Immediately after the election of 2008, many of my conservative friends were chanting something along the lines of, ‘We need to start focusing on 2012. We need to look toward Sarah [or fill in the candidate of your choice].’
I simply had to turn around and walk away, not wanting to trample on the pipe dreams of well-meaning people.
Working within the system is no longer possible. The system – at least as it was envisioned and painstakingly formulated by our Founders – no longer exists. Thanks to the power of the mainstream media, the entertainment industry, what passes for public and higher ‘education’, the fact that most parents have abandoned the molding of their children’s minds to the aforementioned three cancers, and a rampant ignorance and apathy among a populace of bread-and-circus aficionados, the system has been hi-jacked and transformed into a behemoth that, upon sight, would have caused our Founders to draw their swords and ready their muskets.
We prefer not to dirty our hands. Might ruin our forty-dollar manicure.
Reverence for our Founders’ vision, and the magnificent blueprint for governance that they formulated in our behalf, has been tossed aside for the better part of the twentieth century: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson, especially, ignored its cautions with impunity, and placed their own political agendas above its brilliant dictates, resulting in a gradual erosion of our Founders’ vision. But who would have thought that all of that erosion would pale in comparison with the six months that ushered in America 2009?
Most Americans have forgotten their heroic origins and have declared that divine guidance is dispensable. The have allowed a cadre of elitist scoundrels in Washington to muddy, beyond recognition – and perhaps beyond redemption -- the phrase 'of, by, and for the people', and they have vicariously written its epitaph by virtue of their eyes-diverted apathy and indifference to her brutal murder.
The majority of our countrymen no longer value:
More than two thousand years ago, Plato observed that ‘The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.’
Mankind has been struggling for more than two millenia to comprehend and retain Plato's admonition. If Americans ever successfully heeded his warnings, we have since decided that such wisdom is sadly passé. In carelessly relaxing our grip on those citizen-characteristics essential to preserving and defending a free society, the last best hope of man on earth has sentenced its children to a thousand years of darkness. [italics included in warnings by Ronald Reagan regarding a relaxing of vigilance]
The most difficult aspect to swallow of this entire travesty is the fact that the average American now has nowhere to turn. Our representatives no longer represent us. Our laws/justice system are now completely situational (depending upon who benefits from their application, or lack thereof). So where does the American citizen now turn for a hearing of grievances, or a hope of receiving justice when a crime of any sort has been committed against him? The answer? Unless he has connections, he no longer has an avenue of redress. The large majority if the crimes that will be committed against him in the future will be perpetrated by his own government -- and those crimes will continue to grow in frequency and intensity.
Over the past five months I have walked away from several many-year friendships. I can no longer fellowship with, or enjoy the company of, people who, primarily through their apathy and unconcern, are contributing to the downfall of our beloved republic and placing my children’s and grandchildren’s lives and liberties in jeopardy.
I have also abandoned a decades-long belief in political, within-the-system activism in favor of outside-of-the-system activism, in addition to preparing my family for the dark days ahead and simply seeking, when circumstances allow, to attempt to educate people regarding the genuine definition and source of our liberties. Asking them to search their hearts and decide whether those liberties are being stolen from them, and then urging them to discern whether and how they can reclaim them.
My husband and I attended a simulcast presentation of Glenn Beck’s Common Sense Comedy Tour about ten days ago. The theater was sold-out, and yet the audience responses to Beck’s call-to-arms was lukewarm, at best. I hope it was otherwise in other locations.
Beck is indeed a burgeoning modern-day Thomas Paine. Not so sure he’ll retain Paine’s passion, receive Paine’s notoriety, or achieve Paine’s timeless presence, but I have high hopes for him. He hasn’t given up on (what used to be) America. Neither can the rest of us. We simply have to have the presence of mind to alter our strategies. Don’t envision changing the complexion of our ‘leadership’ four, eight or twelve years down the road as a ‘solution’. Look beyond the ballot box to the winning of hearts and minds in spite of our ‘leadership’. In America 2009, our ‘leadership’ is our greatest enemy.
God bless you, Noumenon. You are a man of courage and conviction, and a modern day patriot of whom our Founders would be proud.
~ joanie
And may God keep you and yours, Joanie. I know what that distant thunder is...
Thank you for the ping, Joanie, and thank you all for your comments. Indeed a flash-back to some of the most factual and historically-accurate FReepers still here. Seems we’ve lost quite a few of the “Old Guard” since Neil posted his thread.
Stay safe, stay strong, stay ACTIVE! http://accdf.com
Like you and some of our loyal patriotic American friends, I too no longer believe what is needed is possible to achieve within our fatally damaged system, afflicted as it is by the "three cancers" you have cited. More direct means will be necessary.
As you so eloquently point out, most of the present grotesque mess is our own fault. But that doesn't mean we can't clean it up.
I have now posted noumenon's entire speech that he will give on July 4th on my site.
Dear Joanie, we need to understand the reasons why the audience appeared "lukewarm."
My sense is this wasn't a case of they just didn't get it or were indifferent to the message. On the contrary, I think they may have gotten the message very well indeed — and it scared the sh*t out of them (pardon my French).
It boils down to Thomas Jefferson's profound insight: When the people fear the government, there is Tyranny. When the government fears the people, there is Liberty.
Let's face it: We the People now fear the government. The single most effective way to end this seemingly endless usurpation of the sovereign liberties of the People by the Obama administration (in apparent concert with the Pelosi Congress and Reid Senate, not even to mention the Supreme Court) would be to simply "starve the beast."
However, the People know the beast lusts to impose draconian punishment on anyone who refuses to render sacrifices unto its unholy alter. So to speak. So the People fear, and they despair over their own seeming powerlessness to correct the corruption and abuse that is killing the American future. No wonder Beck's audience was subdued....
May God ever bless Glenn Beck! He is our modern-day Thomas Paine — and the rest of the Sons of Liberty rolled into the bargain. In contrast, Bill O'Reilly lately seems never to have even heard of the U.S. Constitution before, not in his entire life. His idea of "fair and balanced" seems to be: Stand on both sides of every issue.
Maybe "blame" Glenn Beck for this? Since joining Fox News, it seems he has pushed O'Reilly massively to the Left. To put it mildly, I have fallen away from O'Reilly's show in recent times....
Beck is where the real action is anyway. His shows are amazingly informative, and there's some little piece about the Constitution every day. It's an education for "the clueless." And a confirmation for those "clued-in" on the Constitution and how it's supposed to operate.
Anyhoot, dear sister in Christ, please do not despair. God is still in charge. Truth and justice are not dead. And He will not forsake His beloved.
And so we have good reason to hope.
Or so it seems to me.
Thank you ever so much, dear joanie-f, for your beautiful, poignant, and deeply moving essay/post! May God's blessings be with you and your loved ones.
What is the rest that they forget?
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.