Sunny day reminder

Yesterday was sunny - after what seemed like weeks of rain - and I posted an optimistic note to Twitter. My sister-in-law commented back about people getting more "Safety oriented" as they age. I responded with a bit of a rant...

First, the Twitter post:

“Sunny day makes me think that Canadians can live in a world where free speech is tolerated and encouraged. #Olympic #Repression #Begone”

My sister-in-law's response:

I fear that we risk letting free speech become an illusion. Great care is needed in the next 5 years. Baby Boomers are getting older and more conservative. They are becoming as afraid as their parents and grand-parents were 30-40 years ago. It's a sad day...

And then my rant...

We all risk a "turn to the right" as we age, but this must be resisted.

In particular we must preserve and enhance those freedoms that we have benefited from (and our grandparents died for) so that our children may use them to create a better world.

There is no way they will be able to remake our polluted, energy hogging, inequality-ridden society without the freedom to think, speak, and act in a democratic way.

An authoritarian society is sclerotic, rigid, and and lacks the creativity and innovation that are needed today.

Stare down the fear-mongers. Freedom is not an acceptable tradeoff for safety.

...r

NOTE Image from Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalmediamuseum/3084041451/sizes/m/ (Creative Commons Licence)