Other Columns by Debbie Daniel
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Have we built barriers in our own beloved America that are tantamount to the Berlin Wall being built to keep East Berliners out of West Berlin? Do we need a "time-out" and go to our respective corners before we continue pouring more concrete sewage into a footing that we may never be able to move?

The concrete? Words . . . just words; deadlier than a nuclear blast. Why? Because it's a slow, grueling death. It eats away at the very fiber of who we are and then decay sets in and it's over.

Every single day I hear another flagrant comment or a flippant remark that continues to drive a wedge deeper into the hearts of Americans. A permanent foundation is being laid for a strong, steely wall that may never come down and it is separating Americans at a rampant pace.

It's killing the spirit of our soldiers and is administered with full knowledge of our being at war -- deliberate intent.

Are we separating ourselves from each other and not aware that it's happening? Sometimes I think we need our own "Checkpoint Charlie" where we can hang our cloaks of anger, relinquish our hate, and surrender our total disregard for one another before we cross over.

There's a fine line, and it's really not the big white line of demarcation that was painted on the street in Berlin - where the little shack stood called Checkpoint Charlie -- but it's the fine line of "respect" that we keep crossing. We don't seem to ever check ourselves there first and I'm not sure we care.

When I look back and listen to the words of Howard Dean, the newly elected Democratic National Committee Chairman say with adamant conviction: "I hate Republicans and everything they stand for," I find myself thinking, "Those Republicans are Americans he hates." It's you, it's me and in the name of free speech . . . it's hate!

And this is the man who supposedly represents over 50 million people in this great land that I love. But in Mr. Dean's next breath, he says he want to have civil discourse. Ah, yes, civil discourse.

If a tenured college professor, Ward Churchill, says that all the people who died on 9/11 deserved to die because they were "little Nazis," what message does this send to the enemy? And how must it affect the families of those who perished?

The professor follows up with, "There should be more 9/11's." More Americans should die in burning buildings? Oh, yes, that's what we all wish for . . . more Americans dying at the hands of terrorists. But to add insult to injury, this man is invited to share his "desire for death" with other college students across America . . . in the name of "free speech."

Once again, no respect.

I heard Hillary Clinton say on "Meet the Press" that our soldiers are fighting a war for someone else's freedom. I believe that it's ultimately our freedom as well, but let me share these words with Mrs. Clinton from her husband's hero, President John F. Kennedy. And someone might want to pass them along to little brother, Teddy.

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