INSURANCE AND MORE THAN DUMB TV ADS!

Monday, August17th, 2026

Baton Rouge  Louisiana

 

INSURANCE AND MORE THAN DUMB TV ADS!

                  

Like most of you, I’ve had my fill of political ads and trial lawyer solicitations that seem to be constantly appearing on TV.  But you know what bothers me even more? I’m sick of seeing that goofy commercial of some dumb and disheveled looking guy talking to an ostrich.  “You only pay for what you need,” so it goes.  So just how much automobile insurance do you really need?

 

Let’s say you’re driving down the road with your family in the car and are broadsided by an illegal immigrant with no insurance. There are many such unlicensed drivers in Louisiana today. The other driver is at fault. Your car is totaled, and both you and the other passengers in your vehicle are seriously injured. The medical bills alone could add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. And what about pain and suffering as well as loss of income. We’re now talking into the millions. Let’s ask the stupid guy with the mustache and his ostrich friend. How much do you need?

 

Year in and year out, Louisiana drivers pay more for auto insurance than any other state in the nation.  So the real question is not how much you need, but just how much you can afford. The cost to many policyholders is staggering.  The Louisiana Legislature recently completed a wide-ranging special session.  Yet there was not one proposal or even a discussion about the outrageous cost of car insurance.  Like the ostrich in the TV commercial, legislators stuck their heads in the sand and ignored the problem that is costing Louisiana drivers more than three billion dollars (not million but billion) in additional costs.  And most of that additional premium is sent to insurance companies located outside the state.  So local disposable  income and spending in the state is reduced by this three billion dollars.

 

Drivers in Louisiana need major financial coverage for all the numerous dangers of driving a vehicle in the Bayou State.  But the failure of the legislature to see that current laws are enforced, and that penalties for dangerous driving are increased, makes affordable insurance way out of reach for the average policyholder.

 

Louisiana’s insurance mess is the result of numerous factors that include poor drivers.  

lax DUI enforcement, inferior highways, and speeding that all play a role in the state’s high rates. And the Governor needs to be involved, working closely with the insurance commissioner.

 

Under the regulatory system in Louisiana, the governor and the insurance commissioner are both independently elected. So unless the insurance commissioner aggressively pushes the governor to become involved, the chief executive keeps a distance. He figures he has enough on his plate.  In a majority of states, insurance commissioners are appointed by the governor. So there has to be a close working relationship.

 

       Let me give you a few examples of the insurance commissioner and the governor working together. Some years back, I went to the North Carolina Mountains over Mardi Gras. On many cold mountain mornings on my way to fish, I would stop at Faye’s General Store in Linville, North Carolina to catch up on the local gossip and pick up a neatly tied Stonefly or G-Nell fly. Then it would be off to a local stream with my Orvis two-piece, two weight, six-foot long graphite rod that I borrowed years ago from an old New Orleans friend, David Voelker.

 

     I was at Faye’s drinking coffee around 7:30 a.m. when the phone rang. One of the locals picked it up and told me that Louisiana Governor Mike Foster was calling.  Now, remember, it’s 6:30 a.m. in Louisiana, and it’s Mardi Gras. I thought it was my wife Gladys playing a joke on me.  But, no, it was the governor on the line. “Jim, Mike Foster. Got a minute?”

 

     “Morning Governor. You sure know how to run a fellow down, don’t you?”

 

     “I called Gladys, she told me you’d gotten out early. I don’t want to disturb your fishing, but I just want to talk a little insurance with you.”

 

     My coffee drinking companions at Faye’s had a hard time believing that the Louisiana governor would call me up in the North Carolina Mountains at the crack of dawn on a state holiday to discuss insurance business.  Simply put, it was the governor and the insurance commissioner working together. 

 

     So when you see the TV ads with the ostrich and the weird insurance salesman, remember that what you need in Louisiana is a heck of a lot more than most of us can afford.

 

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownla.com.

 

 

  

DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY IN LOUISIANA!

Monday, August 3^rd, 2026

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

 DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY IN LOUISIANA!

