He Says It Like It Is

Well written and oh so very true. We are not like most nations, people move here because of the freedom this country used to offer. The freedom to think, talk, have friends who were different and make a new life for themselves and their families.

Out of a Bad Spy Novel: "Why does it matter how we treat a bunch of Islamic radicals who are sworn to bring death and destruction to the United States? It matters because the United States draws its strength and its moral authority in the world from its ideals. We preach about due process, we preach about the rule of law, we preach about humane treatment -- and now we're ignoring our own pronouncements.

But there's more at stake than American standing in the world. Our ideals are the heart and soul of this nation. We are not an ancient nation united by language or blood. Our ideals, rather than ethnicity or even territory, hold us together and make us a nation. When we betray those ideals, we weaken America.

Would it be so risky to do the right thing -- to bring al Qaeda operatives into American courtrooms and give them proper trials? There might be a risk, but this is a country that routinely accepts risks as the price of upholding its ideals. For example, we tolerate thousands of deaths by gunfire every year as the cost of respecting the right to bear arms. Most other nations would consider our homicide rate an unacceptable holocaust. We're not like most other nations."

My mother has always regarded the day she became an American citizen as the proudest day of her life. Not her marriage, not her three kids. She has flown a flag on our front porch for as long as I can remember, she took it down last month. Hysteria aside, my mom can tell you actual stories from her life about Hitler, the Nazi culture and the SS. This is freaking her out. She can't understand why this is happening again in her lifetime, from a nation that liberated her birth country from one of the worst despots the world has ever known, that brought the beacon of freedom and hope to the rest of the world, that welcomed and encouraged those who had nothing, so they could do better.

Where did we go?