President Bush, meet Martin Niemöller

President Bush is continuing to push for an extension of the “Patriot” Act. He supports provisions that discard civil liberties in exchange for catching “terrorists” and criminals. Some republicans have noted that this is an even tradeoff, a police state to catch some “terrorists”

Since this “War on Terror” my government has locked “terrorists” up without any accusations. We have spied on our own people, a charge our president continues to try and justify. The President fought to allow certain types of torture available for use by the intelligence services. The government wants to know what I’m reading. The government feels that it is not necessary for me to be notified if they search my house.

My government will talk about spreading democracy in the Middle East only after not finding links to terrorists in Iraq or any illegal weapons. Meanwhile we can support oppressive regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Azerbaijan, and Kazakhstan because they have been helpful in throwing us a terrorist or two in “cooperation.” The only lesion that we are telling the world is that oppressive regimes that act like they help the US are fine, all other oppressive regimes can continue because we’re too busy in Iraq.

Some people may think that I go a little extreme but there is controversy over what American values are. Some believe that they are the same as fundamentalist Christian values, and others believe in democracy, liberty, privacy, and the belief that the government works for the people and not for itself or any God. History has never been a popular subject in the United States, and this has allowed some people to forget what has once happened.

When they came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.
When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the Jews,
I did not speak out;
I was not a Jew.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

- Pastor Martin Niemöller