They Call Me Anti-American

Every time I have returned from Honduras I have gone into severe culture shock. It takes me many months to adjust to my native country. This may sound strange to many and others must surely think me insane for saying this thing. They probably wonder how one can experience culture shock in their homeland. To understand it one would have to open their eyes to some basic truths. Most do not want to admit to these truths. They exhibit all of the classic signs of those who have been indoctrinated into to the more controversial cults even down to the classic syndrome which CIA experts in the thought modification business term the "slide response." In this response the person being confronted with the truth, or with the wrongness of their actions will attack desperately with illogical arguments. In severe cases they completely "shut down" mentally rather than face what their subconscious mind tells them to be true.

One of the greatest ironies of today is the USA touting itself as the land of the free while individuals in many other nations - particularly some developing nations - enjoy more liberty than many Americans. The US is saturated with federal, state and local laws seeking to regulate and control individuals. That is not the case in many of the so-called third world nations I have visited.

Politicians in this country would like for us to believe that the people would be like little lost children without their guidance and, more importantly, their protection. The latest tactics being used are trumped-up threats of terrorist bogeymen to frighten people into even greater submission.

Perhaps they are right and we have lost the ability to care for ourselves.

Americans have been softened by consumerism. Generations of children have been dumbed down through entertainment and the educational system. The latest generation of children is being raised in an environment of tight security. Schools are heavily monitored with cameras, metal detectors, frequent locker searches, police presence and even the new RFID tags. When they become adults, this will all seem normal to them. They will not even remember a time when it was not this way.

The essence of liberty is the lack of restraint on the individual. Freedom thrives when individual liberty is unbound. In America, the gospel of security is preached as the defense of freedom but it is a false gospel. In the context of the so-called War on Terror, this new security is actually the greatest threat against our freedom.

In March 2003, eight months before the White House appointed him the Homeland Security Department's top intelligence official, retired U.S. Army Gen. Patrick M. Hughes told a public forum at Harvard that the government would have to "abridge individual rights" and take domestic security measures "not in accordance with our values and traditions" to prevent terrorist attacks in the United States.

"What I'm about to say is very arrogant -- arrogant to a fault," said Hughes, a former chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), at a Harvard University forum on "Future Conditions: The Character and Conduct of War, 2010 and 2020."

"Set aside what the mass of people think. Some things are so bad for them that you cannot allow them to have them. One of them is war in the context of terrorism in the United States."

"Therefore, we have to abridge individual rights, change the societal conditions, and act in ways that heretofore were not in accordance with our values and traditions, like giving a police officer or security official the right to search you without a judicial finding of