Posted on 09/01/2013 9:08:39 AM PDT by Kaslin
During the late 1960s, I escaped from the socialist dictatorship of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt. Back then, everything I had read about freedom in America was almost too good to be true. So when I finally made it to the U.S., I considered myself one of the most blessed people in the world.
But now fast forward to 2013. Today, I am in mourning over the events that are eroding our freedom of speech and religious liberties. Slowly but surely, they are becoming things of the past. And while they slip away, the mainstream media parrots the official government line instead of advocating for those freedoms. They have become the water carriers for the ruling class.
I often wonder if majority rule even works in America anymore.
Take the case of California Proposition 8 where the majority voted against same-sex marriage, and yet a handful of unelected judges overturned the will of the people.
More recently, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled on August 22 that a commercial photographer violated New Mexico’s anti-discrimination law when she refused to take pictures of a gay couple’s commitment ceremony.
Was it not enough that the photographer had lost money because of her personal religious conviction? Was it not enough that her business suffered because of that conviction? No. New Mexico’s highest court had to make her suffer further with a possible fine and imprisonment.
And for what cost? Her religious conviction has been smashed like cheap glass. The power of the elite has no room today for individual freedoms.
And don’t even get me started on military chaplains who would risk fines or their jobs if they dared to uphold biblical truth or express the very essence of their Christian faith.
When the powerful compel people to do things against their conviction, then the America of the founding fathers—the American that I read about while a boy in Egypt—has evaporated into a fog of elitism and political correctness.
A Rasmussen poll indicated that 85 percent of Americans support the right of the New Mexico photographer to stand by her convictions. But do people’s opinions matter in this age of ruling by executive orders and decrees from the bench? No, because for the most part, the people are asleep and will not stand up for themselves beyond voicing an opinion.
Liberties are rarely snatched away overnight. They are often taken slowly—step by step, item by item, one degree of separation at a time.
And then, when sleepy nations eventually wake up, they discover that all their cherished freedoms have gone down the drain. They find themselves to be like sheep led to the slaughter. It is then that we will discover that the greatest experiment in human freedom since the Garden of Eden has been lost for good.
I grieve when I think about the many men and women who sacrificed life and limb to give us the singular privilege of freedom—a privilege that this MTV generation is recklessly squandering.
How and when shall the sleeping giant wake? Lord, may it be soon.
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.
We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream.
It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same,
or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children
and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."
President Ronald Reagan
Yes, because who’d go to jail over it?
this is a trick question, right ? !AAAAAAmen...
Bump
States’ rights (the lost cause) will rise again.
I don't think it will be any time soon, unfortunately. Look how long it took for communism to fall in the Soviet Union.
There are ways to pry the ruling elite from the seats of power, and that’s a good way to begin to fight back. Term limits. NOW.
‘Liberties are rarely snatched away overnight. They are often taken slowly—step by step, item by item, one degree of separation at a time’
“We cannot expect Americans to jump from capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving Americans small doses of socialism until they suddenly awake to find they have Communism.”
-Soviet Leader Nikita Khrushchev, 1959
The second quote is supposedly bogus, but it does ring true, doesn’t it? Many Americans do not value our Military. They are only ones who stand between us and destruction by our enemies. I suspect that the Bamster MAY have support from 5-10% of our fine Military. I hope he hasn’t been able to create his ‘Civilian Security Force equal to the Military in funding’ yet. The loss of Freedom IS just one generation away. Sadly, I fear this is the generation that will prove that point.
Our liberties in the United States officially died 09-11-2001.
The turnaround for liberty better happen soon. The communists are purging thousands of Christians from the US military every year...at some point the communists will so dominate the officer corps that rounding up and shooting any citizens that dare protest the status quo will be standard procedure.
Freedom as meant in the constitution and enjoyed by Americans for 200 years is a thing of the past in America.
Until our arrogant, unconstitutional government collapses or an EMP event fries all of the government snooper computers, we will be living in a much more pervasive, overbearing, tyrannical totalitarian Nanny State than even the one envisioned in Orwell’s “1984”.
No matter which party wins the White House in 2016, nothing will change.
Obama has shown politicians that the concept of a constitutional republic works on the honor system.
That a constitution and laws are meaningless without honorable people at the head of our government.
When we have dishonoral men such as Obama in power the people have no peaceful recourse.
He has led the way in showing politicians that when they have the power of federal office they can do whatever they want without repurcussion because they control the money, the military, the Justice department and the Supreme Court.
He is now chipping away at 2nd amendment rights - the final vestige of constitutional ppwer still in the hands of citizens.
When Obama and the federal government finally take our guns and our legal right to own them the real oppression will begin.
It's one thing to do that in a disarmed country. It's another kettle of fish to do that in a heavily armed country.
/johnny
I think the date of the death of liberty was April 17, 1861.
Depends on who you are, if you are a law abiding citizen, your liberty is severely restricted, if you are an illegal alien or a criminal, you enjoy a great deal of liberty, although they may experience some initial restriction, they will in short order, be free to carry on in any manner they desire.
I don’t believe that’s the case in the slightest. We’ve seen it chipped away over many decades. The Patriot Act, which I presume is what you are talking about, did not and does not allow the surveillance we are experiencing now. I think our liberties may be dying right now as their seems to be no massive outrage once the facts came out. We’ll see in future elections, but I don’t see a groundswell or major shift happening. I bet if the last election was replayed, we’d see pretty much the same results today.
Yet without it we're all in a de facto jail.
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