Quote Of The Day, Pt. III.

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men— not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular...We can deny our heritage and our history, but we cannot escape responsibility for the result. There is no way for a citizen of a republic to abdicate his responsibilities. As a nation we have come into our full inheritance at a tender age. We proclaim ourselves, as indeed we are, the defenders of freedom, wherever it continues to exist in the world, but we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

--Edward R. Murrow, 1954.

Murrow was speaking on the paranoia of the Red Scare of the 50s, specifically, the fearmongering of Joseph McCarthy and his ilk. But his sentiment remains as relevant today as it was then: The idea then--that a fifth column of communists already existed in this country, eroding American values and undermining our culture; the idea now--that Democrats don't want to protect this country from another attack, that we're unwilling to do all that is necessary to prosecute a "war on terrorism." That we constitute a fifth column of enemy sympathizers.

But if you see enemies everywhere you look, they've won. If we willingly give up our freedoms, our heritage, to be free of fear, they've won. To you Democrats who still refuse even at this late date to stand up to this criminal administration, shame on you. Shame on you, you cowards.