"The beautiful princess was playing with her dog by the forest. The dog ran into the woods chasing a rabbit. The princess went after him but got lost in the deep dark forest. For days and days, she wandered around trying to find her way out. Tired and hungry, she was sitting on a rock crying when a handsome prince rode by on a white horse. Oh prince, oh prince, please frugal me, she yelled. So he frugalled her, and they lived happily ever after."

Faced with an extreme situation, my tendency is often to make a joke of it. It's a defense mechanism and it has occasionally served me well, but not always. Sometimes it has just the opposite effect and makes the situation even worse. For instance, when the chief of police in Port Au Prince, Haiti, told me that he knew the three men who tried to steal my dinghy the previous day. For $150 he would have them killed. I tried to make light of it by asking what I could get for fifty dollars. He then looked me straight in the eye and held up one finger. I said it wasn't worth it and got out of Haiti as fast as I could.

Today, when I can't help thinking about the heinous attack of September 11th and the new war we're engaged in, I can't find anything at all to joke about. These events are far too serious and frightening to make light of. They're off the deep end and there is no defense mechanism. That's the problem. We can't run away from terrorism or shut it off.

I want revenge. I want justice. I want somebody to take the helm, right this boat we call a nation, and get us out of this storm. And I'm scared.

So far, George the younger seems to have responded well. I like what he's saying and I like the way the American people have rallied around the flag and shown their support. But that's what American's do well when we're shaken from slumber. It's what everybody should do in any emergency. Go right to the heart of the problem, face it, and do what you can to overcome it. Don't waste time on the superfluous.

But you see, that's where the rub comes in. I didn't trust the government before September the eleventh. Now, while I would like to have faith in our government to get us out of this mess, that well founded distrust halos over into areas where it might not be fully warranted. It's difficult to suddenly trust someone you know to be dishonest.

My bitch with the government is economic. It has to do with the flagrant rip-off of hundreds of billions in entitlement dollars and all the lies surrounding it. At the rate of about $460 million per day, it's enough to wage war with the rest of the world or even start a war to protect this scam.

I will not dwell on this swindle here, except to say that it was all coming unraveled in the weeks before September eleventh. I had great hope that things would be straightened out and put right. Things like the bogus Social Security Trust Fund were finally making headlines. In fact, politicians were starting to accuse each other and throwing so many false figures back and forth it was becoming ridiculous, especially since the truth would be all too obvious at the close of the fiscal year only weeks away. Now, the government is off the hook for awhile, maybe forever. No meaningful reform had been proposed but now all possibilities are buried in the profusion of war. It's almost as though the politicians knew that they would never have to face the truth or stand behind their false figures.

Couple this with the fact that this heinous attack was on the World Trade Center and the plot thickens. The WTC was the heart of international banking and, therefore, a cornerstone of the New World Order—a plot developed by our government and one that much of the world has been openly demonstrating against. My personal opinion is that this New World Order is based on the fundamental premise that if you can rob the American people, then you can rob anybody and everybody—tomorrow the world.

I don't know exactly how Osama bin Laden fits into the scheme of things here, but he is certainly not a financial novice and there's all that oil in the Middle East.

It bothers me no end that bin Laden had once been on our payroll when, years ago, Dan Rather interviewed him as a "freedom fighter" helping us against the Russians. And it bothers me that we are suddenly going to do what the Russians couldn't do in ten years of chasing this man. We are the same forces that couldn't find the Atlanta bomber when he hid out in the hills of North Carolina, in our own territory. Even catching the "uni-bomber" seemed a happy side effect of putting down a rebellious militia in Montana that, thankfully, didn't erupt into another Waco or Ruby Ridge. Hey guys, while you're up there in Montana with all the media, why don't you run over to his cabin and pick up the uni-bomber.

If we have the capability of routing out this Islamic fanatic, why didn't we do it long before September eleventh? Didn't his organization try to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993? Didn't they bomb barracks and the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia? Didn't they blow up embassies in South Africa in 1998 and the USS Cole in 2000? Why did we wait until the loss of life was greater than Pearl Harbor? Is it the numbers that count? Didn't we miss the chance to fix the roof while the sun was shining? At least, the Japanese had the courtesy to wait until after the Great Depression before attacking us.

