The Impending Death of Liberty

Freedom is dying. Citizens who once yearned to be free now yearn to be taken care of from cradle to grave. They place the burden for this onerous service squarely on the backs of the unborn and dim their futures in the process. But children born with the yoke of financial slavery matters not to those whose selfish interests are appeased. If I were speaking of Europe nobody would be surprised, but I speak of the United States of America.

The nation where freedom was once celebrated, where news agencies sought to guard it, and where once citizens prized it above their own existence and where freedom was a beacon to the oppressed of the world, but freedom is dying. If one listens closely, you can hear her ragged breathing. Liberty was raped by the left, she was beaten by a judiciary who are more interested in personal position than in justice, she was denied food and neglected by an uncaring and cruel legislature and left to starve, and by the Executive she was tortured. All had sworn to protect and defend her, but they forgot their duty as easily as they forget their past indulgences.

Where are Lady Liberty's final defenders, the citizens to whom she had given so much? They merely stood idly by and watched it all happen with their hands out. Some danced at her defilement, others laughed, some even made jokes about it adding to her humiliations. Even the stalwart defenders of the American armed forces have failed her. Not because they didn't do their jobs, but because they abandoned American virtue in favor of currying political favor.

As the flame of liberty dims in the U.S. the lack of light brings gloom to the world. Shadows creep in the West, the Russian Bear has awakened and is beginning to growl and in China the Dragon is flexing it's muscle. Once, America stood guard at the gates of the West. Today, that post is found empty.

The freedom of speech and ideas has fled from Western Europe. Speak an unpopular opinion in Great Britain and you will find yourself jailed if the wrong person hears you. Post newspaper clippings on a bulletin board in your own Pub that signal a trend and you will find yourself at the wrong end of a criminal charge. George Orwell called this thought crime and it has come to pass. These seeds have also been sown in American soil.

Police have detained people with T-shirts which proclaimed political support for the Republican party and for displaying the Gadsden flag on the back glass of your automobile. The American government seeks to abridge the United States Constitution by signing treaties that restrict small arms thus circumventing the second amendment and once the freedom to bear arms has been removed the American populace will be silenced at long last.

The recent decision of the United States Supreme Court has created the ultimate weapon in the governments arsenal against the citizen and that was the decision that rendered the individual mandate a tax. With that decision in place the government has been awarded unprecedented power over its citizens. No longer is government the servant of the people, it has now become the master.

The government can now dictate what you must do with your finances. They can dictate that you buy any product or service. That keeps their union friends happy because foreign competition has been eliminated. If GM needs to sell more cars then the government can direct the public to purchase a GM automobile and can levy a fine or jail you if you don't. If the government wants to support green technologies then they can direct the buying public to purchase solar panels, wind farms, and to recycle. If you don't you get a fine or go to prison. Why do you think that the IRS was charged with bringing the public into compliance?

I seem to recall an exuberant Obama and Rahm Emmanuel pontificating about a civilian force that was equivalent to the U.S. military that would be used to insure that Americans fell into line with their leftist agenda. IRS anyone? The Obamacare legislation which was rammed down our throats creates this force within the IRS. They just don't call it a security force or secret police. But the IRS does have a reputation for being something of a vicious agency doesn't it? I seem to recall a little girl who's bank account was seized by the IRS and all she had was the meager earnings of her lemonade stand, but the IRS was placing pressure on her parents so...well you get the idea.

The freedom of religion is also taking a beating in America. The Catholic church is under fire for sticking to it's tenets of faith regarding the provision of contraceptives to it's employees. The left is famous for it's separation of church and state mantra, but that doesn't seem to stop the government from sticking its greasy fingers into the business of religion. I guess separation doesn't preclude dominance and the direct rejection of the articles of faith. But leftist principles do much worse.

