I Choose the Safety of Liberty

by
Suzann Darnall

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg: "The people who are worried about privacy have a legitimate worry. But we live in a complex world where you're going to have to have a level of security greater than you did back in the olden days, if you will. And our laws and our interpretation of the Constitution, I think, have to change."

Founding Father Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

I continue to be amazed by the bureaucratic morons who seemingly believe that restricting the freedoms of law-abiding citizens will somehow make our society safer from those who would do us harm. In fact, I find that idea so amazing that I can only really believe that these bureaucrats are not simply stupid, but are actually greedy for obtaining more power by controlling citizens at all possible levels, even through intrusions into our private lives, families, and homes.

But whether the politicians' attempts to restrict our rights comes from stupidity or cupidity, I reject the idea that it makes me safer. I feel my best security lays in freedom. The liberty that allows me to exercise the free will granted me by God. In my opinion, our first and most important God-given right is our free agency. The right to choose. Anything less is slavery. There is no freedom or safety in state-sponsored security. There is only capitivity. The cage may be large and comfortable, but it restricts our movements nonetheless.

There are limited safeties I require of the government. Police and the military to defend me from bad guys, domestic or foreign, are two of the most evident. But, I still want the freedom to care for my personal and home security with a firearm if it becomes necessary.

I am tired of them slowly leeching away our freedom and our rights because of the so-called safety of the collective. I do not believe that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one, because each of the many or each of the few ARE each the one. It is the individual we must protect. Each of us is precious and unique. Each of us has worth beyond just being a number to be counted amidst the government's many. It is we the individuals who make up society. If we are not safe, it is not secure.

So, I again reaffirm that I choose liberty. Therein lays my security. It is through exercising my freedoms granted by God, properly protected by the Constitution and our United States government, that I will be kept safest. I know this without a doubt. And, therefore, I am unwilling to trade even the tiniest fragment of my freedom for the briefest moment of government's perception of security!

© Suzann C. Darnall, APRIL 2013