What legacy will we leave our children?

CNN has a story on their website regarding today’s developments in the battle over the Patriot Act. The first line of the story says it all:

“WASHINGTON (AP) -- Senate Republicans moved Wednesday to prevent Democrats from trying to add more civil liberties safeguards to a renewal of the 2001 Patriot Act due to expire next week.”

Republicans prevent Democrats from adding civil liberty safeguards. Hmmmm. Why doesn’t this surprise me? The party that brought you war under false pretenses, Plamegate, illegal wiretapping, selling port security to the highest bidder, now wants to prevent protections of civil liberties from being added to the Patriot Act legislation.

Republican Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky made the comment: “Civil liberties do not mean much when you are dead.” How fitting a statement from a leader in the Republican party. The other day, I said that the Republicans who blindly follow Bush & Co. are traitors. I was only half right. Apparently they are cowards as well.

The founding fathers of our nation were willing to face death for what they believed in. And they lived in a time when enemies of the crown were publicly drawn & quartered. They realized that what they were fighting for was more important than their lives, and it was an ideal that cowards like Senator Bunning cannot grasp. That government is a servant of the people, not vice-versa. That freedom and liberty are the birthright of mankind, and no man, no government has the right to take that away from another human being. That we owe it to our children, and our children’s children, to leave them a world where they have the rights and freedoms that we are willing to fight and die to protect.

Ben Franklin hit the nail right on the head: “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.” If we choose to continue to sit idly by while those in power shred the Constitution, we deserve to live the curse of Franklin’s prophetic words. The saddest part is, our children do not.