Why don’t we just line folks up and shoot them? It would probably be more humane than the way we “kill and bury” in today’s society. Our freedom of speech has allowed us to be bona fide assassins of a person’s character, reputation and career.

If a person decides to inflict pain on someone, it’s through the murderous method otherwise known as “freedom of speech.” It’s a slow death of venomous words and anyone who says “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me” has merely persevered to act brave while dying on the inside.

No, we don’t push people off buildings with their hands and legs bound - only to have nearly every bone in their body broken and crushed - we prefer the slow agonizing death of ruining their lives, breaking their hearts and crushing their will with the use of destructive words that are sure to kill anyone’s spirit.

When did Americans start acting like this? When did we decide the best way to kill is to break another’s will?

To some we say, “I can’t find the words to tell you how much I love and appreciate you,” but to those we despise, we can find the exact words necessary to rip a heart, destroy a life, and leave it bleeding along life’s way.

We can throw a punch with words that’s equal to a stab in the heart. I don’t have a problem with freedom of speech, but I believe adults have abused this privilege; they are the worst stewards of this freedom.

They will send kids to their rooms for “talking” ugly to one another - calling it “time-out.” Teachers will even separate children on the playground until they can learn to get along and say, “I’m sorry,” and then the young ones must assure the teacher they can play together and “be nice.”

What a farce! Why do we expect so much from our children when we, the adults, can’t get along at all? I have concerns with freedom of speech in that we don’t seem to know how to get our point across without denigrating the other person. It’s no longer civil discourse – it’s senseless slime. We educate our children with it and then wonder what happened to our youth.

While I loathe this common practice of “freedom to persecute,” I am at the same time amazed at how George Bush maintains in the midst of some of the most poisonous words I’ve ever heard assigned to any man, much less a president of the United States. But make no mistake, he will go down in history as one of the most outstanding presidents who ever lived – mark my words.

No, George Bush is not perfect - nor will any president ever be - but to lay him on the chopping block to be sliced, diced, and pureed for political pleasure is the surest sign of a country gone mad. We have no hope for a future if we continue at this pace. Our children are watching and we don’t care.

We’ve developed a vulture behavior and are obsessed with this gift of stab and jab . . . pick him apart while he’s still alive and death will soon ensue.

And it doesn’t stop there. It seems that former presidents have just nixed the “brotherhood” code of ethics when it comes to scorning a sitting president. It’s the “me” mentality that prevails – forget manners, forget respect and forget the children.

Under the guise of teaching geography, a teacher in Aurora, Colorado stood up in the classroom recently and equated George Bush to Adolf Hitler. We pay dearly into a system that financially supports that teacher and allows him to make those comments freely. But let a child offer a prayer to God and we shut him down. Isn’t this a proud moment for America?

Being respectful and showing any semblance of manners is an art of the past. We don’t even think like respectable people any more. We’ve lost our finesse, our culture and our dignity toward one another. We’ve become no better than street thugs.

While I may be enraged that a former president of peanut popularity seems to delight in taking potshots at a sitting president – most recently comparing his faith to that of George Bush’s – saying, “The essence of my faith is one of peace . . . we worship the prince of peace, not of pre-emptive war,” I’m once again convinced and reminded that it’s best to let a person like that just hang himself . . . we don’t need to do it for him.

I’m definitely not against our freedom of speech, but it’s just like an airplane – if it’s in the hands of the wrong people, it can do great damage.

Debbie Daniel can be contacted at: dddtx@yahoo.com