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God Bless America

 

Over the years, I have traveled from the Far East to Europe and seen struggles for individual freedom as well as struggles of young democracies, at the time of their birth.

Years ago I wrote a narrative on freedom, responsibility, and the precarious balance required between them to create a nation.  So many of our own nations forefathers concerned themselves with the conflicting objectives of their quest for freedom and the necessity for parameters to pen in this new freedom, if a nation was to thrive.  Predictions abounded in the early days of our nation that were pessimistic, with speeches summarized into the following loose quotation, "Your nation shall exist only so long as your citizen's quest for individual freedom does not tear it apart."  I think that is attributed to the Frenchman that befriended General Washington during the revolution.

This fear of over 200 years ago is still a burden for our nation today and all nations in their infancy.  To exist as a nation, citizens must give up freedom.  Freedom absolute is in reality a softening of its real meaning, "chaos," or "anarchy."  Scholars have written much on the subject of freedom and boundaries.  It is clear that in broadest terms, that freedom cannot be absolute since we have all heard the statement, "One man's freedom end where another man's begins."  What do you do when individual freedoms collide?  Do we leave fate to the strongest and watch the defeat of the weak and minority?  If freedom is to be absolute then that is necessary.  That brings us to nation building.

The mere existence of a nation means that a group of folks sat down and set parameters or boundaries on their freedom.  How do you determine these boundaries?  I imagine a person brings to the table a set of "values," a set of beliefs of what is right and what is wrong.  Now where they got these beliefs most likely was not in the streets of barbarianism but some type of structured moral code.  This structure determined the set of beliefs of what is right and what is wrong that formed the basis of our "chaining up freedom" in order to form a nation.

The sensitivities of our forefathers directly influenced the nature of our system of laws (criminal, civil, moral).  If the King of England had not facilitated the fight between the Catholic Church and Protestants and if that fight would not have been as violent would we have as one of our bill of rights a prohibition against the establishment of religion, possibly not.  We do not know, as all we can do is speculate.

What we do know, is thirteen separate colonies with 13 or more distinct sensitivities got together and laid out a legal code that would form a nation.  These forefathers took their concept of right and wrong and determined which areas of their "freedom" they would allow to be controlled and then how to control it.  They established the constitution, which formed the basis or our legal code and determined which things controlled in criminal courts and which by civil courts.  By exclusion, they determined which things the elusive moral code controlled.  I imagine at the time the determination of a moral code seemed as simple as common sense.  Of course, the whole concept of an individual moral code means that over 200 million of our citizens can determine what the moral code may or may not be. 

Hence, the civil courts are handling much of what our forefathers imagined would be a simple moral code issue.

We digress a bit away from the pretense of the hypothesis, which is to state that a nation cannot exist with absolute freedom.  The very creation of a nation means that freedom is not absolute.  We must control freedom to preserve the nation.  We cannot allow the nation to be torn apart by individual quests for freedom.

We just as strongly or even more vehemently cannot squelch our right to self-determination.  Now I have contradicted myself.  We cannot survive as a nation if individuals do not give up a degree of their freedom, yet we cannot exist as a democracy if we do not protect individual's right to liberty.

As our nation has grown, our laws have grown to volumes in length.  It would probably be difficult for our forefathers to contemplate the volumes of laws created over the last 200 years with the shared purpose of adequately reigning in freedom to preserve the nation yet lengthen the leash on freedom to protect individual rights. 

What is that balance?  That question changes through the generations.  I feel we have the system in place to protect our nation for a while, but I do see a time where volumes of laws can only create mass contradictions and confusion.

Hello, how can a Judge in one district read and interpret the law in one way and yet another judge in a different district reading the same law, give a diametrically opposed interpretation?  How can the United States Supreme Court have a split decision?  Are they not reading the same law? 

We have come to a point where the basic constitutional bill of rights takes hours of research to determine meaning.  Have we so masked the intent of the drafters of the constitution that we facilitated the preeminence of their greatest fear?

"That individual's quests for freedom would tear the nation apart." 

How else can we rationalize that it takes volumes of information and months of research to rule on a question of simple constitutionality.  We do have an issue that our nation continues to procrastinate.  "What is the proper balance between individual freedom and those chains on freedom required to preserve the nation? 

