No one wants to keep beating the same old drum. Still, to remain silent is the worst of any choices we have.
Today, it’s more urgent than ever to get our leadership in check. We’re not being assertive enough, visible enough or vocal enough but that’s not exclusively our fault as a population. The American people, right now, are being purposely misled. Of course, with the proven effectiveness of “divide and conquer,” that is the goal of some American leaders, or those who have stolen the leadership of this great nation for their own personal advantage. “We the people,” supposed to be those who rule, are being overruled instead. A democracy has no room for aristocrats, yet, somehow, “we the people” are in the midst of just such an invasion from within.
A column I read this morning talked about something that has been bothering me for a while. American leadership cannot limit any rights for some, while giving them to or enhancing them for, others. We must also keep in mind that we can’t limit any rights only to specific people. Every time one person loses a right, tens of millions lose that right. It may not be as important to some as it is to others, but when anyone is victimized, everyone is a potential victim, every right grows ripe for the chopping block.
Freedom – America is famous for the promise of it. That promise has never been delivered equally … ever. Still, it remains the paramount goal almost all of us seek for everyone. Most people are, at least, familiar with some of the language delivered to King George in our Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness … 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 Governments …”
It is our right to abolish unfair practices by our government. Are we there yet? This past week pretty much proves we are, but what does that mean? Another civil war? For a long time, most of us have been being systematically herded into a sub-class of people. Our leadership, who are supposedly working as per our instructions and to our benefit, have been long legislating themselves into an aristocracy. To add insult to persecution, whenever convenient for them and their major supporters, they heartily tout and quote the same literature that guarantees the very rights they deny to us. This past week, they have verbally acknowledged that along with rights already eradicated, they will revisit the legality of rights long endorsed – for all – by the writings they so often use to their advantage. They will also be endangering other established laws that will rattle women’s rights, civil rights and gay rights.
For anyone who hasn’t noticed, this is supposedly the land of the free. Those words are the ones we salute the flag to; what do they mean? This legislative recklessness implies that only they whom the government sees fit to bestow equality and freedom on shall have it, but none of us is free until all of us are free.
No one can defend this nation without defending the words of Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These powerful documents, written far ahead of their time, still “hold these truths” – not trickery, not wishes, ideals, or hopes, but truths, “to be self evident,” not to be conditionally true or a necessary illusion for unfair legislation, but “self-evident” that “all men are created equal” – not white men, rich men, powerful men but all mankind.
No one can wave our flag for the rights of one citizen while eradicating those same rights for another. Only hypocrisy can legislate to protect life while legislating to make it easier to take it at the end of a barrel. Only hypocrisy can refuse freedom from the same crime for one half of the people involved, some being victims themselves.
America is better than this, yet, we allow corruption to unravel the very foundation of our nation, and erode our voting ability to stop them to boot.
Khrushchev was right; we will bury ourselves; it’s happening now.
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