America the Paranoid

http://www.npr.org/2011/12/20/143996530/immigration-effort-mistakenly-holds-u-s-citizens

"A growing number of U.S. citizens have been mistakenly detained as part of the Secure Communities program. It's a federal effort to detect and deport illegal immigrants who've been arrested by local law enforcement. In Los Angeles recently, four native-born citizens — all Latino — have been held for days at a time."

ICE - the Immigration and Customs Enforcement - uses their Secure Communities program to grab anybody they suspect is in the US illegally. In the process, they grab and hold legal US citizens as if they were criminals.  Why?

http://www.rickety.us/2011/06/2010-defense-spending-by-country/

"The United States, with a budget of $698 billion, spends more on defense than the next seventeen nations combined. The United States military spending is almost six times that of the next biggest spender, China ($119 billion) and more than eleven times that of Russia ($59 billion)."

What are we so afraid of that we outspend the rest of the world on military expenditures?

http://overheadbin.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/24/9676807-frightening-frosting-tsa-confiscates-cupcake?chromedomain=usnews

"Rebecca Hains said the Transportation Security Administration agent at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas took her cupcake Wednesday. According to Hains, he told her its frosting was enough like a gel to violate TSA restrictions on allowing liquids and gels onto flights to prevent them from being used as explosives."

I could go on. After 9/11 we became the most paranoid nation on earth.  We started two wars that drained our economy to the point of collapse.  We started policing ourselves to the point that even cupcakes are considered a terrorist threat. The infirm are frisked, old ladies are treated like Al Qaeda.  We've spent ourselves into the ground. All because our paranoia grew way out of proportion.

Can't it be said that the terrorist won when we react like this?  They wanted to ruin our economy. They wanted us to live in fear.  They wanted to mess with our heads.  And we let them.

It's time to turn all this down not just a notch, but a lot.