Jerks and Knee Jerks

Just about all I listen to is the local talk radio station. The network news is totally useless and many of the syndicated talk shows are pure drivel. But they do provide a certain amount of useful local information and there are one or two national hosts that provide some interesting listening.

If I could find more than one local talk station on my dial, I would have turned that dial, last Friday morning.

The host was soliciting calls from area residents, seeking their response to the recent tragic terrorist attacks. He asked a loaded question.

"How much freedom would you be willing to give up to feel safe?"

I was proud of the two true Americans who called him back to end the segment before the national newscast. One said, "I’m not giving up any of my Constitutional freedoms." The other quoted Benjamin Franklin, who said, " Any man who would give up his freedom to gain security is not worthy of either."

I think I knew where the morning host was coming from. He said, "Well something has to be done. You’ve got a situation where one man can own 20 guns."

Excuse me. What does lawful, private gun ownership have to do with the execution of the terrorist attacks we saw just last week? Come to think of it, no guns were used in the entire operation. Even the terrorists used razor blades and plastic knives.

There is a mindless, media agenda being waged to allow our freedoms to quickly erode under the guise of fighting terrorism. I don’t mind having tighter security at airports or placing armed sky marshals on passenger planes. Makes sense to me. But the moment we surrender our Constitutional rights to anyone just for the sake of feeling safer, the terrorists have won.

President Bush summed it up nicely when he said Freedom was under attack and Freedom would prevail.

But only if we can ignore the knee-jerk prattle being offered up by people who have nothing meaningful to utter behind a live mike.

No…the real "jerks" that have so far emerged since the towers fell belong to the ACLU. You may be aware that President Bush declared last Friday a day of national prayer.

One of the few states that already had in place a law requiring public school students to observe a moment of silence is my adopted locale, the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Enter the ACLU.

During our time of national mourning, the group had the audacity to prosecute all the way to the US Supreme Court, its case to overturn the Virginia "moment of silence." Thank God that cooler heads on the bench prevailed and Justice Rehnquist turned down the ACLU petition.

Imagine the gall of these jerks. America gets attacked. Thousands of people die. The President declares a day of national prayer. Members of Congress and the Senate gather for a time of Bible reading and prayer.

But the ACLU wants to strip away a non-denominational moment of silence from school children in Virginia.

These people are totally out of touch.

We do thank Reverend Louis Sheldon of the Traditional Values Coalition for bringing the ACLU’s dirty work to light.

Let’s find a big rock and let the ACLU crawl back under it.

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