July 4th.... What Guarantees Our Freedom?
I've heard is said that if you want a preacher who can really help you, one who can reach you at a level that will engage you enough to change for the better, find a preacher who's done some sinning.
The same goes for freedom. To really value freedom you must have experienced the loss of freedom, or the horrors of war trying to liberate those with no freedom. Or really listened to and learned from those who have experienced these things.
You can't sugar-coat life; it ranges the gamut from beautiful and amazing to disgustingly ugly and brutal. Most of the time, for most people, it's somewhere in the middle. The political correctness in this country forces us to stay in the middle. You can't speak the truth if it's less than pretty. The truth needs to be heard, even if it's ugly. The truth will set you free. Unfortunately there's a large contingent of entitlement minded people who do not want the truth, who do not want freedom, even though they think they do, they have no concept of what freedom is, they just want to be taken care of because, well... just because they feel they're entitled. Give them the truth and they'll scream and cry and protest that you're violating their rights or being racist. The truth can be beautiful or cold, hard, and ugly... but the truth is just that, the truth. Like it or not, eventually it will catch up to us all.
A lot of people in this country today take freedom for granted. They think it's guaranteed by law, by our military, by a piece of old paper held behind bullet-proof glass, or by our elected officials. It's not.
What does guarantee our freedom? We do - you and me, the citizens of this country. Nothing more. Our votes guarantee our freedom... our votes for elected officials who will preserve (at this point restore) our freedoms and guard our rights.
That's why the founders of this country structured it the way they did. That's why they were strong believers in the right for citizens to arm themselves.
It's also why the founders of this country valued freedom of religion and separation of Church and state. It was not intended to stop me from worshiping or displaying symbols of Christianity, but rather to stop the government from controlling or creating an organized, state-sanctioned Church that could be used to control and manipulate the governed. Today we should have a separation of media and state... because before the media, the Church could be used to perform manipulation.
We have less freedom today than we've ever had... however, if you were to conduct a poll on the streets of an average city, most people would not realize it. They're more concerned with political correctness and their self-interests than with the truth. This same majority of people do not realize that our over-sized government, outrageously high taxes, and business-limiting laws and regulations are clipping the wings of this country, crippling the very thing they take for granted and, in most cases, unknowingly rely upon.
I'm deeply afraid for this country. However there are beacons of hope. But like an alcoholic, I'm afraid that we will probably hit rock-bottom before, as a country, we start to change. Before we shed the entitlement and special-interest you-owe-me-something attitudes, before ignorance is recognized for what it is instead of being worshiped and praised (and elected). The question is: how close are we to rock-bottom now?
This July 4th will hopefully signal a turning point in the coming November elections of 2012... I hope and pray.
Read this post One Vote Matters that I wrote in 2008 specifically the section titled Have We Forgotten, it's something written by my maternal grandfather Clyde W. Kirkman (1915 - 1989) more than 30 years ago. He served in WWII. He was with the Army's 69th Infantry, 271st Division, Company C. He was in the Battle of the Bulge, the Battle of Leipzig, the Capture of the Monument of Nations at Leipzig, to name a few. It's a fitting read for Independence Day and the current state of our nation.
Happy 4th of July! Go to a parade or fireworks show! Spend it with family.
Until next time,
Fred
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Posted by Fred (aka Recoil) on July 2, 2011
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