At first it was the criminals. That’s all fine and good. Nobody needs any criminals. Then it was the troublemakers. That’s good too if everyone has the same definition of troublemaker. Then they came for those who were saying things that somebody didn’t like. The upstarts who may have been thinking a little too much I guess we could do with a few less of those around. Then it started to change. The gypsies suddenly vanished. Who cares. Nobody liked them anyway. Then the Jews started to vanish. They came to the door and the Jews went. It wasn’t my door so I turned the other way as I had with everyone else who had been taken. It wasn’t my door they came to. A nagging voice in my head said perhaps I should care. The voice was ignored until they came to my door and I found out that it was illegal to be me. My very thoughts weren’t even my own. They had to be controlled. They were dangerous.
Today we see our rights being taken. Daily, someone in the government decides, for the safety of the public, what we are no longer allowed to do. Sadly, so few in our country care about rights so long as they are being placated by something, entertained, inebriated, or generally confused to the point where they can no longer act. I saw on a bumper sticker a few days ago that said ‘freedom isn’t free’. But I think that it’s more appropriate to say that freedom is gone. The Constitution is no longer of the people, it is defined and redefined by lawyers who wish to change just one thing or another to fit their personal, political or employers whims. We barely have the freedom that was sought after by the pilgrims escaping England for tax and religious relief. We are taxed heavily and our religious freedoms are being turned into hate crimes. Our world concerns itself with itself, worshiping celebrities, false gods, money, power and forgets that which is truly important: God, family, freedom. Don’t forget what’s important as you sit in front of your X-Box or iPod and are distracted from the world around you. Eventually they could be knocking on your door asking for that iPod. You would care then.