 

Bayou State residents are well aware that Louisiana is a pleasant place to live. Some would sarcastically say that we are fat, dumb, and happy down here in the deepest of the deep southern states. The state motto is, after all, Laissez les bons temps rouler. For you out of staters, that’s pronounced Lay say lay bohn tohn roo lay, and means “let the good times roll.” So it should be no surprise to the locals that in a survey of 100 cities listed as the happiest, and published by the U. S. National Bureau of Economic Research, Louisiana walked away with top rankings.

 

Listed as some of the  happiest cities in the U. S. include Lafayette, Houma, Shreveport, Baton Rouge and Alexandria and Lake Charles . The unhappiest? New York City. What? The Big Apple? How can that be? Simple. The cost of living in New York causes two thirds of the city’s population to just get by.

With a number of family members now living in New York City, including several of my grandchildren, I’m up there for a week at a time, sometimes even more often. The differences are vast to say the least between the two states. Let’s start with my five “Fs.” Food, family, faith, fixin’ flats, and football.

Food? Sure there are great a number of good bistros and cafes in New York. But the cost of a decent meal is twice what you would pay for the best dining in New Orleans or in a number of first-rate south Louisiana restaurants. And these “fine dining” establishments seem to think flavoring their food consists of sprinkling on some salt and pepper. It’s rare to find the Cajun holy trinity of seasonings (bell pepper, onion and celery) in New York cuisine.

 

Family seems to play a more significant role for residents of Louisiana, where you find the highest percentage of those still living in the state of their birth. Your friends want to know about how “your mama and them” are doing. An active family life is very much the Louisiana way, and this creates a happy environment. In New York City, you find waves of newcomers who have heeded Frank Sinatra’s call that if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. But hundreds of thousands make a long commute each day from outside the city because of the high cost of just about everything. Most New Yorkers I have come to know are transplants and have immediate family members that live a great distance away.

Faith matters more in the Bayou State. A recent Gallop poll found that 54% of Louisianans consider themselves quite religious. In New York, the number is 32%. Local pastors tell me that church attendance is up, particularly in Catholic and Pentecostal ministries. African American church attendance has always been high down our way. Faith brings contentment, and this leads to more happiness.

And how about fixin’ flats? No, this is not just another Jeff Foxworthy humorous put down. Folks down our way seem more self-sufficient. Many have gardens, and neighbors pitch in more to lend a hand or volunteer for a good cause. In New York, everyone seems too busy, too self-absorbed; oblivious to those beyond their own immediate circle.

The final “F” consumes most Louisianans this time of year. September means football — tailgating outside Tiger Stadium, heading to the Superdome to cheer on the Saints, and packing into Cajun Field at UL-Lafayette. But it’s also a symbol for intense athletic participation at all ages, from high school sports to packed golf courses and barbeques on the weekends. Music has a life of its own all over the state. Locals in Louisiana are a lot more active outdoors than are New Yorkers, and this leads to more pleasure.

Sure, many folks in Louisiana have a multitude of problems. And the state has a good way to go in dealing with education and healthcare troubles. But within their limitations, Louisianans just do a better job of making the best of it. If New Yorkers would spend some time down here, they would learn pretty quickly why a good many of the happiest cities in America are mostly located in Louisiana.

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownla.com.

 

RUSSIANS AND ELECTION FRAUD? YEAH, RIGHT!

Monday, July 27th, 2026

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

RUSSIANS AND ELECTION FRAUD? YEAH, RIGHT!

 

“The Russians are coming!  The Russians are coming!” And according to politicians in both parties, they are out to infiltrate the entire U.S. election process. President Trump is looking under every rock to find the culprits involved. And down here in Louisiana, the Secretary of State’s office is calling for the immediate replacement of some 10,000 voting machines at a cost of $60 million. Wow! This looks like a real crisis. But is it?

I have a bit of knowledge about the election system, having served as Louisiana’s chief elections officer for eight years, and as president of the National Secretaries of State Association. I’ve been hearing the cry of election fraud and the need for new voting machines for years. Try as I did, I never could find much election day shenanigans.

Oh, there was occasional voter hauling and paying a few folks to vote a certain way. But widespread voting irregularities, or some group like the Russians infiltrating the internet to fix elections is pretty far-fetched.

