Bad News: We are not Woke We are Now Sleepwalking By Independent Outsider (Dave Denton)

As of 8:30 AM on April 8, 2018, I will have existed on this planet for fifty years. And I have come to the stark realization that for most of my existence I have been unaware of the world around me.

Last year jarred a large portion of the American population. And many of us have felt an "awakening" of sorts. I have bad news. We are NOT awake. If that was the case, we would, as a public, be reacting in a completely different way towards the world and our government. And to the systematic stripping of rights.
Over the fifty years of my existence, American rights have slowly but surely eroded over time, with little notice. Social change leaders often do not last long: I was ONE DAY old the day of Martin Luther King's funeral. And my mom said on that day she chose "life over death." Well, maybe, but as days, weeks and years passed by we as a whole lived but with fewer rights than before.

Remember that Democratic National Convention that was a sham and pushed a candidate through? No...no...not THAT one. The OTHER one. 1968. Humphrey gets the Democratic nod with no primary. This started "superdelegates". Remember those? We complain about fairness in elections, but are very slow to react if at all. Games been running longer than we think.

When we do act quickly as a public, it is generally an emotional reaction. Emotions do strange things to the American public, such as make them eager to give their rights away. I myself get very emotional about September 11, 2001. I lost people I knew that day. I delivered mail to families waiting for loved ones who never came home. I also saw our government use the deaths of Americans to not only build an infrastructure of voting machines that are now the bane of our existence (thank you Help America Vote Act), but also saw the birth of the Department of Homeland Security. People may think this was the death of privacy. I was not even aware until recently that FISA expanded a law to allow warrantless searches in some cases. This was 1978 under Jimmy Carter. Just this week, a list of journalists is being compiled. Did we learn nothing from McCarthy?

I hear people complain about censorship. Where were they around the case of the People vs. Larry Flynt? Free speech often isn't convenient. Censorship is also bipartisan. Yeah, I remember Baby Bush and his attempts to censor the Dixie Chicks and even the Parkland anti-gun lobby using economic pressure to silence journalists and independent media. But Tipper Gore was not a Republican. And Tom Perez telling his own constituents to Shut the Fuck Up is the chair of the democratic national Committee. And freedom to assemble? Kent State to DAPL and so forth.

And the most recent. Parkland. Tragic deaths of teenagers are being used as a fear weapon to scare people into giving up gun rights. I have an honest question: aren't drones assault weapons? Can we negotiate: we'll give up AR-15s if NOONE can have them and the government eliminates the drone program. No? I thought not.

Even the right to universal mail delivery is in real danger of disappearing. The postal rate coimmission officers and board of governors are simply not being replaced. One more Constitutional right in jeopardy.

I have a feeling when people read this, they may wish me a happy belated birthday. Someone even congratulated me today on lasting as long as I have. Anyone want to give me a present? Wake up a little more and speak up when you see your rights disappearing.