America

When I was in high school, our band teacher once said "A band is only as strong as it's weakest player, just like a chain is only as strong as its weakest link." At the time I thought "Yeah, right, whatever" but now...now, with all that has changed about America, I can truly appreciate what he was trying to tell us.

For those of you having trouble grasping it, let me offer an explanation of what it means. If you have a chain of 20 links, and 19 of those links can handle 25 pounds each but one of the links can only handle 10 pounds, the chain is only good for holding 10 pounds. Anything over that and the weak link breaks, causing the chain to fail. Thus, the chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

I think that this can be applied to a number of things going on in this country, and so I offer you the following phrases:

A people are only as free as their most oppressed citizen. Are you really, truly free? You may think you are if you're able to go to the Christian church of your choice, you can browse the internet, read newspapers, and talk to anyone in the world about any subject. Right? Well considering that President Bush has admitted to secretely wiretapping the phone of American citizens without a warrant and without ever notifying the citizens that they had been wiretapped, I'd say you aren't. Even if you weren't the victim of the government spying on its own people, the truth is that it is now a possibility for anyone of us to victimized by our government.

A country is only as safe as its most vulnerable point. With so many of our military overseas fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, with recruiting at a low point, and with so many casualties, who is going to protect us? They couldn't stop two airplanes that had been hijacked back in 2001, how are they going to stop an all out invasion? Or another, better coordinated attack (and I have no doubt that they learned from their mistakes in 2001). It is still way too easy for people to enter this country illegally. Hell, we give driver's licenses to people that we KNOW are here illegally.

Before I go, I'll leave you with one last thought: We are only as good as the worst among us.

Form your own opinions.