Rationale

Fear threatens free speech and freedom in general. Jihadist cowards, afraid of the possibility that their sons, daughters, and wives might choose the freedom of the Western world over their stifling traditions, attack the softest targets they can find, killing innocents. Trembling citizens, rattled by these attacks and by the propaganda of their governments, acquiesce to increasing restrictions (random searches on the subway, watch lists with no clear due process rights, GPS locators mandated in cell phones, police authorized to shoot to kill suspicious individuals wearing bulky overcoats) in the futile hope that increasingly powerful police and military organizations can ensure that nothing bad will happen ever again.

I feel compelled to act against that fear and the encroachment on freedom. But what is one person to do? Where does one find the lever, the fulcrum, and the Archimedean place to stand to move a fearful populace (and an increasingly fearsome government) back toward the freedoms on which America was founded?

Some might argue blogging is the antithesis of action, or at best a very pale form of action. Speech is action, sacred action, but blogging is not necessarily action. For one thing, there is no guarantee that the blogger's words will be heard. One can speak all one wants, but communication, by definition, is an interaction between sender and receiver. The blogger is sending, but if no one is receiving, no communication takes place. Blogging sounds a lot like a tree falling in the woods while everyone else is at the beach.

So what is the point of a blog with the title, “Patriot, Act!” Does the blog live up to its own title, or is the title nothing more than a play on punctuation?

I offer the following reasons for this blog. You, gentle reader, may evaluate these reasons and the blog as you see fit.

1. I want to add my voice to what so far seems, much to my distress, to be a minority of Americans who recognize the danger of sacrificing freedom for their own false hopes and the government's false promises of security.

2. I want to publicize arguments that others may use to justify and promote political action.

3. I want to organize and expand my own ideas in an attempt to clarify my philosophy, if not for the world, then for myself.

4. I want to test my First Amendment rights to make sure they are still in effect.

5. If those rights are not still in effect as they ought to be, I want to provoke a reaction from the powers that be, in hopes of setting the stage for a forum (e.g. public discussion, media attention, court battle) that will offer patriots a chance to re-establish those rights.

6. I want to promote my vision of the inalienable human rights every person should hold sacred and every social contract should protect.

As a speech teacher, I tell my students that public speaking is a bedrock of civilized democratic society. In forming a society, we have abandoned force as a means of solving problems. Instead, we appeal with our words to the emotion, reason, and moral sense of our fellow citizens. I thus exercise my freedom of speech here in hopes of preserving civilized democratic society.