CBS News proudly reports that 4 out of 5 Americans are okay with the invasive searches by TSA. So therefore, there is really no problem.

Let me try and explain this.

If I am right, I am willing to stand alone.

If the entire world is of one opinion and I have another.

If I believe I am right.

I will stand alone.

As for this ridiculous poll – I would like to see a poll done of those actually flying on planes.

I would like to see a poll of those searched.

I would like to see a poll of the experts in the field.

In short, I would like to see a poll of those who know something about the issue and are not driven by the cold, naked fear so continually preached by the drones of this administration and this Congress.

A frightened public is a docile public, manipulatable in any way. A nation of chickens can be plucked at will.

An America that can only see as far as possible danger is a nation without vision, without courage and without an historical mission.

A “city on a hill” cannot be hidden. Well, we’re trying.

What’s the current vision of our besotted leadership – “the bunker under the hill,” perhaps “the frightened cattle bunched in a barn, the sheep shorn by our valiant Congressmen. Is that us?

Does Osama bin Laden rise in the morning in fear of this America? Or does he laugh at the frightened nation we’ve become?

Are the Americans who freed themselves from oppressive rule, the Americans who went forth and settled a wilderness, the Americans who took their courage to heart to fight against the Nazis and Japanese Imperialists, those who fought a cold war for fifty some years; are they looking down on us with respect?

Would they tolerate for a minute, for moment, for a milisecond, a wretched excuse for a Congressman proclaim that twenty thousand bandits hidden in caves are more dangerous than Hitler and his minions. That by the way would be 50,000 tanks, 12, 000 aircraft, 240 divisions and domination of roughly 85% of Europe. Who listens to that kind of obnoxious fool? Apparently most Americans. Just great.

Land of the free or land of the hopelessly frightened. The light of the world or the dim bulbs of a population hiding in back rooms with a years supply of canned goods. A nation so doubtful of its future that the purchase of gold in case of economic collapse is surging.

Is this it?

James Pilant