Depriving is Unamerican

[Anonymous]

Depriving us of our freedoms is umamerican, and
it as the lawyer said in the article, harrasment and unconstitutional. If the government does do
this, then we need to replace those in charge
rather quickly. I personally feel no safer now
than before 9-11. And the reason I do not fly
is the wait and the inconvience. I very much
resent the intrusions of big government in my life
and very much value my privacy and freedoms of
being an american and a US Citizen, that are
guaranteed in writing. Railfanning also has its
responsibilities and the vast majority of us are.
Homeland Security sounds so much like something
else in our history. Do we really need all of this?

[sooblue]

What freedom have you been deprived of?
How have you been harassed?
I don't ask these questions in a mean way. I just would like to know.
What 9-11 did more than anything else was to point out our vulnerability to attack that will never be totally eliminated because we are a free and open country.
However we do need to protect ourselves as much as possible.
We can't hide our heads in the sand because that will just expose our rear ends to a more vigorous
Attack.
Sooblue

[cabforward]

mr. william,
i am really, really, sorry that you feel so deprived of your freedoms.. i guess our govt. must be doing something wrong that would give you such pause and distract you from your daily life to notice that your freedoms are being removed from your grip.. now, you become another one of the poor, degraded americans who have felt the loss of their freedoms:
the continental soldiers at valley forge;
the u.s. military in the war of 1812;
civilans & military in the civil war (both sides);
wwi; wwii; korea; vietnam; grenada; lebanon; the persian gulf; somalia; kosovo; uss cole; afghanistan; and now, iraq..

millions lost their lives in those conflicts in 200+ years to preserve what you claim to have lost in just a couple of years.. gee, william, what have you lost? i don't have a clue, but isn't it strange that millions of immigrants, legal and illegal, bust a gut to enter this country, where your freedoms have been taken away, to find freedoms and opportunities which they lost in their homeland?

maybe it's just perspective, william; you cry because you see the glass emptying before your eyes; millions of others would give anything for the very glass you hold because they see it as overflowing with freedoms and chances to do better and live better than they do where they are now..

william, why don't you contact some of those people who see you as so blessed and offer to trade places with them? maybe it would make both of you happier to get away from the thing that makes you so miserable!!

[Anonymous]

OK, I think we need to lighten up a little here. Your point is well taken that we do have it better here in America than just about anywhere else. But we should always be vigilant to keep it that way.

I believe the original post was trying to make the point that every year we have more and more rules and regulations that limit more and more what we can do. As I said on a previous posting (Reprimand the A.A.R.), "What America has always been about - is liberty. The legally protected right to do as you please, so long as you respect the rights of others." This is clearly less so now than in the past, provoking serious concern in a lot of people.

I believe we should be willing to make sacrifices for the common good, during wartime especially, and we most asuredly are at war.

But as free Americans, we should continue to limit the power of our goverment. We should never waste our sacrifices on pointless silly restrictions, especially when the restrictions are more related to an annoyed corporation (annoyance caused by some railfans) and not really to a national security matter.

People collecting pictures or just enjoying a train from public property are not a national security threat. Therefore, the sacrifice of this liberty is not warranted. Railroad vs railfan abuse is strictly a civil matter. Therefore let's leave the heavy hand of martial law out of it.

Instead, the railfan community should cleanup its act and be a better neighbor to the railroads. By the same token, the railroad industry needs to cleanup its act as well.

*** "Can't we all just get along" ***

RmC

[eolafan]

William, after Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, our government needed to change things in a very big way, and they did so, but eventually things changed back for the better, same thing after 9/11/01, and eventually we will be back to close to the way we were and the increased security will become accepted as before.

BOTTOM LINE, IF YOU POSTED A MESSAGE LIKE THE ONE WE ALL READ FROM YOU IN IRAQ OR MANY OTHER NATIONS, YOU WOULD BE DEAD BY NOW, BUT NOT HERE IN THE U.S.A. GOD BLESS AMERICA.