I do not know the answer, but I do know, we can sing the old marching song with this simple end thought;

And, the volume of laws goes marching on

Hoorah -- Hoorah!

This is just the latest news (from what I see and do) so here goes.  This month marks a year I've been on the road and I've got four more months to go.  It's still a long way but coming home to my family and great friends as you've been in my life makes it all worth it.

It's 122 degrees out and it's been, well, busy in the middle of this surge business.  I suppose this is what one would call high-stakes politics on steroids.  We've all been quietly doing our jobs here shredding Al-Qaeda and their twisted logic by the numbers and rebuilding the joint.  Don't be fooled by all that glorious martyrdom stuff they preach; they cut and run at the slightest possibility of contact with us.  Their bravery is demonstrated time and again by sawing off the heads of innocent civilians and their children when we're not in the area

The determination of these common folks is refreshing and they are just trying to eak out a meager living for themselves, hoping these thugs will go away.  Their fears are beginning to turn to anger and confidence to fight them in greater numbers each day. We're getting more tribal and community leaders to stand up against these bandits or tell us where they are hiding.  I don't hear what the American public is being told by the media and Al Qaeda but we are definitely beginning to see signs of progress in this long and difficult fight.

The backing from my family has sustained me here and I've had a support group holding it all together until I finish my tour of duty.  The leadership here is intelligent, professional and superb. You can feel the teamwork ethos throughout the 168,000 strong bunch of Americans and the additional coalition partners who've jumped in to help.  By sheer numbers and resources, it's true the U.S. does the heavy lifting here but that is in direct portion to our capabilities and commitment to this effort.  You see it on the faces of our young (and not so young) troops here everyday.  If it weren't for the few politically appointed boobs in blue neckties placed here with their fast-food mentalities several years ago, this would have been a much different and better place than it is now but that is only my opinion.

I am not wrapping myself in the flag; in fact, for most of us it's quite the opposite.  Most of the ill-informed politicians use it and this war as a security blanket to wrap themselves in to shield them from their cold unpredictable future and I'll leave it at that.  I believe that most of the troops here or those who have served in uniform would quietly and humbly agree.  My 19-year-old daughter enlisted is now serving along with the rest of us in this terrible war and I'm conflicted with both fear and pride.  These kids are so much wiser and braver than I was at their age so, as a consolation; I know that as a country we're still in pretty good hands.  I know we're going to be in good hands because there's some great folks still running around giving it their all on the home front too like the cops, J-keys, and special people like this guy I used to work with: Marine, combat vet, ex-cop, still going flat out in retirement helping out fellow disabled vets who don't ask for much but have given so much more; they don't come better than that-never a go-getter, always a go-giver.  I just needed to say that, (Name Deleted)-sorry. 

Supporting our troops, it's much more than sticking a $1.25 yellow ribbon decal on the car.  Just giving a couple of hours out of your schedule to stop by a VA hospital and talk with them for a while-everyone benefits.  Running an errand, writing a letter for them, or just stopping by does so much to restore hope, character, and value for both parties-regardless of one's feelings toward war-whether you've served or not.  I couldn't be less succinct, knowledgeable, and sure as I am at this point in my career about all this but I guess that type of understanding is a small reward that comes with geezerhood.

I don't' get on the net much and when I try, there's a waiting line so you get to stand around in the shade drinking water and shoot the breeze in the absence of one.  I did find out how to get the SF Chron online and see what's going on in Baghdad by the Bay.  The latest crisis there: Syringe needles in Golden Gate Park?  That's just shocking and terrible, where's the sporting green?  I did hear about Bonds chasing and passing Aaron's homerun record and the government still chasing him.  I think they've got more important guys to chase over here in these parts.  I was also introduced to a rather interesting and balanced website as far as reporting goes.  When we want to know what's really going on in this place, everyone goes to a website called:  iraqslogger.com  Word has it that some former CNN media guy disliked all the programming biases and agendas and made the site for straight reporting: the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Well, this letter is just about cooked and I didn't want to wear out my welcome.  Fingers crossed, I should be home sometime after between turkeys and Christmas trees.  I want to extend to everyone my best wishes and I'll see you all then and the drinks will be on me. 

Cheers,

Sal