I'm stealing this outright

I totally stole this from another website that I got to via the blogs of many fine men and women. But the source is here at the Philidelphia Daily News' blog. It's a great sentiment.

Let the stealing begin:

What we've become

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
-- Patrick Henry, March 23, 1775.

"You have no civil liberties if you are dead."
-- Sen. Pat Roberts, May 18, 2006.

And the stealing is over.

This is an important difference in the two statements for a reason bigger than even the Revolution itself. See, we're being told that the NSA program, the suspension of habeas corpus for terrror prisoners, the stifling of dissent (people being removed from public Presidential speeches for not being supporters, protestors being arrested even when their demonstrations are legal) and the general sacrifice of civil liberties is because we are facing the worst enemy ever. The terrorists or evil doers or whatever are the such a great threat that liberal democracy itself must be sacrificed in the name of preserving the Republic. A greater existential threat in fact than the four most powerful empires in history (the Soviet Union, the Third Reich, the Empire of Japan, and the British Empire) all of whom we've soundly defeated without sacrificing our way of life. In fact we sought to make greater strides of inclusiveness and further our own liberal tradition in response to threats from these enemies. A few thousand douchebags that dare not show themselves in public lest they be destroyed by the might of the American and allied millitary are apprently more of a threat than four world-conquering authoritarian powers unknown in scope and ambition since the Caesars and Khans of old.

I submit to you, gentle reader, that neither al-Qaeda in particular, nor Islamist terror in general (nor terrorism at all--it's never, ever been effective, ever) is a threat to America in any greater measure that drug addiction or inflation. All of them are threats, and they are serious, and need to be dealt with properly because they are deleterious to the public weal. But none of them require the sacrifice of our core ideals in any way. In the end then, fair correspondants, I tell you that if a bunch of farmers and mercheants could hold off His Britannic Majesty with steel in their eyes and a copy of Common Sense in their hands, then we should not sacrifice freedom and civilization in order to save...freedom and civilization. That would be stupid.