My Letter to the Editor

Do you think that they will print this?

To Whom It May Concern (which is ALL of you):

What is it that you are all so afraid of? Is it death? If it is, I can guarantee you with 100% certainty that death is something that you cannot escape, no matter who or where it comes from.

Is it the death of a loved one? If so, I can guarantee you with 100% certainty that neither they, nor you, nor I can stop that either.

Is it terrorism? If so, I can guarantee you, although not 100%, that the government that you cowards have charged with coddling you cannot and, more importantly, will not protect you from. Just look at what happened at Virginia Tech. Where was your PATRIOT Act then?

There are only 4 absolute truths in human life. They are as follows: you must eat food, you must drink water, you must breathe air and you must die. That’s it. Nothing else in life is absolute. Nothing else in life is mandatory.

For me, however, there is one other thing that is necessary in my life. That necessity is freedom. That necessity is the liberty which was guaranteed to me by the United States Constitution, written by men much more intelligent and far wiser than I. That necessity is the freedom which is so bravely defended and upheld by men and women much more courageous than I. That necessity is the freedom which is the very life blood of the nation that we call home. That nation which was, at one time, a brightly shining beacon of hope and an example for all to follow. That nation which has been tarnished, as of late, by men and women who are hungry for power and drunken with greed. That nation which has been buried under massive quantities of incompetence and sociopathy. My necessity is the full restoration of my home and seeing her taking her rightful place at the forefront of the cause of freedom the world over. Not through empire-building. Not through force. Not at the barrel of a rifle or the exploding of a bomb dropped from the air or a missile fired from miles away. No. I want my country to spread freedom or, more accurately, the desire for freedom through example and by displays of even-handed compassion.

When are the rest of you cowards going to wake up and see that your desire for safety is costing you the very thing that you were born into? When are you going to wake up and tell your leaders that you will not sacrifice your freedoms for safety, not even for a second and not even temporarily, particularly when they are so inept at protecting you? When are you going to stop quaking in your shoes and hiding behind the skirts of your mothers and say “enough is enough”? Killing hundreds of thousands of people does nothing to stop terrorism, which is what you all fear. It only exacerbates the problem and creates more terrorists. Intense desperation, when left unaddressed, breeds more intense desperation. It defies all logic and common sense to assume that one can stop or prevent terrorism through violent means or economic sanction. What will it take for you all to realize that you cannot trust the government that leads you at this very moment? The government that has made you hated for your nationality throughout the world in which you were once revered and respected. The government that lied to you and made you believe that Iraq was out to get you and that they were somehow behind the awful attacks on 9/11. The government that is now directly responsible for the deaths of 100,000 people, at minimum. The government that is, as I write this, trying to convince you that a nation with the same first 3 letters as Iraq is trying to hurt us. How many times must you be deceived before you stop believing the lie? Judging from the divorce, spousal abuse and child abuse rates in this country, I’d say that you have less tolerance for the people that you love than you do for the government that ru(i)ns your life. How sad is that? Ask yourselves these questions every morning while you brush your teeth and style your hair after 4 hours of restless sleep so that you can hurry up and sit in horrible traffic alongside dozens of soccer moms riding alone in their Ford Expeditions and Chevy Suburbans while putting on too much makeup in order to get to that job that barely pays your bills yet you cannot afford to lose.

Then again, why should I expect so much introspection from a people who display little to no sense of personal accountability? For a minute there, I almost forgot that I live in the nation of “It’s not my fault”. A nation full of people who rely on Dr. Phil and Oprah to give them advice on living, while not realizing that those two people have no real basis in reality any longer because they are far richer than you will ever be and they got that way by dispensing “invaluable advice” to morons like you. A nation that watches television and sees the commercials for the latest in erectile dysfunction treatments and thinks that this is the most important advancement in science ever. A nation that thinks that the latest display of Britney Spears’ well-used vagina on national television while getting out of her car immediately after plowing into a parked car while giggling and exclaiming “Oops, I did it again” is perfectly acceptable as tonight’s top story.

Prove me wrong. I challenge you.

With total sincerity;

Vincent R. ******