In religion, for example, the most pious of the saintly are warned to not rise too high in the spiritual mist.  These "evil hunters" are warned the "Devil" can take on the cloth of "God," and the saintly can be blinded into thinking they are the righteous Hand of God, when in fact their fingers bleed just as easily as any human beings for after all they are just human with all their foibles and defects.   Only God is God.

       So when it comes to the United States government cinching up its anti-Terrorism belt and passing hastily constructed laws such as the Patriot Act of 2001 that expands government powers at the expense of the Constitutional Rights of American citizens, the thirst to spill Terrorism's blood creates a clear and present danger that the Beast of Terror might just be disguising Vigilance as the Hand of God when in fact it is only the Hand of Terror called by another name.
       America's cities are wary of this danger.  They are concerned the Hand of Government might be the Hand of Terror, not the Hand of Vigilance.  More than sixty of America's cities are bracing their communities to fight against an intrusion on the two-century old concept of American democracy granted under the U.S. Constitution.  Their enemy isn't Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, but instead, the U.S. Government.
         So far, more than 24 cities across the United States have passed resolutions warning the government to back off from violating their citizen's civil rights in the federal government's mad rush to ferret out Terrorism.   The fear at the local and community government level is that their citizen's civil liberties and Constitutional rights are being violated as the federal government bulldozes its way toward winning the war on Terrorism.   The Vigilant Government Guardians at the local levels are worried more about the "enemy within" than the "enemy without."
         The strongest of these resolutions comes from Amherst, Mass.  Their resolution prohibits city personnel from helping federal and state officials in activities that could be considered in violation of civil rights or liberties.  Part of the resolution states:

          Some of the more liberal bastions such as Boulder, CO; Santa Fe, NM; and Berkeley, CA have passed the resolutions in accordance with their legacy of wariness against federal government power mongering.  But less ideological cities such as Chicago, Tampa, Fairbanks, Alaska and Grants Pass, OR. have followed the same Vigilant path.

        Flagstaff, Arizona, an unusually conservative town, recently passed a watered down version of the Amherst Vigilance Doctrine.   Art Babbott, the City Council member who sponsored the resolution in Flagstaff that passed last week after heated debate, said:  "We've been singing the same song in this country for more than 200 years.  It's a very good song, and I want to keep singing it.  I'm very leery of changing the lyrics."
          I was glad to see that communities around the nation--those 8,333 conclaves of 30,000 populations that tend to comprise the "neighborhoods of America," are not standing in quiet Complacency under the Intimidation of Big Government.    Their resolutions, while having dull teeth from a legal point of view, signal to any "Big Brotherism" that local communities hold the Voice of Power in protecting their communities.

      I've always been an advocate of Community Rights.   Personally, I believe Federal Rights are nothing more than the sum of Community Rights, and that such rights do not flow down from the top, but rather up from the bottom.   If Constitutional government is a reality, then government is only a servant of the communities, not the communities slaves of the government.  Unilateral decisions to impinge on the sanctuary of Constitutional or civil rights of citizens at the grass roots level cannot, and should be exercised without retaliation, or, at least confirmation by the communities such as Flagstaff, Amherst, Grants Pass and Boulder.
         I constantly remind myself the original U.S. Constitution calls for one representative per 30,000 population.  Back when the Constitution was framed, I believe our Founding Fathers realized the danger of putting too much power in the hands of too few people.   But that formula was changed by government and a cap put on the number of legislative representatives on the grounds the higher number--which would exceed 8,000 today--would be too unwieldy to manage.   
        In 1911, to limit the number of representatives, especially the immigrants, Congress capped the number of members to 435.  The ratio today of representation has leapt to 1:540,000, a far cry from 1:30,000 originally established.  If today's formulas was applied back to 1788, our Congress would have had only six representatives.
        While I am not here to argue the arbitrary whittling of power by federal government away from the people to the state, I am more than aware of the danger of sweeping legislation that flies in the face of the American citizen, and the rights not only of the adults, but of the children's children's children.

