When?

Steve Olson asks too many questions on his blog, starting with, "When did America become a nation of frightened wimps?"

When did we decide to allow the police to smash into private homes without knocking and identifying themselves? When did we decide it was okay to strip search an old lady at the airport because the pin in her hip set off the metal detector? When did we decide it was too risky to take a cup of coffee on an airplane? When did we decide it was reasonable to make a nursing mother drink her own breast milk to prove she wasn't a terrorist? When did we decide it was okay for policemen in combat boots with German Shepherds to patrol High School hallways? When did we decide it was too dangerous for our children to ride their bikes to school? When did we decide it was okay for the government to seize property without a trial, without due process, at the whim of a government agency? When did we decide that our government had a right to the fluids inside our own bodies? When did we decide to give 10 year prison sentences to adolescents for having sex? When did we decide it is too risky for 20-year-olds to drink but reasonable for them to kill and die overseas?

Too many questions that many Americans do not ask -- do not wish to ask -- and are too petrified, safe and uncomfortable to ask. Questions that should be asked however -- because if they are not asked, the slippery slope America continues to slide on will take a once great country, into total ruin.