While I am ecstatic to see so many people getting involved there are still many, many more that are apathetic to the troubles of the day. Apathy is undoubtedly the biggest problem we face here in The United States. I dare say that most people are more interested in what is happening on American Idol and Dancing with the Stars, or worse yet, so involved in buying “things” to try and fill some kind of void in their lives, that they are oblivious to their freedoms being taken away. Apathy! I would say that most of these types of people still are very much aware that things are not right in this Country, but say things like “what can I really do?” Apathy! And with this apathy they continue on in their lives passing over these abuses on our Freedoms like they are not happening. “But if you say you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, hath your house been burnt? Hath you property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you are not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, then are you un-worthy the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant… I mean not to exhibit horror for the purpose of provoking revenge, but to awaken us from fatal and unmanly slumbers, that we may pursue determinately some fixed object.”
While are houses are not being burnt, and the like, we are losing life, liberty, and property nonetheless. I use the above quote as metaphors with the hope we can avoid more troubled times like Paine saw in his day and to awaken us from our apathetic lives so that we “may pursue…some fixed object; namely restoring our Constitution and the Freedoms we have lost.
“We are already greater than the King (President) wishes us to be, and will he not hereafter endeavor to make us less? To bring the matter to one point, is the power who is jealous of our prosperity, a proper power to govern us?”
“O! Ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been haunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, had long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.”
We were, and to a large degree still are, that asylum for mankind. My God how did we let these freedom destroying people in amongst us? I understand that through man’s ambitions people as a whole are prone to strive for power over others. I understand this, I do, but we have got to do everything in our power to get more and more people involved. There are people out there that just want to serve their country and not becoming career politicians.
What will it take to find these types of people? Apathy over our freedom being lost must stop. What will we do America? Will we cower and shrink from the encroaching abuses of the federal government? Will we close our doors and look away, “leaving the sword to your children?” Or will we grip the sword that has been put in our hands and restore the glory of this great country.
Freedom is not hereditary, neither is it perpetual. Freedom had been given to us by the huge sacrifices our Founders made. Now we have lost a lot of those freedoms and are losing more every day. However we now have “every opportunity and every encouragement before us” to once again form the noblest, purest, most free country the world has ever seen. “We have it in our power to begin the world over again. The birthday of a new world is at hand...” and we “are to receive” our “portion of freedom from the events of a few months. The reflection is awful-and in this point of view, how trifling, how ridiculous, do the little paltry cavilings, of a few weak or interested men appear, when weighed against the business of a world.”
As I mentioned earlier apathy is our main problem here in the United States. However never in my life have I seen more involvement in our American cause than today. Should we abandon the opportunities that these days provide for us “we must charge the consequence to ourselves, and to those whose narrow and prejudiced souls, are habitually opposing the measure.” Now is not the time to argue with each other about who or what is taking freedom away from us but anxious to gain those freedoms back.
(All quotes take from Thomas Paine’s Common Sense)
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