Victim or Terrorist? That's the question.

In light of the recent foiled terrorist attempt in New York City, something dawned on me.

1. The people who have become outspoken about the direction the government is going, i.e., the Tea Party Movement are still being characterized as "racists," "terrorists," or "right-wing nuts."
   
2. Those who have become outspoken about the new Arizona immigration law, who love their nation and are for immigration...just not illegal immigration. Again are seen as "racists," "terrorists," "violent," and a host of other nasty names. But from what I have seen, the violence from the protesting has come more from the liberals or the counter-protesters. Yet it is the peaceful, protesters who want the Federal Government to uphold the laws that are already on the book are seen as the bad guy.
   
3. Now for recent string of attacks: Fort Hood Shooter (Major Nidal Hasan), Christmas Day Bomber (aka "Fruit of the Loom" Bomber), and Faisal Shahzad (foiled NYC bomber). What drives me crazy is that the media is making these men out as "victims." Case in point, the media has focused on his house being in foreclosure and the conditions of the condo he has been living in. Yet totally ignoring the fact, that Shahzad went to Pakistan to a bomb making training camp and came back to cause physical harm to the nation that welcomed him its doors as a naturalized citizen. For Major Hasan, the focus has been on his alleged mental state. Again not focusing on the reasoning of him contacting the radical Yemeni cleric.
   

Confusion yet baffles me. I am confused by how the media can ignore the blatant obvious truth that lays in front of its camera lens. I am confused by how hardworking Americans, who love this nation and its freedoms, are seen as the bad guy.

Where has the America I love gone? I now have gained a better appreciation of the words in which Thomas Paine wrote in The Crisis,

"THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated."

Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze (1851)