One line from Sarah Palin’s speech on Wednesday really has me pissed off. She said, "Al Qaeda terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America … he’s [Barack Obama] worried that someone won’t read them their rights?" The fact that the United States government is required to assume people are innocent before proven guilty is one of the basic freedoms that people are supposed to afforded by the United States constitution. I think that whether or not people are citizens is pretty irrelevant. Everyone should be entitled to certain rights under the law. The difference between a police state and a representational democracy is that in a representational democracy people are allowed to hold dissenting views and engage in political organizing without fear of reprisal. It is clear that right now is this country dissenting views are increasingly be equated with terrorism. It is also clear that those suspected of terrorism are not treated like human beings by our government (for examples visit the site freedetainees.org).

It is clear from the actions of the police in St. Paul during the Republican National Convention that not all people have the basic rights of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly in our society. Journalists such as Amy Goodman were arrested while covering the protests. Several organizers for the RNC Welcoming Committee have been arrested and charged with conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism. The RNC Welcoming Committee organized civil disobedience efforts in order to disrupt and protest the convention. While many might not agree with such actions they are certainly not acts of terrorism. If the United States is a democracy people should be able to express themselves and peacefully protest government and political parties. I have read or heard nothing about efforts from protesters to violently disrupt the proceedings of the convention. Having been involved in similar protests several times in my life I find it hard to imagine that such plans existed. At the most there probably were plans to erect barriers and blockades in the streets to limit Republican delegates movement and draw attention to the issues that the protesters are mad about–issues such as poverty, the war and oppression of dissent.

Palin’s comment and the actions of the police in St. Paul–where well over 300 people have been arrested–have reminded me of Benjamin Franklin’s famous line: "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." I hope that in the coming years people will be able to organize to ensure liberty–freedom of thought, speech and political organization–in this country. I am, to be honest, less concerned with safety. Far less people in the industrialized world die from terrorism and violence than automobile accidents and the lifestyle health issues that result from living in the exurbs (I discussed this a little in my sermon "Fear Itself" a few months back).