Maybe it's all relative and a matter of perspective. Don't we have the same justification to "nuke 'em" with today's potential loss of thousands of American ground forces? Isn't it the same rationale we were given in the Forties after we wiped out Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Maybe we should be thankful that all of Manhattan Island isn't gone, that the rubble isn't radioactive, we're not trying to identify shadows of loved ones, and the enemy didn't hit us with an equal disaster three days later.

Is guerrilla warfare really something new? Hasn't it always been our Achille's heel? Didn't we lose a war in Viet Nam where the enemy hit and ran from jungles, dug tunnels and laid traps, even sending children into our troops with hand grenades under their armpits? Didn't our own patriots use guerrilla tactics against the British instead of standing and kneeling in rank waiting for orders to load and lock? Do you think Goliath realized David could defeat him with a slingshot?

You could take any group of thinking Americans and ask them what we really need a federal government for in the first place. The one thing they would all agree on is to provide the common defense. In that, our recent government has obviously failed miserably, even though we've had the largest budgets since World War II (see chart) and are the world's largest producers of weapons and war games. Are there any of you who still believe TWA flight #800 was destroyed by a fuel tank spark that had never occured before or since with one of the most popular aircraft?

It also bothers me to think that since World War II we seem to have a policy of not really defeating our enemies because it's too expensive to occupy, help rebuild, and protect their people afterwards. If not in Korea, certainly in Iraq where we embargo and create no-fly zones while starving their women and children until their military can't stand it anymore.

A half million Iraqi children dead from starvation isn't exactly collateral damage. It's even less humane than the 3,000 killed in Panama City when we leveled most of that city in order to capture one scoundrel who was also once on our payroll. And how many other dictators have we nourished, supported, and even installed in our own neighborhood? People like Trujillio, Batista, Pinochet, the DuValiers, and the Somosa family, simply because it's easier to buy one dictator than deal with a populace of unhappy or poor people.

Are we really the innocent victims? Didn't we just defiantly walk out of a conference on human rights in Durban, South Africa? Don't we have a president who's been talking about the 1972 Anti-Ballistice Missile (ABM) treaty being "outdated" and causing cynics like me to then wonder what he must think of the Constitution or the Bible for that matter? Isn't Henry Kissinger "wanted" by Chile on a warrant to face charges in the assassination of Salvadore Allende, a liberal president who was trying to institute social reform? Reform that might have meant the nationalization of our tin interests in that country.

Didn't we build Interstate Highways so we could continually keep our supply of international ballistic weapons of mass destruction on the move? Do you know where these peacekeeping devices are now? Weren't we just talking about new tests to make sure they're in working order? How many biological stockpiles do we have? Isn't one of the largest in Pennsylvania? How far from where the fourth September 11th plane went down due to some last minute heroics by passengers?

Maybe, just maybe, our greatest hope lies in the fact that the American people can no longer afford to ignore what their government does while we are each pursuing our individual idea of freedom or the right to compete. And aren't there other ideas of freedom? Didn't we just win a Cold War against a nation of half our population that believes in "freedom from" instead of "freedom to?"

Personally, I like the only idea of freedom that isn't bestowed or preserved by some higher force but claims that we've all had freedom since we were born. That it's the only thing we have no choice about, the human condition. That we are condemned to be free and are individually responsible for every act we choose to make, from the smallest scratching of an itch to the most momentous dropping of bombs. It doesn't allow for excuses like "I was just following orders" but puts responsibility squarely where it belongs in that "I chose to follow orders from people I chose to believe." It makes you ask "why" every step of the way.

If you think that's a heavy thought, try this one: In the beginning, God created man in his own image. No sooner was that accomplished than man decided to return the compliment.

There have been too many things Americans have been unwilling to face, not the least of which is the fact that just about the last thing our government needs is more money. (see: Open Letter to the President) Don't you think we've been "fruggled" enough?