Posted on 06/27/2009 7:41:27 AM PDT by quesney
While reading the following news story:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/motoringAutoNews/idUKTRE5406CF20090501
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I was reminded two very important quotes from John Adams about the American Revolution:
* As to the history of the revolution, my ideas may be peculiar, perhaps singular. What do we mean by the Revolution? The war? That was no part of the revolution; it was only an effect and consequence of it. The revolution was in the minds of the people, and this was effected from 1760 - 1775, in the course of fifteen years, before a drop of blood was shed at Lexington. o Letter to Thomas Jefferson (1815-08-24), The Works of John Adams
What do we mean by the American Revolution? Do we mean the American war? The Revolution was effected before the war commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments, of their duties and obligations... This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution. * Letter to H. Niles (1818-02-13)
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In other words, years before the American Revolution, there had been a revolution in people's minds about the way things were and the way things should be.
Forget the disputes over just how real are Obama's high poll numbers. This is beyond Obama, or even his current followers.
Whether we realize it or not, the US went through another mental revolution of thought over the past few decades -- maybe beginning as far back as the anti-war protests of the 1960s, maybe to Roosevelt's New Deal, maybe to Lincoln forcing a more centralized Union...whatever.
This revolution of thought has slowly eroded the entire mental foundation of the country's founding principles.
The U.S., as it was and as many of us here still think of it, is already gone. Dead. A number of us have not fully caught up to this emerging reality.
Obama, and Bush before him, are only making that obvious. Steele, Arlen Spectre, the feckless GOP, all the rest -- it's all part of bigger picture already drawn and entrenched, maybe even before many of us were born.
Many of us are holding onto a mental artifact that is gone or never existed in the minds of our "fellow Americans." That remains true no matter what happens to Obama, long after he's gone.
Does that mean we give up? No. But that if you're making a personal decision not to give up, you have to start thinking more seriously about follow-up to those Tea Parties and perhaps to secession.
The U.S. is, beyond everything else, an idea. When our "fellow Americans" no longer share the basic elements of that idea -- of even basic standards of mutual respect, logic, reason, civil discourse, respect for others as equals -- our "fellow Americans" are no longer our "fellow Americans."
Plan accordingly.
That’s what we should ALL be doing at this point.
Galt now, Bowman later.
Yup, It’s about time we had a real leader rise up. I will follow. I am starting to see the remainder of my life better spent in civil war or revolution than in the promise of what is to come if there is no resistance. If there is real civil war or revolution, we must always know we will will. Even if we do not, It still will have been worth it.Look at how many people’s lives were wasted in misery in Stalin’s Russia. For many, dying was a pleasant release from the lives they were forced to live.
Yes, I agree but I think the freepers and not cowards but are discussing what to do against a corrupt Chicago/African machine. We are mad, and if it explodes, the vast majority of Americans will clean out Washington.
“Liberty is not dead until that last man who yearns to be free is.”
- well said.
Agreed. The left is gutless, and wouldn't fight to preserve the Union. Why would they? They don't believe in the core values of the US and have spent two generations denigrating the men and women who have fought to preserve it. They believe the entire history of the US is one of racial and economic crimes.
But there is one other factor. At the time of the Civil War, many Unionists, inspired by a deep and abiding Christian faith, were willing to fight and die to prevent the expansion of slavery.
No such issue animates the left today. There is no issue they would be willing to die over. In fact, many leftists today would welcome the secession of "red states." Then they could live, so they imagine, in a world of perpetual "dialogue" with the "international community" abroad, and a cradle to grave overweening nanny state committed to "social justice" and "diversity" at home.
Something is very wrong...and perhaps a huge turn around has been made regarding our foundations...and I am with those who believe that the foundations of this nation, our Constitution and our Bill of Rights, are worth fighting for...no matter where we are.
Thirty plus Tennesseans volunteered, fought and died at the Alamo.
My father & husband enlisted (WWII & Viet Nam)....because they love their country.....
..they came home....many didn't.
What did they fight for if we give up?
...I am sick and tired of being sick and tired!
I join you Cripplecreek!
I am middle-aged and grew up in the fities and sixties,having been born just after WW2 ended.
I grew up in NYC,which was a bustling place where lots of things were made and the place had a solidity that was reassuring.
I will never forget the maps we got in school that showed where everything was manufactured.The USA of my early years was a muscular giant faced off against the forces of communism,and the beacon of freedom for the world.
The sixties brought out the slime that dominates in academia and congress nowadays.The industrial base of our country was dissipated and we are now all these years later on the downward slide to the cesspool of internationalism and third world values.
This president seems to have the degradation of America’s image as his mission.The ground was well-prepared by the leftist crap professors that schooled him.He is the symptom of a decades-long decline.
