It was just a dream, but it was one that struck a particular cord for me. Have you ever heard the phase, “It’s as plain as the writing on the wall?” It’s a phrase that means something is obvious, or should have been obvious. In terms of the dream the writing was on the refrigerator. Spelled out neatly and plainly, what I should have known in the first place.

What was spelled out for me I’m not going to share. It’s amazing to think a person would produce a web site to share their personal life and thoughts, and still try to maintain a sense of privacy. However not everything should, or ever will, be public.

So why bother to share this? Because I think it applies to current events. We’ve all been in situations where after the fact we can look back and see all the signs that we first missed. That we should have known what was going to happen and still chose to ignore it. The reasons are many; love, hate, greed, power, selfishness. Under the influence of each we have a tendency to make poor decisions.

I think after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center towers, the US made some really bad decisions. The Patriot Act was anything but. Liberty was quickly given away in exchange for the feeling of security. Are we more secure now than we were before? Maybe, but it’s arguable if there has been any net change in the security of the country.

So what have we lost? We’ve lost the ability to welcome those who believe differently and look differently from ourselves. People of arabic descent are immediately suspect. There are claims that there is no racial profiling, however if that were true there would be no need for the special registration of arab foriegn nationals inside the US.

This isn’t the first time steps like this have been taken. In World War 2 Americans of Japanese descent were placed into concentration camps. I’m not saying that America did the same thing as Nazi Germany, these were not rights under the Constitution. At that point in time it was thought necessary.

The second time in history was during the Cold War. Some may even remember the phrase Once again we are restricting the liberty our citizens enjoy in order to provide a sense of security. Once again we are rushing into an armed conflict with a nation that has done nothing to provoke us. There has been no overwhelming evidence that the US is under immenent threat of attack by Iraq, military or otherwise. The writing is on the refrigerator and this time it says, “history repeats itself.”