Speech is one of the few abilities that human beings share across all creeds, faiths, races, and ethnicities. By nature, it connects us, it strengthens us, and it empowers us. Speech as affirmation or as dissent should be cherished and respected.

On Election Day, we select our representatives by secret ballot, and we choose our candidates based on their ability to protect our individual rights, not the rights of the group of people with which we most closely identify.

After September 11th, that all changed for the Pentagon and the CIA, and like the render and torture program, something which began under Clinton and expanded under Bush, would exponentially increase in power under the Obama administration.

The monarchy continued this tradition, and it migrated to America as soon as there was profit to be had.

Up until September 4th 2001, the Department of Defense and CIA were still reluctant to utilize these creepy super-weapons, even to kill bin Laden.

Justice William O. Douglas wrote, “The framers of the Constitution knew human nature as well as we do. They too had lived in dangerous days; they too knew the suffocating influence of orthodoxy and standardized thought. They weighed the compulsions for restrained speech and thought against the abuses of liberty. They chose liberty.

Only problem is, we the people are not asked to choose liberty or security. In fact, we the people are often misled to believe that the only way to protect the homeland is by acquiescing, by placing our freedoms at the feet of our protectors.

Legislators redistrict all the time to achieve desired results. They group people together based on how they think they will vote. There is something fundamentally wrong with this tactic; it is unconstitutional, it is manipulative, it is patronizing, and it infringes upon all citizens’ right to vote.

Which would you choose: To be free or to be secure? State security and personal freedom often run along tense lines with each other, but our Constitution and its philosophical roots clearly bias freedom over safety.

Indeed, Lincoln’s test of a man is also a true test for a nation. To test a nation’s belief in freedom, challenge the people with the emotions of fear and vengeance that often accompany war.