 The initial allegations of supposed Russian penetration of the election process came from the Department of Homeland Security following the past presidential election where 21 states were supposedly at risk.  But DHS was so worried about Russian subversion that it didn’t ever notify any Secretary of State. Some major threat!

Now I don’t doubt for a minute that the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans and any number of nations would love to tamper with our election system. After all, America has been doing that very thing in countries all over the world for a number of years.

A study from the Carnegie Mellon Institute reports that the U.S. has a long history of rigging polls, supporting military coups, channeling funds and spreading political propaganda in other countries. The study found that there were 117 “partisan electoral interventions” between 1946 and 2022. That’s around one of every nine competitive elections held since World War II. The majority of these, almost 70%, were cases of U.S. interference. And these are not all from the Cold War Era; 21 such interventions took place between 1990 and 2022, of which 18 were by the U.S.

So, is an unsuccessful effort to infiltrate our elections, as the U.S. has been doing to other countries for a number of years, a justification for Louisiana to spend $60 million on supposedly tamperproof voting machines? Hardly. As Earl Long once said, “Let me pick the company that makes those voting machines, and I’ll make them dance.”

There is no necessity for new expensive voting machines. The more sophisticated they are, the more likely that they can be hacked. The key, as obsolete as it seems, is to have a paper trail. As the Washington Post has argued: “Virginia rightly took 2016 as a wake-up call and retired its vulnerable DRE voting machines. But that’s not good enough. The federal government should mandate that all elections must, at a minimum, be able to produce an independently verified paper trail for every election held at both the state and local level.”

 

We here in the Bayou State do not need the feds to tell us what to do. But a backup paper trail of how votes were tallied makes sense, even in this day and age. Yes it’s the  21^stcentury, but the best protection against voter fraud is probably using 1^stcentury technology – PAPER.

 

Back in 1979, when I was first elected as Secretary of State, there were numerous charges of election fraud, particularly in close elections. I appointed an Elections Integrity Commission to investigate. The commission found some mistakes by voting commissioners but no sign of actual fraud. Voting took place on those old heavy Shoup machines. And you know what? They worked fine and produced a paper trail for verification.

There are a number of small and portable voting machines on the market that allow for a paper trail and at a reasonable price. Actually, the machines the state uses now are sufficient. In a financially busted state like Louisiana, $60,000,000 can find a much better use.

 Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownla.com. 

 

TO OUR YANKEE FRIENDS, WE SAY — GET A LIFE!

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2026

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

TO OUR YANKEE FRIENDS, WE SAY — GET A LIFE!

 

Our friends up north need to let it go.  According to a cross section of northern commentators, the Second Reconstruction may be over, but they think a third one may be necessary.  The first came with the demise of the South following the Civil War. The second began a century later when the Voting Rights Act was enacted in 1965.  But this is no longer the ’60s, and the Supreme Court, with whom I often disagree, got this one right. The South can finally be treated like everyone else.  And this apparently makes a good number of our northern friends, particularly on the east coast, disgruntled.

Consider the Washington Post’s take in an Op Ed by their columnist Harold Meyerson. He writes: “If the federal government wants to build a fence that keeps the United States safe from the danger of lower wages and poverty and their attendant ills and the all-around fruitcakery of the right wing white South, it should build the fence from Norfolk to Dallas. There is nothing wrong with the fence as long as you put it in the right place.”

 

This kind of attitude goes much further than just having a problem with voiding the Voting Rights Act. When you refer to Southerners as fruitcakes, and suggest a border to keep them in their place, it reflects a weird desire for sectionalism, and a long tired grudge to keep re-fighting the Civil War.  Look, we down here acknowledge that the South lost the war.   But that was then, and most of the South has let it go. But it appears that many in the North still have trouble with it.

As I travel throughout the country, I’m still somewhat surprised by the stereotypes of southern living held by a good number of those folks living above the Mason-Dixon Line. Oh, we have our share of Good Ol’ Boys, and I do tell my share of redneck jokes.  I miss George Jones, I like country music, and I do drink Dixie Beer.  But the South is not all Bubbas and banjos.  Well, all right, I do play the banjo and my doctor’s name is Bubba. But a number of northern opinions reflect the South as being outside what is considered to be the American norm.

