Taking a stand

The incident on the United Airlines flight two weeks ago, has left many of us disturbed and upset. Watching the news stations' play and replay it, just made me question on a deep level the amount of fear we live with daily and may not even be conscious of; the degree of freedom we are losing and have lost in the United States in the name of being protected.

I have begun to think the "enemy" is within us. We used to take a stand on behalf of our values, those aspects of life we assigned high meaning to, like family, freedom, education, liberty, religion, equalty, etc.

Ever since 9/11, in the name of safety and protection from terrorists, we have begun to evolve into a police state. If you doubt that, just book a flight and fly somewhere and observe what you have to go through until that plane take's off. Listen to how we are spoken to, listen to how directions are shouted at us, watch how we are pulled aside and arbitrarily patted down. Observe the bottles of water we throw away, while half the people in the world don't even have access to clean water to drink. Watch how we follow, one after the other, not daring to openly get frustrated, impatient, disagreeable. How is it that we are always wrong and the airlines and TSA are always right?

We pay a high price to fly and that cost includes our freedom and liberty. When that gentleman was dragged from the plane, I realized we are NOT safe from the very people who have been hired to protect us, and like sheep, we follow along in line led by intimidation and fear...and we pay hundreds of dollars, if not more, for this punitive experience.

I cannot get some questions out of my head because I really dislike their answers, How could three men who are not police officers wear jackets that say police? Our experience with police is to obey them, so most of us would succumb to that. Yet, these men were not police even though we thought they were. Would our reactions have been different if their jackets did not say police? I wonder!

It seems the people on that plane were being manipulated with power-over, which is how dictatorships run! What kept the people on the plane from taking a humanitarian stand? Why couldn't they all just stand and demand, "you cannot treat this person with such disregard?" On the video, one woman yelled, "you can't do this!"

What if everyone on the planet took a stand and stood up and said, "No, this is wrong!" In a free society, where liberty and democracy prevail, these are things we can do. But, the people on this plane, and pretty much every plane, have learned it is not safe to object, push back, or do anything more than submit to the airline's rules, even when those rules betray our rights and our values ... all in the name of protecting us.

This is not okay, and we all know it. That is why we feel so horrified when we watch this video. Come on America, we are being sold an illusion, and we are paying for it, financially, emotionally, physically and worst of all, with the loss of freedom.

This incident could be a wake up call or it could be the continuation of a deep slide into a disctatorial hole! It's up to us, we need to "take a stand" on behalf of ourselves and our future generations.

We have to stop saying, America is more free than many other countries, like Russia, China, etc. What we really have to ask ourselves is my fear so great I cannot claim my rights and values? Are we afraid of those who supposedly protect us? What am I going to do to fight like hell for mine, my kids and my grandkids' freedoms?

With Gratitude,

Elaine