East Texas Weekly Community Newspaper

Someone needs to explain something to Armstrong Williams.

There are numerous ways to defend America against terrorist attack. The way the President has chosen - and which Armstrong defends - have the unfortunate side-effect of destroying the America it's trying to defend. It's like killing an infection by application of cyanide - sure, we stop the infection, but at the cost of the patient.

His last sentence is particularly telling - since he's not a terrorist, or affiliated with a terrorist organization, Williams obviously isn't worrying. Can we extrapolate here a little? I will make the assumptive leap, for the purposes of my argument, that Williams is also not a drug runner - I'm sure he wouldn't mind being stopped in his car for an impromptu warrantless search. Since he's also not a murderer, he won't mind a similar warrantless search of his home for evidence of that crime. Since he's also not a pedophile, a search of his home computer would be welcome as well to allay the government's fears. Of course, we'd do this at times when it wasn't an inconvenience - say, search his car while he's in the office, his home while he's at work, and his computer at 2am when he's asleep. The one exception would be when he's trying to board a plane, at which point all concerns about convenience would be suspended.

Armstrong Williams needs a swift kick in his rhetorical pants - the America he and I both love is being killed by the cure he is supporting. America annot tolerate this without doing something. It will either fight back, or (as I fear and see), roll over and die. And then Armstrong Williams can feel safe knowing the government is watching over him and his family, because all they do and say will be screened for potential mindcrimes...

East Texas Weekly Community Newspaper