Many non-southerners form an opinion of the whole South from movie stereotypes like Steel Magnolias, Sweet Home Alabama, and a recent hit, The Help. TV hits like the Dukes of Hazard, Mayberry, and the Beverly Hillbillies created impressions that will stick with viewers from Boston to San Francisco for a lifetime.  And who can forget Deliverance? University of Tulsa cultural studies professor Robert Jackson says that the film is “powerful and pernicious. It’s had a tenacious hold on people’s imaginations, establishing the hillbilly as a kind of menacing, pre-modern, medieval kind of figure.”  There’s a great deal of nostalgia about an earlier way of southern life and romantic notions about southern life today. Sure we love to watch and re-watch Gone with the Wind.  But so do millions, not just all over the U.S., but all over the world.

 

Numerous writers migrated to New Orleans to find their creative juices.  Tennessee Williams, Robert Penn Warren, Sherwood Anderson, William Faulkner, Eudora Welty and Ernest Hemingway, to name a few. Food?  You can have New York and San Francisco.  I’ll take Emeril Lagasse, John Besh and a host of other Southern restaurateurs any day.  And at half the northern price.  Maybe, just maybe, there is some envy about a culture that seems to produce an inordinate number of “rednecks” who are talented, creative, and so successful that it puts the rest of the country to shame.

Jazz, the blues and country music were born in the South.  Did you know that America’s first opera house was in the New Orleans French Quarter?  And what about American patriotism and commitment?  47% of all the U.S. military casualties in recent Middle East wars were from the South.

Not only can the South be eloquently defended, but there’s also a case to be made for southern exceptionalism. Sure there are continuing problems to be worked out, just as there are all over America. And maybe there is a case for reconstruction. Not because the south wants to “rise again.”  No, it’s a reconstruction of bigoted and outdated northern attitudes that have held both north and south back for many years.  So you folks up north take care of your “fruitcake” comments. Oh, and can you please pass the grits and biscuits?

 

Â********

We say grace, and we say “˜ma’am,’ If you ain’t into that, we don’t give a damn.”

 

“”Hank Williams, Jr., Country singer

 

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownla.com. 

 

 

 

 

VOTER DISTRUST IN LOUISIANA AND ACROSS THE NATION!

Wednesday, July 15^th, 2026

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

VOTER DISTRUST IN LOUISIANA AND ACROSS THE NATION!

 

And I thought voters were distrustful, angry and confrontational a few years back when I held public office in Louisiana.  This coming federal election is viewed by many, including yours truly, as a herculean and rather grim battle between good and evil, left and right, the good guys and the scum, Wormwood and the Patient, and Saint Michael vs. Satan.  But guess what? There could be no victors.  We all could lose on November 3^rd..

 Remember the movie “Christmas Vacation?”  The hero is surprised by a Christmas bonus of a subscription to the Jelly-of-the-Month Club.  His reaction reflects what many voters think of those elected officials representing them: “Cheap, lying no good, rotten, four-flushing, low-life, snake-licking, dirt-eating, inbred, over-stuffed, ignorant, bloodsucking, dog-kissing, brainless, hopeless, heartless, worm headed sack of monkey bleep!”  You get my drift.

 

The average voter is looked on by these politico wondercan’ts as being too dumb to understand what the issues are all about.  We are the Rodney Dangerfields of the political process, and we don’t get any respect. The Washington crowd has all the answers, and your and my opinions have become irrelevant.

“Goldfinger” is my favorite Bond (James Bond) movie.  Remember when Bond (James Bond) is tied down on a table with a laser beam about to be cut in half, and he tells the bad guy, “You expect me to talk?”  Goldfinger answers: “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.  There is nothing you can talk to me about that I don’t already know.”  That reflects the attitude of too many members of Congress who think they have all the answers, spend our tax dollars putting the country all the more in debt, and then look on those peons back home as irrelevant to their personal “get me elected” agenda.

One example of our delusional leadership is what’s happening in the Middle East.  Don’t you remember?  We have been at war there and have assumed a massive expenditure in dollars and American lives.  The financial cost is approaching three trillion dollars, and the weekly military expenditures are running $2 billion a week. Yet you will not find a congressional campaign anywhere in the country that acknowledges the mess that has been created.

