Two Sides, One Story, Many Comments (please?)

1984 has come and gone, regrettably only on our calendars. Demagoguery has given birth in this country, blinding millions with passion and burning emotion. Progress. A startling contention that all which moves forward must necessarily be good. One man, a political messiah. The false gods of progress swinging their scythes to further slash the roots of our democracy. A specter is lurking...

And yet. Progress. Money in the pockets of those who need it most, the destruction of a greedy, fanatical establishment which parades under the banner of faith and morals while trampling the freedom of the market and smudging justice with corruption.

What drives you, agents of progress? Do you not fear the oppression of Big Brother, equal poverty, and justice by opinion rather than law?

And you, traitors to the conservative cause, what drives you? Our nation is broken, you were charged with safeguarding it in ways that cannot be measured simply with the rhetoric of the War on Terror. How dare you argue now against the very thing you have done to us so insidiously?

These are simply opinions, not my own. The words are strong, simply because I feel the need to express myself with a deluded sense of my own importance. The ideas they represent, however, are real. I am interested in what you think, how you perceive these two extremes, and what voices of choice will cut through both sets of lies to arrive at what is best for all of us...

Republic of Ideas

"I am the angel of choice. The choice to learn, the choice to remain in darkness. The choice to labor, the choice to study, and the choice to waste. The choice to be rich, the choice to be poor. The choice of faith, the choice of self."

Only with great hesitation and sensitivity to the incredible arrogance of my words do I open this forum. I too have made a choice to take advantage of creativity of expression, to open this space to my thoughts and the thoughts of others, both intellectually startling and ideologically benign.

With each coming note, I hope to more greatly understand the intellectual currents that surround me and to defend the Republic of Ideas in which we live as it suffocates beneath the stench of political corruption, religious fanaticism, and ignorance. I am interested only in ideas, for I too must count myself amongst the educated yet perpetually ignorant. It is only through the dissemination of opinion and the force of ideas, challenging, harsh, and cruel, that the soundness of our nation will be preserved.

"I know of no safe repository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves." -Thomas Jefferson

Everything about our beloved nation is at risk. Demagogues, crusaders, and war mongers seek to steer this land into their narrow visions of the future with their narrow visions of right and wrong. This cannot be allowed to happen. If only for my own intellectual edification, I wish to see ideas live, even if confined to this paltry, unfamiliar forum of mine. Each of us has a solemn duty to express ourselves, to defend a land in which our choices determine our individual destinies.

The choices you make are your own, they are the record of your existence. Defend your choices, defend your right to make them. Here, I will post simple ideas and ask you to make a choice. The choice to think about them, the choice to write, and the choice to enlighten me with the far greater lexicon of your expression. In all of us, and in our choices, what it means to be American can, by its very nature, never be extinguished.