No, this isn’t an open letter to the president but it could be. Some of you may recognize those words; they are the start of one of the most famous speeches in American history. One sentence from the original paragraph is missing. I’ll get into that later.
The US is in the grips of a struggle; it’s an old struggle between a powerful ruling political class, and the people they rule. Because of the relative small number of people in the ruling political class, to maintain their power they have but too choices fear or provision (that’s usually provision with distraction). The Caesars knew this, fear of the Roman legion to control business and lower leaders, and the bread and circuses to control the mob that was the Roman people. Today the ruling class in the USA uses the same two methods. Three little letters will strike fear into the heart of the bravest businessman or wage earner. . . IRS. TV and the entire entertainment industry with “predominantly” progressive control of the news media provide today’s circuses.
President Obama came into power offering “Hope and Change.” The reality is he is offering the same Marxist solutions to problems that both Lenin and Mao offered and dictated to the people of Russia and China in the early 20th century. Eventually Lenin’s Russia determined where you could work, where you could live, and most details of Russian life, to accomplish this he also killed tens of millions of his own people. This is not a “the commies are coming” attack on Obama. Obama and the leftists in the USA cannot and will not be able to institute a Marxist state in the USA as Lenin did in Russia; mostly because the USA was originally made of people of a different mindset, and because the immigrants who augmented our population over time came here because of and shared that mindset, and the majority of Americans don’t have a liberal mindset.
This mindset is what makes the USA almost ungovernable. The mindset is a rebellious pursuit of self determination. Despite a distinctly leftwing and socialist point of view from the vast majority of our media 2:1 Americans think of themselves as conservative. Point of fact most Americans who call themselves conservatives are in fact libertarian. Most Americans have conservative values, but respect the rights of others to have different beliefs. As noted in the Declaration of independence “accordingly all experience hath shown 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.” This is the mindset of the people of this country. I believe that Obama is pushing what is beyond what most Americans are more disposed to suffer.
Never since the revolutionary war, have so many average people, who if at all possible simply suffer with the government hoping to be left alone to pursue their own lives, risen up to make their voice heard. The TEA party is not like any other protest the USA has seen. The people want the same thing our forefathers wanted – Liberty.
Now to the missing sentence from the first paragraph “We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth - and listen to the song of that siren, till she transforms us into beasts? Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty. The American people are not dumb, there are more millionaires in our country than anyplace else, it is the most generous country in the world, and if left alone will suffer a lot, but it has reached its limit on what it will tolerate from the political class. It doesn’t matter what party you are from, if you campaign for bigger more powerful government you are generally losing the election. The only places this isn’t happening are where a majority of the population is dependent upon the government for its livelihood. Americans are voting with their feet moving to where there is less government, Michigan continues to lose population; NY for the first time is showing a decrease in the average income of its population and is losing two congressional seats (to no-income tax Florida); California businesses continue to migrate to Texas and other states. The American people demand and expect Liberty.
When designing our system, our forefathers designed a system that empowered a vigorous government without endangering liberty or true republicanism. This system had five important features: checks and balances so that the branches would police one another; a large republic so that majority sentiment was fleeting and not intensely felt; a Senate where the states would be equal; enumerated congressional powers to limit the scope of governmental authority; and the Bill of Rights to offer extra protection against the government. The end result was a government that is powerful, but not infinitely so. This system sometimes appears ungovernable when there is gridlock, but it does great things when it is of a single mind. To govern, our leaders need to build a broad consensus. When there is no such consensus, the most likely outcome is that the government will do nothing. The government doing nothing is most often the best response we could ever have.
There is a unique and often glorified criminal element in the USA. It is copied elsewhere but doesn’t have the heart it does in America – Motorcycle Gangs. Tattoos are symbolic of their lifestyle, and adopted by many Americans who are not associated and have no desire to associate with the criminal activities. Four words turn up on more tattoos, colors, jackets, and symbology than any other. These words come derive from the conclusion of the speech which I stole my opening paragraph.
I started this with the opening paragraph of Patrick Henry’s famous March, 1775 speech which ended with the immortal American words, “Give me Liberty or Give me Death!” Obama and the political class in Washington are too far removed from most of America. America is wealthy, even our poor have an obesity problem. Because we have made ourselves wealthy, creating that wealth from the sweat of our backs, suffering the loss of our private property thru confiscatory taxation has been tolerable as the ruling elite have added so called safety nets for the old and poor. The government is now going past that, the political class are no longer satisfied with confiscating our private property, they have slowly but consistently been working to control every aspect of our lives. This has gone too far. ObamaCare which tells us what services we must purchase, and the tens of thousands of pages new regulations forced upon us every year are becoming insufferable. The ruling elite have forgotten that most of America does not value peace, comfort, health, or even life, so much that we would agree to servitude to have them. Most Americans want our government to protect our individual rights, insure equal justice for all, and to leave us alone so that we can pursue happiness as we each see fit. Our mindset is a rebellious pursuit of self determination. "Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" ~ Patrick Henery
To those who want the government to take care of you, and think the political class know what’s best for you and everybody else, I share these immortal words of Samuel Adams, “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."
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