Blogger Jailed in Egypt
Last week, an Egyptian man was sentenced to four years in prison for writing comments on a blog that criticized the Egyptian government and a Muslim university.
This isn't the first time we've heard about such oppression in Egypt or elsewhere in the Middle East, so it doesn't come as much of a surprise. Still, as a blogger, it alarmed me. As an American, it filled me with pride, but also with concern.
While we live in a free country, we have to realize that our freedom is not guaranteed by anyone, we have to actively guard it and fight for it. Luckily, it is enabled by a government that was engineered to ensure personal freedom, and to create the conditions in which people could be free to live as they chose. However, if we stopped paying attention and stopped fighting for it, that freedom would disappear. It wouldn't happen over night, but it would happen eventually.
If you look closely, you can even see the early warning signs. Laws like the Patriot Act, which use fear of terrorism as an excuse to broaden the powers of the government, should scare us all into paying attention. The Bush administration itself has widened the powers of the executive branch in ways I won't discuss here, but which could set a dangerous precedent and which should be kept in check. These issues are the canaries in the coal mine of freedom (if you'll forgive that horrible analogy). If you think that this country is incapable of sliding into a state of repression and intolerance like that of Egypt, think again. It is possible, and it will happen if we don't pay attention.
What we can do as individuals is to stay informed about what our government is doing, to ask questions and demand answers, to fight back when and if we feel our rights are being tampered with. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people have given their lives to make this country free, and if we are going to reap the benefits of that freedom, then each of us owes it to those people to carry on the torch, and stand up for what we believe in.
Stay informed, stay critical, and realize that our freedom is not to be taken for granted, for if we do take it for granted, it will be taken away from us.
Stand up and be heard...
This isn't the first time we've heard about such oppression in Egypt or elsewhere in the Middle East, so it doesn't come as much of a surprise. Still, as a blogger, it alarmed me. As an American, it filled me with pride, but also with concern.
While we live in a free country, we have to realize that our freedom is not guaranteed by anyone, we have to actively guard it and fight for it. Luckily, it is enabled by a government that was engineered to ensure personal freedom, and to create the conditions in which people could be free to live as they chose. However, if we stopped paying attention and stopped fighting for it, that freedom would disappear. It wouldn't happen over night, but it would happen eventually.
If you look closely, you can even see the early warning signs. Laws like the Patriot Act, which use fear of terrorism as an excuse to broaden the powers of the government, should scare us all into paying attention. The Bush administration itself has widened the powers of the executive branch in ways I won't discuss here, but which could set a dangerous precedent and which should be kept in check. These issues are the canaries in the coal mine of freedom (if you'll forgive that horrible analogy). If you think that this country is incapable of sliding into a state of repression and intolerance like that of Egypt, think again. It is possible, and it will happen if we don't pay attention.
What we can do as individuals is to stay informed about what our government is doing, to ask questions and demand answers, to fight back when and if we feel our rights are being tampered with. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of people have given their lives to make this country free, and if we are going to reap the benefits of that freedom, then each of us owes it to those people to carry on the torch, and stand up for what we believe in.
Stay informed, stay critical, and realize that our freedom is not to be taken for granted, for if we do take it for granted, it will be taken away from us.
Stand up and be heard...
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