Freedom and Independence on the Fourth of July

Last year, on the American Independence Day, I flew into JFK Airport in New York from abroad. I was greeted by countless NYPD officers carrying M16 automatic rifles due to a heightened state of security created out of fear of a terrorist attack to coincide with America's celebration of Independence. On subsequent travels, I have noticed that foreign embassies tend to be friendly, inviting places for citizens in foreign countries to come for travel assistance; that is, except American Embassies. American Embassies are generally fortified like a military compound, out of fear of a "terrorist" attack. Flying into America, American citizens and non-citizens alike are forced to pass through more security checkpoints than for nearly any other destination on the planet, save perhaps Iraq. At some point don't people wonder: What are we doing so wrong that we have to live in fear all over the world, even in our own country?

Earlier this year, a company called Mercer Human Resource Consulting released its findings on the world's best and worst cities to live in. Its findings would have been troubling to Americans had the media bothered to mention it, but to do so may have been to wake the American Public from their reverrie of ignorance, so of course this didn't happen. Of the top 30 cities, nearly half were in Western Europe, quite a few from Asia, and just 2 from America. Those 2 were Honolulu (27th) and San Francisco (28th). Given this knowledge, might Americans question the fact that they have spent $293,000,000,000
and counting on the war in Iraq, while their quality of living is not up to par with their European and Asian counterparts?

American policies in the Middle East (read: Iraq as a Petri Dish for testing the National Security Strategy of 2002) are doing more to increase the threat of terrorism than to protect the safety and well being of its citizens. Is that not a violation of the very foundations of America? Lets have a look at the Declaration of Independence:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

It is impossible, at this moment, to conclude that the Safety and Happiness of the people of America are being adequately secured by their "democratically" elected government. While Americans seem to believe, through their fog of ignorance, that somehow the Iraq War has helped increase their safety, the sad truth that the rest of the world is aware of is that it has not. Just look at the following recent poll results:


What I wonder is wether or not Americans genuinely believe that they must accept and agree with everything their government is doing to be nationalistic. Does the love of ones country have to blind them to the follies of their leaders?

Another disturbing trend Americans should note this Independence week is the fact that the "liberty" and "freedom" that their government exists to protect, that their 450,000,000,000 per year "Defence" budget exists to protect, is being infringed by a mixture of draconian encroachments on civil liberty (under the guise of National Security") and startling overextention of executive powers that is turning America into a Police State right under the noses of its population.

Simultaneously, disturbing trends of global warming, which are going to have a disasterous effect on the amount of food and inhabitable space that will be around for our grandchildren, is being wholeheartedly ignored by those in power.

Is this the world that the creators of America envisioned when they declared its Independence from Imperial Britain?