          The Patriot Act in many ways has the earmarks of a Terrorism Act.   Without checks and balances, it can run amuck of the Constitutional privileges of all citizens, present and future, and denude the Constitution's Vigilance Principles to "guard against Big Government."
        Reactions by the cities who are passing such resolutions signal the Grass Roots Vigilance Community Corps, a gathering of collective unity against attacks on our fundamental freedoms that could be far more devastating than an attack by a Terrorist Nation, or Terrorism group.    When we eat our own Children's Rights, it is a far worse crime that being sloppy about our national defenses.
        I maintain that the ability to fight Terrorism does not rest with government as we see it today.  It is not the federal government's job to protect citizens from Terrorism, but, I believe, the duty of the citizens to protect themselves, their communities, their children, and their children's children's children.

        Terrorism is not now, has not been, and never will be a "national problem."  It is a community issue.  It is all about protecting our most innocent and vulnerable assets--our children--from harm.
        Terrorism doesn't seek to destroy "hard targets" such as World Trade Centers, industrial complexes, the White House, or our ability to make bombs and bullets.
        Terrorism is about injecting Fear, Intimidation and Complacency in the hearts and minds of the people.  It is all about being a bully.  It is all about making people cower, duck, run until they scream "Uncle."
        Fighting Terrorism requires armament far beyond federal government's power.   The weapons that battle Terrorism are Courage, Conviction and Right Actions, taken to defend the children, and their children's children's children from both Emotional and Physical harm.
         I am a true believer in working in concert with community, state and federal agencies in the pursuit of ridding Terrorism and its threats from our nation and the world, but, I firmly oppose unilateral tactics that suppose the rights of such protection flow from the top down.
         Terrorism can only be fought with Vigilance, and Vigilance is the privy not of governments, but of communities.   Since Terrorism's targets are the average man, woman and child--the families of America and the world--it makes no sense to impose upon America laws and regulations that prohibit the rights of the citizens.

          If the federal government were to effect a single law that would secure the nation from Terrorism, it would pass the 2002 Vigilance Act, a law requiring every one of the 100 million households and 10 million businesses in America to post a Pledge of Vigilance in a visible location so that every family member and every customer could see it daily.  Further, it would demand that each citizen once a day call into the Vigilance Hotline and recite the Pledge of Vigilance to a recording machine that would affirm the caller's Voice I.D. 
       It would require each community to form a Vigilance Council, and require monthly meetings where mandatory attendance of all heads of households and business owners was required.  At these meetings, members of the communities would report on how they have installed new tools of Courage, Conviction and taken Right Actions over the past thirty days to promote and instill Vigilance in their homes and businesses.
       Following the adults, the children of the community would be called upon to speak out about their Fears, Intimidations and Complacencies, and request of the Vigilance Council actions to install Swords of Vigilance and Shields of Vigilance in those areas of weakness to shore up the Courage, Conviction and Right Actions necessary for them to feel safer and more secure, both physically and emotionally.
        Now, that would be an a true Patriot Act.
        Such an act would not give power to government, or ask for new leadership at the top, or demand the reshuffling of our intelligence agencies, or require billions of new tax dollars to fund. No.  Instead, such an act would energize the grass roots.  It would throw back the duty and responsibility of self-government to the Parents of Vigilance, Grandparents of Vigilance, Uncles, Aunts, Cousins, Nephews, Nieces and Loved Ones of Vigilance.

        It would, in a nutshell, drive Terrorism out of the community, the state and nation.
        When a Terrorist can't Terrorize, there's not much for him to do.  He is forced to move on to places where Fear, Intimidation and Complacency grows like weeds, where people turn over their security to the government and sit in armchairs waiting for government to protect them, or wail like hungry children when someone points a finger at them:  "That's not my job.  That's why I pay taxes!  That's government's job!"
         So I was happy to see the groundswell of Community Vigilance rising on the horizon.   The dozen cities who have installed their VigilanceVoice are to be lauded.  The sixty who are in the process deserve accolades.  Now, there's only 8,261 to go.   The good news is, America's fighting Terrorism's Terrorism, on the homefront, where it should be fought first and foremost.