Suspension of Disbelief

Monday, January 21, 2009 Dear Department of Misplaced Items, I hope that this letter finds you well. I, unfortunately, am not so well. I seemed to have misplaced a few household items. I would not be bothering you about them, if it were not for the fact that I assumed they would have turned up by now. I hope that you can help me locate them; they are of vital importance, and I have reason to believe that they have been stolen from me. I approach you not without trepidation however, as I know your legendary ability to find lost objects, and too the complexities of your department to which occasionally one can contribute the lose of ones own self. But too, what I have lost track of is equally legendary, difficult to recover, and perhaps more so invaluable. You see, dear sir or madam, that I seem to have lost my rights, and I cannot for the life of me understand where they have gone to. The situation has become grave, oh finder of misplaced items, for just yesterday, upon questioning my ...

My waking hours are blistered with terror this and war that. Fear. We live in a world where fear dictates our every move and our every decision. It wasn't always this way. In 1941 FDR reminded the American people that they had nothing to fear but fear itself. And sixty years later we forgot. Benjamin Franklin once wrote "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." He knew too what FDR spoke of, that we cannot live our lives in fear and we cannot do things in haste because of fear. The Bush presidency is littered with mistakes of this sort. And it is the future that will pay. I will not speak of the numerous and wide ranging violations of essential liberty that we've made. I will not speak of the fear that has gripped this nation, particularly in its heartland, where attacks are in the very least more unlikely than in urban America. These atrocities have been listed elsewhere, and as I'm sure...