’s stupid overreliance on profiling, but it shows that they have no problem using it on white people.