Freedom Is

Freedom is the basic building block of the United States. Freedom is what many American soldiers died for in many, many wars. Freedom is how most Americans will define their country if asked.

For many people around the world, Freedom IS the United States.

And now this is what happened at President Bush's Independence Day party in Charleston, West Virginia:

Two Bush opponents, taken out of the crowd in restraints by police, said they were told they couldn't be there because they were wearing shirts that said they opposed the president.

Is that Freedom?

Why is it, that stories like this one are not even found noteworthy? This is one small paragraph in a long article, but for me this is exactly what is right now going wrong in the United States.

This country is slowly sliding down a slippery slope, so slow and gradual that only very few people seem to notice what is going on. Today it is the people in the anti-Bush t-shirts. Then it's the weirdos doing their save-the-tree meetings. Then it's the swarthy-looking muslims. Then it's the ones voting for the wrong party.

And then Freedom Was.