I am glad I will not be alive to see the denouement of this trend.
The people who made this country great are being betrayed in their graves by a misshapen amphibian like Henry Waxman and a scumbag witch like Nancy Pelosi.I wish the very worst on them.Their souls stink like an old,rotten cheese.
I don’t buy that it is too late. The old cliche “It’s always darkest before the dawn” applies here IMO. It will get darker yet for awhile but the dawn will appear.
Why do I believe this? Because I have three sons between the ages of 18 and 25. I know their friends. One voted for McCain and is at least somewhat interested in politics. Another liked and voted for 0bama because of the “historic” and “cool” aura surrounding zer0 during the campaign (he’s an artist type.) He is now suffering severe buyer’s remorse. My other son is involved not at all in politics and forgot to vote.
So, I have raised my kids to have common sense but to respect their own freedom of choice. All three of them, as different as they are, will not stand in the long term for having their freedoms taken away and will, ultimately, stand up for their own rights. Their friends are the same way.
Combine this with the fact that most of the people are just now waking up to the debacle that is 0bama and the far left in this country and before 2012 the tide will turn.
I do not buy that zer0’s agenda is irreversible. I just don’t. If that were true then Carter’s cr@p would still be the predominant direction of the country. zer0 wouldn’t have to be overcoming the Reagan Revolution (with the unfortunate help of Clinton and GWB) right now.
So, there is ample reason to worry, plenty of incentive to stand up and be counted but not a single reason to panic. I trust the vast majority of the American people, as slow to action as they are, to prevail and that the 15-20% of hard leftists who have sway right now will be defeated by their own failing agenda. Theirs is a world view that is not sustainable and most people - enough to take them out of power - will ultimately vote for freedom over subservience.
Honestly I appreciate why some may have the despair seen in this open letter. I think I already know all the arguments in favor of this despair. But even if I agree that many of them are true I still don’t buy the final conclusion that it is too late.
I have faith in America and the Constitution even though they are both under severe attack. They will prevail IMO.
But not without a serious fight.
No way Joe... the left does INDEED have an issue they’d be willing to kill for, if not die - not letting YOU live as a free man.
It is, again, about slavery. Then intend for us to be enslaved. We’ll be fighting for our own freedom.
No, no rank and file leftist will pick up a gun over it, because they expect the government to do EVERYTHING for them. But they will indeed urge and agitate for the gov’t to “put down” those who dare try to escape their thumb.
As long as people will vote for politicians based on what money they are promised from the national treasury, then we’re on the fast track to ruin.
We as taxpayers get to fund the corruption. That is our only role and value as far as the gang of thugs in Washington is concerned.
As I see it, we are now in a state of anarchy, for the government has trashed the Constitution, the linchpin of our rule of law. Pretty soon it'll be "every man for himself."
Unless the people can restore the public order, one way or another....
It’s important for all to realize that during the American Revolution, ONLY 33% of Colonists FAVORED independence from England...33% supported the status quo....and 33% couldn’t give a damn either way.
What realistically would the military do? Would they obey The One since he is the president? Or would they arrive in front of the people only to turn around with their weapons and show that they are on the people's side?
The REAL cowards are on the other side. No mistake about it, there are some here on FR,and everywhere else that talk the talk, but won’t do the walk. But the real cowards are on the other side. They are pushing the real Americans into a corner, but when the SHTF for real, I already know who will run and hide!
When leaders start treating the people as the enemy, the people become the enemy.
One of my favorite parts:
“At this moment, it seems likely leviathan will continue to lumber along, picking up ballast and momentum, crushing everything in its path. Some things are apparent. Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates, and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. The result is: families under siege; war in the streets; unapologetic expropriation of property; the precipitous decline of the rule of law; the rapid rise of corruption; the loss of civility and the triumph of deceit. The result is a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible.”
Thanks! Love that title.
The opening paragraphs of the Declaration still send shivers down my spine. “... mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” The vast majority of Americans are certainly more “disposed to suffer evils” because, due to public schools, they don’t even know they are suffering evils. They say a fish is unaware of the water in which it swims, as most Americans are unaware of the socialism in which they live.
I know what you mean and how you feel.
Disgusted and frustrated and somewhat bewildered that anyone living in this wondrous nation would EVER betray it and its foundations the way the liberals have done.
I think we are all about fed up to our eyeballs.
OPEN LETTER TO UHBAMA AND ANY OF HIS FELLOW DIRTBAGS WHO MAY MONITOR Free Republic:
You cannot destroy the foundations of this nation without a fight! America is a force for good on this Earth and you will not DESTROY her heart and soul. We WILL STAND IN THE GAP. Pay VERY CLOSE ATTENTION TO THE TEA PARTIES...THIS IS US, BEING NICE.
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