Opinion Forum

Freedom Can Be Taken. When Inherited or Otherwise Given, Does It Last?

April 26th, 2013

If taken at great cost, it often lasts for quite a while. If inherited, not that long. If given, it is even more readily perishable.

The United States gained their freedom, by force and at great cost, from those who used military might to prevent them from having it. Even many in the United States who inherited their freedom seem to have forgot how and why those from whom they inherited took it and the costs they bore. Those “given” freedom should know by now that it does not long endure unless cherished and defended, by force if that is the only viable option. Do they realize it? Do they care?

This article did not begin as a pitch for the Rutherford Institute, but I received an e-mail this morning that seemed well worth excerpting here.

Dear Dan,

The world is a far different place today than it was ten—twenty—even thirty years ago. Freedom, once greatly prized, has become something of a luxury, easily traded for phantom promises of security and material comforts. Likewise, human life, once valued highly, has become a cheap commodity, easily discarded and abused by those entrusted with protecting it.

We see this played out daily, not only in the government’s heavy-handed approach to “governing” but in its view of the citizenry as disposable, inhuman, and incapable of directing our lives, caring for our children, overseeing our health and welfare, and managing our financial affairs.

For all intents and purposes, the so-called nanny state being erected around us is really little more than a police state sold to the American people in the guise of security, safety and convenience. Yet with every law passed, every piece of technology adopted, and every freedom stripped of its life force, the government’s true objectives become clearer—absolute control, domination and dehumanization of people into impersonal things.

Here is a link to The Rutherford Institute blog, which highlights some of the issues it addresses, principally through litigation. Please contribute if you can.

I receive frequent e-mails from ~~Orgiastic for Obama~~ Organizing for Action as well. It presents Candidate Obama’s pitches for money and support now that he is The President. Here’s the text of one dated April 22:

Friend –

When I last emailed you a few months ago, I told you about my dad, Reuven, who was killed this past September in a mass shooting in Minneapolis.

Since then, I’ve been fighting every single day to reduce gun violence, so no one else ever has to grieve like I did.

When the Senate defeated a bill that would expand background checks last week, I just couldn’t believe it. Something that 90 percent of Americans support should be a slam dunk.

Right now, we might be witnessing the greatest disconnect between Congress and the American people in our history.

This is why Organizing for Action’s job is so important. Together, we can make sure that no one in Washington ever gets away with ignoring the voices of the people who sent them there — no matter how powerful the special interests.

Add your name — say you’re ready to keep on fighting.

I can’t get over the fact that those 45 senators cast their votes against background checks while family members of the victims of Newtown, Tucson, and Virginia Tech watched from the Senate gallery.

Could those senators even look those families in the eye and explain themselves?

The truth I’m finding is that the gun lobby has got decades worth of money and organizing behind them, and they know how to stir their supporters into a frenzy.

But 90 percent of this country is on our side, not theirs. If we all step up, we will be heard. And we will win the next vote.

This past weekend, thousands of OFA supporters got together at 45 targeted events across the country to thank the senators who stood up for us, and to tell the senators who caved to the special interests that we’re not about to give up this fight.

That’s the kind of action I’m talking about. Join in — let’s make sure that Wednesday was the most powerful the gun lobby will ever be in Washington.

Add your name right now:

http://my.barackobama.com/Keep-Fighting

Thanks. Now back to work.

Sami

Sami Rahamim
Minneapolis, MN

Bill Whittle, at PJTV’s Afterburner, today presented a video titled “Enemies of the State.”

Are we “enemies of the state?” Many on the left appear to view us in that light. Might I suggest that they are pawns of the state and enemies of freedom?

Here are links to Power Line articles from yesterday. Each has a valid point and each is relevant. Please do read them all (I have modified the titles; please read them for their substance).

Cover up on the Boston Marathon kerfuffle.

ObamaCare all except those sitting on the Throne of Congressional Power?

California’s proposed Deadbeats’ rights bill.

Welfare for those who would slaughter the rest of us.

CAIR, human rights organization. How about human rights for non-Islamist humans? We apparently don’t matter.

An interesting albeit frightening article titled “When Will Enough be Enough” at Freedom Outpost presents these thoughts:

I cannot recall in my lifetime when our government has been so corrupt, so filled with lawless individuals who only think of themselves and not what is truly best for Americans.

America has a government that is slowly strangling the liberty out of its citizens and even though there are plenty of conservatives who rail against it, work to change it, and understand what is coming if we fail, the difficulty is that those in our government (aided and abetted by the media) do what they want to do anyway, often in total disregard for the rule of law. It’s not only maddeningly frustrating, but it goes against the very core of the Constitution.

Another article at Freedom Outpost is titled Inherited Freedom. It begins,

I have been contemplating for several months why 60% of the people don’t seem to care about the state of the nation. About 39% care some but do nothing, I ask myself why? I believe it must be that our freedom and liberty was inherited. Less than 1% of us have fought for our country.

Those of us now living inherited or were otherwise given our freedoms in the United States. Although many now living fought overseas — in World War II, in the Korean Conflict, in Vietnam and in the Middle East, for example — we seemed to have had little if any need to fight for our freedoms domestically. Do we value our freedoms as those from whom we inherited them did? Those freedoms are diminishing, but few seem to be much concerned. Perhaps that they were given rather than hard won is a reason: free stuff tends to be less valued than what we, ourselves, have earned.

Our own fighters in the cause of domestic freedom are now long dead, like those who fought for Irish freedom. Are they often remembered? Are our own? Infrequently and sometimes less than fondly.

Scotland?

Freedom seems not to have lasted very long even there.

When will we see her likes again? Where? In the United States? That seems rather a long shot. Can we make it happen anyway? I hope that we can and will.

Britania no longer rules the seas, or much of anything else.

Londonistan? Yesterday, twenty-five thousand Islamists gathered in our Mother Country to demand that defamation (i.e., mentions of reality) about Islam be criminalized.

Up to 25,000 British Pakistani men, women and children from across the UK gathered in Aston Park here to express their love for Hazrat Muhammad (peace be upon him) and to call on the British government to introduce legislation that bars Islamophobes from insulting Islam under the garb of the freedom of speech.

Who does/will rule the seas? China, perhaps? Are we accepting that?

Instead of paying attention to what’s happening, we have a President for whom many (so called “low information” voters, and “single issue” voters) apparently voted because of this sort of emotional, orgiastic urging. Are they concerned about nothing else? Even they are losing their freedoms and will lose more of them. Will they notice? If so, will they care?

Is that the bottom of the pit into which we have been descending? Does it have a bottom? Where might the bottom be and how might we climb out of it? Will we bother?

It has been a long time since the United States gained (took by force of arms) her freedom from (formerly) Great Britain. If we look — and many don’t — we can see our freedoms dribbling — perhaps even gushing — away. How long will it take for them to disappear? How long for them to do so? Will freedom eventually be beyond the remembrance of those now living, let alone those yet to be born?

I don’t know; it has been a gradual process but thus far an apparently inexorable one. As it continues, the pace increases. Will we “do something” or simply let it slide by? I wonder. Will the “Legitimate Media” come to our rescue? I would not count on it. Has the Declaration of Independence, written by a bunch of old dead White males, vanished into irrelevance? Has the Constitution? Has the time come for another Civil War to defend them both? I hope it does not come to that, but it may unless we take other steps very soon.

How long can a nation of low (no?) information nuts and fruitcakes survive? Are they our future? Is that what we want?