Posted on 12/25/2002 9:43:34 PM PST by fire_eye
I can get pretty negative, but I have confidence that there are many more Americans such as myself that won't sit idly by while the decay of American society tries to perpetuate itself.
I only have to look at the many comments and opinions right here on Freep Republic, to motivate me and keep my spirits up.
We seem to not only be under attack from outside our great nation, but from simple minded socialists that don't have the common sense to know from the start, that the American way is the best way.
Political Correctness is not something to take lightly. It is something to fight openly and often. We need to make that a way of life for ourselves, before we can no longer walk the streets, because of our beliefs. I for one, don't play the game. I am me and if folks don't like me, that's their problem not mine.
I accept all others by the same standard.
Go America!
I don't share the same optimism as you. People pay over half their income in taxes (income, gas, sales, cigarettes). Today there is an article on FR about governors whining to raise taxes yet again. Abortion is legal in every state. You have to get permission from your government to drive a car, add on to your house, pave your driveway, fish, hunt, get married, get un-married. When you have a child, you have to register it with the government. If you don't have a government identifier (social security number) you can't get a job. How many gun laws are on the books in your state?
There is no mass uprising or outrage over these infringements of civil rights, property rights and privacy. You can barely get people to organized rallies. That being said, I hope you are right and I am wrong!
I'm also not so optimistic. There is an excellent passage in the book "They Thought They Were Free" wherein the speaker tells of seeing right before his eyes and yet unawares (until the tragic moment when it is too late) the corruption and destruction of his society.
(It happened within living memory. Can you guess where?)
"THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE FREE: THE GERMANS, 1933-45"
by Milton Mayer
The University of Chicago Press
From the chapter, "But then it was too late" pages 169 to 172, 1966 edition.
"You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn't see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even talk, alone; you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' Why not?---well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty."
"Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, 'everyone' is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, 'It's not so bad' or 'You're seeing things' or 'You're an alarmist.' "And you ARE an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can't prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don't know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh- pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have."
"But your friends are fewer now. Some have drifted off somewhere or submerged themselves in their work. You no longer see as many as you did at meetings or gatherings. Informal groups become smaller; attendance drops off in little organizations, and the organizations themselves wither. Now, in small gatherings of your oldest friends, you feel that you are talking to yourselves, that you are isolated from the reality of things. This weakens your confidence still further and serves as a further deterrent to---to what? It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything, you must make an occasion to do it, and then you are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and you wait."
"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the difficulty. If the last and worse act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked---if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in '43 had come immediately after the 'German Firm' stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in '33. But of course this isn't the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D." "And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying 'Jew swine,' collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in---your nation, your people--- is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibilty even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way."
"You have gone almost all the way yourself. Life is a continuing process, a flow, not a succesion of acts and events at all. It has flowed to a new level, carrying you with it, without any effort on your part. On this new level you live, you have been living more comfortably everyday, with new morals, new principles. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father, even in Germany could not have imagined."
"Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven't done, (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing). You remember those early meetings of your department in the University when, if one had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood. A small matter, a matter of hiring this man or that, and you hired this one rather than that. You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair."
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage." -- Alexander Tytler on the fall of the Athenian republic
If Jefferson or Tytler were alive now, they might well consider that they were right. Our standards have changed quite a bit since their day. We measure ourselves against 20th century totalitarianism, and by that standard we've done very well. Jefferson, not knowing as well as we do what evils were possible and comparing us to his ideal standard probably would be disillusioned by us.
Also, we've created a world in which democracy seems to be the only sane and respectable alternative. If the conditions and attitudes of the 1930s had lasted longer, things would have been very different. Rome lasted how many centuries? Get back in touch with me in 200 or 300 years and we'll see if Jefferson and Tytler were right or not.
Who is your doctor? I want him. Frankly, I consider the current mix as highly excellent. Capitalism could not survivie without a measured social safety net, and the agraian regime was obviously destined for the dust heap of history. We waste so much time with matters that are totally irrelevant.
Let me know when a republic becoming a democracy is irrelevant. Or is that time now?
A great many people glorify the yeoman farmer. There seem, however, to be surprisingly few of these same people who would willingly immerse themselves in this way of life.
Instead of looking back to past glories, perhaps we could find ways to promote the growth of freedon in a technological society.
How is the fishing?
They don't stand a chance. Thanks for asking.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and yours.
and I listened to so much of this demagoguery that now,
with my democratic views, I can... no longer---stand it,''
On the other, your colleagues suggest you are bigoted, or even racist.
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