Many Americans and organizations fight for so called "inconsequential" minor points of liberty because collectively, over time, small incremental losses of liberty equal a precipice of fallen and lost freedom.
Hitler did not set out a single dictum to enslave the German people into a mindless mob mentality. That would never have worked. He did it incrementally, bit by bit, requiring the people to rationalize that yes, this is not so good, but, it is only temporary or, just a small infringement for a greater cause.
Freedom lovers take that lesson of history in with every breath throughout their lives. Liberty is more easily lost in inconsequential baby steps, than by a massive revocation of freedoms. The former has the consent of those losing their freedoms, the latter has to fight intense resistance. Beware those asking for small sacrifices of liberty! A little here, a little there, enslaves us all eventually.
All Americans should be asking themselves: How many small sacrifices of liberty and freedom in our war against terror can we accept? When is one more too much? When is one more too late? When does one more send us vaulting down a slippery slope we can never climb up again?
I urge you all, my friends and family, to register and vote this November. Vote for liberty in whichever candidate you believe promises most to protect it. The stakes could not be higher, nor the cause more important to America's future.
d.a.n said at :
10:42 PM, 05 17 2006 | Permalink
We are dying a death of a thousand cuts.
Our list of problems are growing in number and severity.
What we're doing ain't workin' !
Re-electing the very same irresponsible incumbents over and over ain't workin' !
It's time to do what we were supposed to be doing all along.
Vote out irresponsible incumbents, always.
Not just every once in a while, but every election.
How can we complain about the government we have, if we continue to re-elect and empower the very same irresponsible incumbents that use and abuse us ?
d.a.n | May 17, 2006 10:42 PM
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Stephanie Crist said at :
3:56 AM, 05 19 2006 | Permalink
I am reading a book entitled "Democracy in America" by Alexis de Tocqueville. Tocqueville explored the United States of America in 1831 a wrote this essay about what he discovered democracy to be like on our shores in that time. It absolutely amazes me how much difference there is between then and now--we've already lost so much that our Founding Fathers held dear. We've already lost so much that made our nation an ideal in a world of corruption.
How much more can we stand to lose? How can we find our way back to an ideal that most Americans cannot even imagine? Those difficult questions are ones we must answer before America ceases to even pretend to be the land of the free...
Is it already too late? I don't think so, but I believe it is close.
Stephanie Crist | May 19, 2006 3:56 AM
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David R. Remer said at :
6:40 PM, 05 19 2006 | Permalink
Stephanie, I share your concerns 100%. I know in my soul that if we don't salvage our educational system and restore it the intensive science and liberal arts orientation it was in the 1950's and 1960's, our country is in real trouble. A people who grow up and enter the work force without a thorough understanding of their nation's history cannot sustain a democratic form of government, for they, of necessity out of ignorance, must rely on authority to tell them what to know, and what to think. And too great a dependence on authority is the antithesis of democracy through informed consent.
David R. Remer | May 19, 2006 6:40 PM
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Stephanie Crist said at :
12:31 AM, 05 20 2006 | Permalink
Exactly! The worst thing about it is how can our teachers concentrate on science and liberal arts, when so many of our children don't even know how to read at their (unadjusted) grade level, or how to do the simple math to balance a check book...let alone figure out the interest a check into cash place intends to charge them. The ignorance of our youth is going to bleed our country dry if we do not do something to stop it soon; and a few families scattered across the nation teaching their children better isn't going to be enough, though it helps.
Stephanie Crist | May 20, 2006 12:31 AM
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