Diversity, multiculturalism, and other leftist policies have been a poison in the veins of Lady Liberty for far too long. The citizens of the United States were once one people and now we are fractured. Divided along lines of race, creed, and national origin. You cannot pigeon hole someone and expect them to count you their equal. That can only be done if they are a part of the group and it is the inclusion in that group that bonds its members.

By celebrating other cultures, other peoples, and other creeds we must necessarily neglect our own and by doing so it dies upon the vine. The entire West has been awash in this toxin for decades.

If one examines movies, television, books, and schools you will find that the poison is everywhere, but the schools are the worst. Adolf Hitler was once told by a man who opposed him that he and his ideology would fail. Hitler merely laughed and told the man that he did not seek his support because he knew that he would not get it. He said that he relied upon the schools he controlled and that he would get his support from his children and he did. That lesson the left has absorbed well.

Teachers in the United States are overwhelmingly leftist. They teach your children to sing songs of love and admiration for their dear leader in elementary school, they hold teaching conventions which are used as party propaganda for the Democrats, and they teach respect and love for leftist principles while eschewing the traditional values of America and bad mouthing the founding fathers. I took a year of American history in college and I can tell you that for every positive thing told about my country, there were two to three things told to be ashamed about. Where in such a balancing act does national pride fit in? Why should a student care about the American revolution that provided his freedoms? Why should he respect the American founders who were just a bunch of old, rich white guys who wanted to lord it over the blacks? In fact, many school text books have omitted George Washington or included him only as a historical foot note. Of what use is the truth when you are trying to publish a political agenda?

The left does not love America or her values. They cheered when Lady Liberty stumbled and fell. They now hang like vultures above her waiting breathlessly for her to expire so that they can feast upon her still warm corpse. This is why the Bear has arisen and the Dragon has begun to rattle it's saber. It is why Israel is nervous and why Assad is murdering his own people in Syria. What's worse is that there isn't a damned thing that we can do about any of it.

Like Greece, the U.S. is broke. The left bitterly complained about Bush's spending, but spent four times as much when they had the power. The national debt is around 74 trillion dollars and before anyone goes off about it only being 14 trillion, the 74 includes the interest on the 14 or have you forgotten that there is interest to pay? The left believes that by spending all available funds they will have castrated the American military and they are correct.

Worse, Obamacare will greatly amplify that number. The reason that governments have begun to curtail health insurance coverage overseas is because it has become a millstone about their collective necks. Despite their best measures overseas, the ever expanding costs of medicine continues to grow and as that cost grows it outstrips the government's income. Hence you get advice on how to die when you receive a cancer diagnosis at the age of 65 instead of being treated. Unless of course you happen to be a member of Parliament, they can always find money for them. But if you are bricklayer you are out of luck. The picture grows darker with the recent decision on Obamacare.

You will recall that the government's new power to dictate what you can spend your money on constitutes a brand new stream of revenue for the American government. No longer will taxation be their only source of revenue. They can now send streams of cash to their friends with dictates to the American citizens to purchase other products and thus curry political support and favors. If you fail to do as you are told then the government can fine or imprison you. Chief Justice Roberts provided the tools to create a dictatorship just as surely as when Caesar crossed the Rubicon and ended the Republic, although I am unaware if Chief Justice Roberts had a similar vision as did Caesar.

What is to be done? That is a question best left up to the American citizen. Is it more important to you to be told what to do and taken care of like a five year old or does personal liberty actually mean something to you? Do you actually give a damn about your children or are they simply a means to obtaining your hand out by burdening them with the cost of your maintenance? Do you even care if they have any kind of freedom at all? What about your neighbor's children? We have heard the saying that freedom isn't free so many times that it has become cliché. But the truth is that the cost of freedom is self sacrifice and personal responsibility.

The left will offer you a home, but it is a haven only for the callow and the craven. Those who seek to stand on their own two feet and carve out their place in this world have no place there.

I leave the decision about which you are to yourself. That decision will determine your actions in the future and will decide whether Lady Liberty can be saved or if she will go into that dark goodnight of everlasting sleep.