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We have become the reluctant inheritors of the status of an empire, not through conquest, but necessity. It's just that you don't realize it. The rights, liberties, and freedoms law abiding, legal US citizens enjoy are not threatened by the scrutiny or comdemnation of suspect and anti-American behavior, activities, and associations of persons either embracing or outright supporting terrorist aims and ideology. Furthermore, Hackworth's and my objection to this is the diatribe and immediate defense by individuals and groups that couch violent, anti-American, reactionary screed, especially in a time of war, in terms of protected speech that is more often than not paid for by the taxpayer at state supported institutions of "higher learning" protected and made possible by the sacrifices of the very people these ungrateful sons of bitches mock, ridicule, smear, and denounce. Free speech ain't free when somebody else has to foot the bill. As for TV viewing, I wholeheartedly support it, as I do the patronage of other forms of advanced technology modern civilization has devised. Like the computer and the internet. Engage in pedagogical pedantry and bookish snobbery, and let the real men do the real work of maintaining public safety, guaranteeing individual freedom, and winning wars, boy.

That's cute, son. You go off on a long rant justifying the position fed to you by amoral politicians through your TV, then try to assume the mantle of the the mature, responsible adult.

Sorry, I'm not impressed. I'm also far from convinced that you'll ever do anything more than watch Newt Gingrich on Foxnews. The grownups are indeed going to have to shoulder the burden, and it's too bad you're not with us on this.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. False patriotism is always the justification for sedition laws, and the falsehood in the argument of necessity for those laws is always revealed after the crisis has passed. That's why there are no current sedition statutes.

Odd that you thought there were. There is no United States of America without the US Constitution. That's why oaths of office are to the Constitution, and not to a current roster of government or to the ephemeral will of the people. The oath of office is most certainly not to any empire.