I posted the response below on another thread, responding to someone said the country was beyond hope. Seems apropos to put it here as well.
“That’s not the first time I’ve heard that sentiment. I know it may look that way, but from my viewpoint, I’ll tell you this:
No, it isn’t.
It’s only “beyond hope” when everyone gives up.
Times and people change. Little things - sometimes, the most seemingly insignificant events - sway great movements of people.
If study of history proves anything, it’s that periods of time are a pendulum, and it will always swing to either extreme.
We’ve had it good for a long time; that “time of plenty” was bought and paid for by the lives and blood of people that lived, loved, and believed in America and in the American Ideal, and were willing to pay for it with the rest of their tomorrows.
Those “tomorrows” are today. Here. Now.
Every generation gets it’s chance to prove it is worthy of that cost; sometimes the chance is blatant, other times not so much and it passes unnoticed. And when it goes by unnoticed, the successive opportunity, or opportunities become even more critical - because those that want to TAKE from you always grow bolder; they are never satisfied, and they equate a lack of resistance with a lack of courage.
We’re in such a time now, and we’re being tested. We as a Nation and a People, have been there before. How we respond - Our generation - what we do, how we behave, whether we stand or buckle - determines more than just the outcome; it determines whether successive generations will live in peace, prosperity, and the American Dream that was left to us to protect, or not.
All you can do is know where you stand, what you’re willing to do - or not willing to do - and back it up if and when the time comes. That’s your part in this drama. That’s ALL of our part.
Find your line in the sand, define it, and be willing to stand on it. Or not. That’s the choice.
French resistance writer Jean Dutourd once wrote: “In the end, the choice is always between Verdun and Dachau.”
Seems to me, each of us need to determine which of those two choices we are willing to live with.
...It remains to be seen whether the struggle of our generation against the tyrants of our day in the first decade of the 21st Century will bring a restoration of liberty and the rule of law or a dark and bloody descent into chaos and slavery.If it is to be the former, I will meet you at the new Yorktown.
If it is to be the latter, I will meet you at Masada.
But I will not be a slave.