On September 11th 2001 terrorists delivered a wake-up call to America. Almost as many people died in those few hours than in the entire American Revolutionary War. A war that lasted eight years. Most Americans received the message loud and clear and are prepared to do whatever must be done to protect all the precious lives of this great nation. We thought America was immune to this kind of terrorist attack. Now we know better. Do we also know better concerning Tyranny?

In the aftermath of that fateful event, our United States Senators and Representatives really stepped up. They put partisan politics aside and worked as united Americans to respond to a national catastrophe. The haunting question is: Why not always? Why must there be a national calamity of epic proportion to get our elected officials to put the people of the United States ahead of partisan politics?

As horrible as terrorism is, tyranny is much worse. Tyranny as defined by Webster is "oppressive power exerted by government". Thomas Jefferson said it is "every form of power over the mind of man". The ultimate expression of a tyrannical government is death! By any standard, death by government is a far more sweeping and devastating problem than any terrorist act in history. In the past 100 years alone tens of millions of citizens were killed by their governments. In the infamous killing fields of Cambodia the Khmer Rouge killed 2,000,000. During the time of Hitler's Germany 24,000,000 people died. And even that huge number is dwarfed by some 62,000,000 Soviet citizens who died during the 74 year reign of the Soviet Union.

While the people of the United States should have no expectations of a tyrannical government of such magnitude, we must be ever vigilant. Any system of government is constantly evolving and as such, will be moving toward more liberty or toward less liberty. We should all be concerned when we see political parties, that control our system, develop power not given by our constitution. Over the course of time this will inevitably lead to more oppression and less liberty.

Many people think that if you get rid of politics, government would work just fine. In the final analysis we, as private citizens, cannot do much about terrorism, but we can do something to avoid tyranny. Everyone has heard the phrase “it’s a free country” many times. Well, it is a free country. Now. Let’s keep it that way!