You know, I hate to sound like a jerk, but shut up ex-presidents and veeps. Shut up Congress. In fact, if you work for a creepy, bloated government agency, or a creepy, bloated network, just shut up. I don’t need alot of protection from people in other parts of the world that I will never meet. I need to be protected FROM YOU. Listening to all of these wise people tell me they need to shield me from everything that could possibly cause me harm, I now realize that I am a moron. Replace my knives and forks with soft rubber sporks, because I might stab myself in my tiny little brain.

I realize that many folks that I respect, who aren’t dummies or drinking any parties’ Kool-Aid, strongly disagree with my logic on this, but……No one has a right to throw my liberty in the dustbin to “keep me safe’. I don’t care if we’re talking about automobiles, airport security, electronic communication or phone calls. Let me ask you this…. can I read your mail, look at your text messages and cellphone pictures? Can I come in your house while you’re gone and go through your drawers? Can I search your car? How about your kids if you’ve got ’em…. can I look through their stuff? Your husbands? Wives? Well Why not?

I’m a nice guy. I’m reasonably intelligent and I have your best interests at heart, I promise. With all due respect to our police and military ( who do a very difficult, underpaid job ), they are just people. The Elites inside the Washington beltway, some of who have been there three or more decades, are just people too. Granted they are freakish in many ways, they are still just folks like you and me (with power and millions of dollars). So if you wouldn’t want me to be a Peeping Tom in your family’s home and life, why allow countless, nameless others to be?

While we’re at it, what is safe? You could, while reading this, choke on your coffee or have an embolism. Some jerk could run off the road in a Hummer and barrel through your crib, not only ruining your flat screen, but ruining you as well. With all the threats to our well-being, it’s a miracle any of us survive long enough to fill a diaper. I could put you in an air-filtered, armored box and deliver your checked and approved meals to you. I would listen to your calls, read your mail, and give you your medication. I’d even provide for your healthcare. You’d be pretty safe then, right? Hey…… wait a second. That’s prison. I haven’t met many people who have been and called it a safe place, liked it, or wanted to return.

The world I grew up in is unfortunately gone. That statement is made worse by the fact that I’m really not that old .To give you an idea, I will have to pay full price for coffee at MickeyDees for another twenty years. Some of that change is, of course, inevitable. Technology has altered every aspect of our lives at a much more rapid pace than I can believe, and the pitfalls are as numerous as the benefits. The argument I run into the most is the technology problem. I will sum it up like this…… if you post pictures of your junk on Facespace or Mybook, then you made a decision to do so. Having that photo archived by the federal government is not your decision. See, we make a choice to use technology such as Google or Yahoo. We DO NOT make the choice to have that information compiled by Uncle Sam.

Here’s the rub….we are guaranteed Freedom of Speech by the Constitution. That right is recognized by the document, but granted by the Creator. If you know that your speech is cataloged and used against you at a later date, depending on your political persuasion, I can absolutely say with certainty that you will watch what you say. That is a de-facto infringement on our freedom of speech. When you’re afraid that what you say will come back to bite you, then you just might not say it in the first place. So, if you want to submit your speech to the Feds to keep you safe, so be it, just don’t ask, or force, me to. In other words, go ahead with your own life, leave me alone. ( Thanks, Billy Joel )