Letter Never Sent

Granted this 19 year old, Forrest Gabor, has to be pretty stupid, but can writing a letter to George Bush which says “I can’t wait to see you die” really be considered a valid death threat? The kid is 19. It’s quite likely he will live long enough to get his wish. Besides that, he’s ALREADY in prison for sending an alleged death threat to Bill Clinton. (He just got an additional four years) And besides that, there are probably a number of Americans who feel the same way. Not me, of course, nor anyone I know of, but it’s certainly to be expected. I’m sure plenty of people felt the same way about Clinton. It just seems a little extreme. Don’t they really have anything better to do? I thought there were real terrorists out there. We’ve seen them question people with suspicious posters and give a polygraph to a guy who wrote an editorial for his school newspaper where he prayed that God would smite Bush. It has become ridiculous and it makes it appear that the powers that be in the US are paranoid and overly preoccupied with sedition and governmental overthrow. This, despite the fact that the Declaration of Independence explicitly approves overthrowing a corrupt government.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 10th, 2002 at 12:54 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.