I once had the chance to visit in Washington with Ahmed Chalabi, who was the leader of the Iraqi National Congress and the former Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq.  He talked of the bitterness of many Iraqis towards America.  “We wanted a provisional government after the demise of Hussein. The Americans wanted occupation. We thought America would be liberators, but instead they became occupiers.”

Then he said something quite disturbing. “The vast majority of Arabs think the 9/11 tragedy was instigated within the U.S.A. You are the strongest country in the world.  It’s hard for many Arabs to believe that 19 young men with box cutters could do so much harm to America.”

The U.S. spends billions on Middle Eastern oil, and the proceeds get funneled to the very enemy American soldiers are fighting. We seem to be at war with our allies, and the U.S. is the only country in the history of the world to pay for both sides of the fight.

We are decades away from peace in that region, the cost is staggering to our economy, yet not a word, not a suggestion, and not a voice of concern is being raised by any candidate in my home state of Louisiana or nationwide.

So the choices get tougher as Election Day approaches. Do you throw the present bums out, and end up with new bums? Like the Who song says: “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.”  It looks like a crapshoot folks. There is a lack of any strong will to address what ails this nation by candidates on both sides of the isle.  So if you roll the dice, unfortunately, you may lose either way.

*******

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide.  You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownla.com.  

 

 

DOESN’T ANYONE TAKE TIME TO VOTE?

Monday, July 6th, 2026

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

DOESN’T ANYONE TAKE TIME TO VOTE?

Remember the 1970 song by Chicago: “Does anybody really know what time it is, does anybody really care?” Louisiana held an election last week and only 17% of registered voters showed up. Only a handful of voters, both Republican and Democratic, bothered to cast a ballot for United States Senator, one of the most important offices in the nation. So why wasn’t there more interest?

Louisiana has become a strong red state with major advantages for the Republican candidate. A number of Democratic-leaning voters feel going to the polls is just not worth the effort. “Why bother if my vote really won’t make any difference,” is the feeling of many more moderate-inclined voters.

It’s much harder for candidates to get to voters today. It used to be that a voter had the choice of three TV stations, a few radio stations and one local newspaper. The internet has changed all this. From cable to web newspapers to information streaming, voters have so many new choices. And political media campaigns often get lost in the scuffle. It is simply much harder to get to the average voter without raising and spending more campaign dollars.

“Retail politicking,” particularly in statewide races, has become a thing of the past. Up until just a few years ago, candidates would never miss the chance to shake hands at numerous well-attended festivals and fairs across the state. When I was out looking for votes during my seven statewide elections, I would send over a convertible at the crack of dawn on parade day to get in the front of the line, often jousting with a number of other candidates. Today, few statewide candidates show up for such events.

Now candidates raise campaign dollars and hand it over to consultants, who then decide how the money is to be spent. And the majority of the spending is for 30-second attack ads in the final days of the campaign. Both sides attack each other, and voters are relegated to the choices of bad or worse. As one candidate put it: “I want voters to hold their nose and vote for me.”

The press does not cover political campaigns like they once did. This is a reflection of the financial cutbacks by newspapers, radio and TV stations across the state. Radio stations are doing much less local programming. Thousands of voters used to listen to interviews about local and state politicians during morning and afternoon drive time. But much of the programming is now syndicated, with stations using talk show hosts who have little interest in local politics. TV stations in the state, with a few exceptions, no longer have the resources to do any in-depth comparisons of candidates. The result is that voters are less informed, and thus less interested.

I wonder if many voters in the state know how to vote anymore? Today, more and more voters toe the party line, and look for either the R or D after a candidate’s name. Too often, we don’t consider which candidate has a broad vision for what is in the best interest of Louisiana.

Have we relegated ourselves into “kneejerk” voting based on single issues?
Consultants talk about the Catholic vote, the abortion vote, and the Cajun vote, often all based on self-interest, and not founded on a range of issues that are critical to getting Louisiana out of its economic doldrums. If these “self-interest” issues are not on the line, doesn’t this dampen the interest in going to the polls?

And finally, there might be some truth in the view of comedian Jay Leno. “If God had wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.”

Peace and Justice

Jim Brown

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and at http://www.jimbrownusa.com.

