America Land of the Free????

When I was in school we learned that our country was based on the freedoms that were denied under English rule. The freedom to speak our minds, to worship how and who we wanted or not, if we so chose.

Every 4 years we go through the process of selecting the individual who will head our government. Increasingly over the last few elections the process has become more negative. The contenders are more interested in attacking the merits or lack thereof of their opponents. This is done at the expense of the issues that are really important to the voters. This type of campaigning trickles down to the followers of the respective candidates. Why am I mentioning this??? Well because of an experience that a co-worker had while on vacation recently.
I will not recount the entire episode here. But it entailed he and his wife being terrorized on a highway in the United States because of the bumper sticker on their car. A fast food drink container was thrown at their car. Their car was surrounded and obsenities yelled at them, an individual even got out of his car and performed some indecent acts and made some threatening gestures.

When they got to their hotel and described their ordeal, they were told to remove the bumper sticker. They even approached the police and were told the exact same thing.

Thankfully no guns were pulled but if this had happened in the movies, guns would have been pulled, lives would have been taken. My co-worker and his wife, had they survived, would have taken in custody and locked away.

All of this because of a bumper sticker.

The last time I checked Freedom of Speech was a right that we all enjoyed, not just the supporters of one particular political party. You might say, that the perpetrators were just exercising their right to free speech and you would be right. However, the right to free speech ends when you jeopardize the lives of other individuals. When the individuals who are witnessing your free speech feel threatened and fear for their lives.

We need to exercise some common sense. We are all Americans, it doesn't matter who we vote for as long as we vote. It doesn't matter who or how we worship as long as we don't try to force others to believe the same as we do. Once we start turning on each other, those who would destroy America and our way of life have won.

Together we will prevail, separately we will fall.