The recent admissions about domestic surveillance and the subpoena sent to Google asking for search records has me thinking very deeply (yet again) about the direction this country is being taken by its leadership. In thinking about the rationales offered by the president and his supporters, I was reminded of a number of varying quotes offered by great authors, poets and statesmen... They can say it better than I.

To begin with, the response of many Americans when asked about the phone surveillance charges has been, "We have to give up some of our freedoms in the name of security."

"They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security." -Benjamin Franklin

However, the people in charge today are adhering to the following observation in winning over a plurality of the American people.

"The average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe." -H.L. Mencken

That said, many of those who would form a reasonable opposition to the many things that they find wrong with the direction of the country today are acting much like the protagonist in the following piece.

"The hens they all cackle, the roosters all beg,
But I will not hatch, I will not hatch.
For I hear all the talk of pollution and war
As the people all shout and the airplane roar,
So I'm staying in here where it's safe and it's warm,
And I WILL NOT HATCH" -Shel Silverstein

We have become complacent. We have become comfortable in our discomfort. We should think about the future and our place in it.

"Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." -George Bernard Shaw

"If liberty means anything, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."- George Orwell

"Dissent is the sincerest form of patriotism."- Thomas Jefferson

Please think about what these things mean to you. Though politics is often obtuse, procedural and boring, there are decisions being made that will affect us for many years to come.