 

 

 

FREEDOMS ON 4TH OF JULY

Monday, June 29th, 2026

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

 

FREEDOMS ON 4^TH OF JULY

 

        Independence Day to most Americans means a three-day weekend with gatherings of family and friends, barbecues, parties, games, food, parades, baseball games and fireworks.  Traditionally, most of us know that July 4^th is the recognition and celebration of our country’s independence from an oppressive government.  But this mid-summer special day is really only about one thing.  Freedom.

 

Most Americans agree on the importance of safeguarding basic freedoms protected by the Constitution.  But here’s where it gets a little murky.  Do we have to give up certain of these freedoms to be safe and secure? The current and past presidents, one Democrat and one Republican, think that there are tradeoffs, and that individual freedoms have to be compromised for the sake of security. In order to combat crime and terrorism, they say, it is necessary for the government to take away certain freedoms and civil rights. In the realities of the 21^st century, is our Constitution “out of date?” Both parties in Washington would have you believe so.

 

In the opinion of a majority of both Democrats and Republicans, freedom has to make way for safety concerns.  That disturbing view manifested itself in the recent passage of the so-called Patriot Act.  In the name of fighting terrorism, members of Congress drove a stake through the heart of the Bill of Rights.

 

Here is what members of Congress did in their Patriot Act vote.  As listed by Constitutional scholar Judge Andrew Napolitano, they authorized and empowered federal agents on their own, “in violation of the Constitution, and without you knowing it, to obtain records about you from your accountant, bank, boat dealer, bodega, book store, car dealer, casino, computer server, credit union, dentist, HMO, hospital, hotel manager, insurance company, jewelry store, lawyer, library, pawn broker, pharmacist, physician, postman, real estate agent, supermarket, tax collectors, telephone company, travel agency, and trust company, and use the evidence thus obtained in any criminal prosecution against you.”

 

So here’s the tragic irony.  On this special 4th of July weekend, when we celebrate our independence and our right to be free, we are being told by our leaders in Washington that, yes, America fought a war with the British, and over the past 250 years continued to fight wars to protect our freedom from foreign governments.  But nevertheless, now, we have no choice but to let our own government compromise these same freedoms that we have sacrificed so much to maintain and protect.

 

Judge Napolitano hit the nail on the head when he said on Fox News that our Congress frequently and forcefully argue that their first job is to keep us safe.  They are wrong.  The Constitution tells us that the sole job of our nation’s leadership is to enforce the Constitution:  and that means keeping us free.  “Free from tyrants who sought and claimed power from thin air:  free from prince-like federal agents who could behave without constitutional or legal restraint:  free to live with a government that obeyed its own laws.  Any president who keeps us safe but unfree is rejecting his oath to the American people.”

 

Lenin’s words concerning freedom would apparently find solace with a majority of members of Congress.  “It is true that liberty is precious, so precious that it must be carefully rationed.” And that’s the rub.  Our politicians want to control our basic liberties in the name of security.  The more security the bureaucrats in Washington try to impose, the more freedoms are taken away.  You see, freedom and security are not the same.  The most secure citizens in America are in jail.  That’s why it’s called “maximum security.”

 

When we hear all this talk of our members of Congress fighting to protect American freedoms, a paraphrase of George Carlin’s observations comes to mind. “Crime fighters fight crime, fire fighters fight fire, so what do our supposed government freedom fighters fight?”

 

Your congressman will no doubt protest that he or she is seeking the worthy goal of keeping you safe.  The reply of the true patriot is, “Yes, but at what cost?”  Is the benefit of some perceived (but often unproven) measure of safety worth, in this constitutional tug of war, the sacrifice of the basic liberties that American citizens have enjoyed for the past two centuries?  Thomas Jefferson would argue no. Principals matter.  The Bill of Rights matter.  The Constitution matters.

 

The best way to keep us safe is to keep us free.  That’s the message on this Independence Day.  And for every other day of the year.

 

“Those who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty or security.”

- Benjamin Franklin

 

Peace and Justice

 

Jim Brown

 

Jim Brown’s syndicated column appears each week in numerous newspapers throughout the nation and on websites worldwide. You can read all his past columns and see continuing updates at http://www.jimbrownla.com